“SISTER CITY STUDY” – a piece put together by 24 kids from Eight different area schools – is a huge collaborative made in joyous horse designs’ junior art classes earlier this fall. The piece will go on display in the event center at the new lismore hotel in downtown eau claire.

With schools in Wisconsin repeatedly scaling back their arts curriculums, arts-inclined students need some sort of outlet for that creativity if they can’t find it in their classrooms.

That’s why Jo Burke of Joyous Horse Designs teaches elements of visual arts to local kids through classes in painting, art history, and more through her Joyous Horse Juniors program.

Burke said students are sometimes starved to use a creative outlet like painting, so she’s glad to provide that for them after school – but lately her classes have been taking it one step further by creating group projects to donate and benefit places like the Community Table and the Human Society. And their most recent community art project will thrust into the brand new Lismore Hotel in downtown Eau Claire.

“Kids are amazingly generous, really,” Burke told me. “I thought they might be possessive of their artwork, but they were much more altruistic about it. They were eager to give and be a part of their community.”

The enormous, four-foot-by-eight-foot artwork is called “Sister City Study” – a reference to Eau Claire’s Australian sister city, Lismore (the namesake for the newly opened hotel). Burke and her students had long studied different types of intricately-patterned and bright-colored aboriginal artwork found in Australia, and they used what they learned as inspiration for their piece, which by the end was six inches thick and weighed about 300 pounds.

Twenty-four students, all ages seven to 12, from eight different area schools contributed to “Sister City Study,” and, over the course of a couple of months, they had a really nice-looking piece of art to contribute to the blank canvas of the hotel’s event center.

Students (left) show off some of their work for “Sister City Study,” and Jo Burke (right) helps a student. The work is inspired by aboriginal art found near Eau Claire's Australian Sister City, Lismore.

“Those kids were just so proud and bursting with pride that they did this,” Burke said. “They liked to see it collectively and they knew what collaboration is better than many adults I know. This is something that’s going to be seen by many people and it will be an educational experience.”

Burke acted like somewhat of a project manager by collaborating with folks over at The Lismore to draw up an initial design concept that would reference aboriginal art in some way – and also, obviously, look nice at the swanky hotel. After that, her students were able to have at the piece and get started painting colorful circular patterns on long tubes, that were then lined up and framed.

Taking the sister city concept even further, Burke is currently trying to establish an “art pal” relationship with students in Lismore, Australia. Making the connection with those students has been inspiring for Burke and her crew of students.

Now that the piece is up on the lower level of The Lismore’s event center, the Joyous Horse Juniors might take their generous artistic stylings to the realm of sculpture for another piece to donate. Burke said she and the kids will make up their minds soon.

“There’s just so much potential for art, and there’s so many opportunities to give,” Burke said. “I let the kids drive where we go with it. I learn as much or more than they do.”