 A new exhibit at the Crossing Arts Alliance in downtown Brainerd is displaying works of art from a much younger group of artists. Local students have been working in the classroom on a variety of art projects. Several areas school districts were involved, including artwork from kindergarten through high school classes. Local art teachers were able to select one piece of art per class to submit in the gallery. Sometimes a teacher will choose a piece that they've clearly given a lesson on. You'll see some commonalities in these pieces. Some of them are really their own explorations and I think that's pretty cool too. After volunteers spent hours getting the artwork all set up, over 500 people attended the opening reception. This year marks the 15th year in a row the Crossing Arts Alliance has had the display of youth artwork and the executive director says she plans to continue the tradition for many years to come. I think one of the founding tenets of why we do what we do was to make sure the children were engaged in the arts and we know it continues to be a struggle to have arts included in the curriculum in schools. It was important to us to continue to support these young artists and we think having work on display here is one way that gets them excited about the process and about the end result. The exhibit will be open to the public until Friday April 27th when ten of the art pieces will be chosen to be professionally framed and will be put on display at the YMCA for one year. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.