In June 21st 2013 I arrived at Camp Baco. For the last 7 years I have been traveling from Israel, where I live most of the year, to Upstate New York in the center of the Adirondack park, to head the art program in camp Baco for boys. Baco is the summer home of 200 or so young boys ranging from age 7 to 16 and their 100 staff mostly young men aged 17-60, with one female counsellor (me), a camp MOM, 2 office women and kitchen staff. Alongside their sister camp Chenawah owned by the same Wortmans, Bob and Barbra.

Together with one assistant we managed the art program, many ceramic projects with a lot of fun, song and dance the 7 weeks just flew by. This summer we had a young British animation student called The Amazing Seb (short for Sebastian Hingston) assist us. We made whistles with all the new guys and whomever else wanted to. Some of the campers made 3 dimensional views of the lake or imaginary images. Some even made big sculptural bodies made with coils, which I guess was the theme of the summer as well as wheel thrown pots and some paper caterpillars and ceramic cartoonish slugs. We cannot forget duct tape, hats, wallets and sculptures. Here are some examples:

Besides the work we did with the kids we, the art department at camp have 2 major projects on our plate, The PADDLE, and the BACO PRIDE plaque which needs to be painted in time for awards night. I painted the PADDLE and Seb painted the Baco Pride. Here are the final results:

Arts and Crafts stayed very busy throughout the summer and even as we were packing up the workshop, the kids and the counsellors remembered they didn’t get a chance to do something and “just one more thing” was what we heard a lot. There is always next year.

Besides Arts and Crafts Camp Baco for boys is a very sport oriented camp, the activities are based on all ball games and water activities: swimming, sailing canoeing so the boys stay very active. We also try to get them interested in music, drama, hiking and art. In the last week of camp we have a 4 day competition called Indian Olympics where the boys are divided into 4 tribes and colours: Blackfeet-Black, Apache-Red, Cherokee-Green and Oneida blue, the tribes compete in the different games, pioneering and arts and crafts. We create 5 different projects for the 5 levels of the tribe: Chief, Medicine Men, Worriers, Hunters and Braves, using various materials befitting every project. The height of the events is called the Apache relay and the bucket brigade to finish off the events of the 4 days there is a sing, where the 4 tribes sing their songs cheers.

Looking forward for another great summer, 2014 ” best summer ever”