By Frederick Philander
WINDHOEK
The tenth anniversary celebrations of the Rehoboth School of Arts last Thursday took place amid great interest from the local community and invited guests from afar.
The art school had been filling a creative vacuum in the rural community for the past 10 years and is literally bursting at its seams with too many formally disadvantaged art students.
“The Rehoboth School of Arts has over the past 10 years proven itself as very useful and a popular institution for the people by the people in this town.
Ever since its inception the number of creative learners has increased. I was reliably told that the school cannot cope with the public demand for enrolment and that you are seriously looking at expansion,” said stand-in guest speaker, Lucky Pieters, the new Head of the Extension Programme of the College of the Arts.
It is a known fact that internationally renowned Rehoboth-artist, Andrew van Wyk, single-handedly started the art school 10 years ago.
As long as I am head of the Extension Programme, the Rehoboth School of Arts shall enjoy my office’s support and that of the College of the Arts as a whole,” Pieters publicly declared.
According to him the Government shall uncompromisingly continue to support the creative training efforts of the rural art school, the only one of its kind in the country.
“Your school’s contributions are evident and cannot, nor will be ignored. It is a very important and strategic partner of the College of the Arts.
Furthermore, the school has over the years assisted the Government in its policy of decentralisation. Over the years the school has prepared prospective art students and artists from the formally disadvantaged communities to formally enter the College of the Arts, stage their plays and exhibited their visual art works – milestones you should be very proud of,” said Pieters.
At the same occasion visual art work by Andrew van Wyk was auctioned and sold for N$3???_?_’???_?’???_???