ARTIST SCHEDULED FOR SCHOOL RESIDENCY
Submitted Article
Traditional artist T.J. Casey will conduct workshops for local students as part of the South Dakota Arts Council’s Artists In Schools & Communities program. The artist will work with various grade levels during the week-long residency at the Madison Elementary School, October 19-23, 2009.
A cowboy who believes in the preservation of our western heritage and the Cowboy Culture, T.J. Casey brings the west alive with poetry and music. In 2002, his Trickling Water was published by International Water Education for Teachers (WET) Discover a Watershed Series. That year Casey was also included in the elite group of 140 cowboy poets honored through publication in the anthology The Big Roundup. Author of Whispers of Sage and A Cowboy’s Thoughts in Rhyme, Casey has centered his artist in residence work through arts councils in Montana, North and South Dakota, Nevada and Alaska along with Arts Northwest and Wyoming Arts Alliance. His latest musical release, the decidedly traditional CD Pure D Cowboy, rose to number six on the Western Music Charts, with the song Cowboy Don’t Change Your Ways topping out at number one and another song, It’s In My Blood nominated for a Native American Music Award. He has recorded another compact disc, Blue Montana.
Casey uses his art with western music to pass on to a younger generation the strong morals and values that he learned growing up on the land. Students are a vital link in preserving the western heritage, a lesson Casey strives to teach along with the fundamentals of cowboy poetry and a love of nature. His main objective is to utilize the natural talent and imagination of students and give them the confidence to believe in themselves while learning to express themselves through cowboy poetry.
This program is sponsored by The Madison Area Arts Council, with support provided by the South Dakota Arts Council with funds from the State of South Dakota, through the Department of Tourism and State Development, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
For more information, contact@madisonareaartscouncil.org
