“I’ve talked with people in the Youth Council about how there is appreciation for traditional art, and also for some new, non-traditional forms like performance art and sound art. My question was, what could we in the Youth Council make, physically make, that would be non-traditional art?”

Margaryta Golovchenko, co-winner of the 2014 Margaret Machell Study Grant

Margaryta Golovchenko, in her third year as an AGO Youth Council volunteer, has just repeated the question over a gelato in the Espresso Bar. She also has the beginnings of an answer: take the 5-week course in Mixed Media being offered by the Toronto School of the Arts, and bring those skills back to her colleagues.

And that’s what she’s doing right now, thanks to her portion of this year’s Margaret Machell Study Grant, an award designed to help AGO volunteers take courses that will deepen their understanding of the arts and enrich their contribution to the Gallery.

“We’ll each develop our own mixed-media project while we’re taking the course,” Margaryta says. “I think I’ll create something to serve as my findings from our Youth Council trip to Estonia last week. Then, later on, we can do mixed-media work here in the Youth Council — maybe something in the new year for the Youth Night we want to plan, linked to the Basquiat show.”