It was 1984! Not George Orwell’s “Big Brother is watching you” 1984, but the year the original Apple MacIntosh personal computer went on sale, break dancing hit the streets, and the Shreveport Regional Arts Council (SRAC) first showcased Arts in Education programs in Caddo Parish Public Schools with ArtBreak. 

From April 24–26, 2026, a radiant rainbow of color, inspirational creations, and a cacophony of jubilant sound will fill almost one hundred thousand square feet of the Shreveport Convention Center as families throughout Northwest Louisiana celebrate forty years of ArtBreak. Still the largest student art festival in the south, ArtBreak highlights over three thousand student prize-winning works of visual, literary, film, culinary, performance, lighting design, and fashion art; awards almost twenty thousand dollars in cash prizes to hundreds of students; and welcomes more than eighty thousand students, teachers, families, and community visitors to enjoy S.T.E.A.M. (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) activities; draw; perform; write; cook; design; film; and be transformed by the power of art. Nothing has celebrated the arts of all students in Northwest Louisiana bigger or better than forty vibrant, colorful ArtBreak Festival years. 

It was not always so glitzy, glamour-filled, or fun for the arts in Northwest Louisiana, however. In 1983, the A Nation at Risk report deemed art, music, and theatre “nonessential” and proposed to cut them entirely from the curriculum or merge them into “enrichment” activities offered only a few times a year. The jobs of art and music teachers were threatened, and it looked as if funding would be redirected to math, science, and reading, subjects linked to standardized testing and college readiness. 

Pam Atchison, SRAC Executive Director from 1986 to April 2024, was the Arts in Education Director for SRAC in 1983; Henry Price, President of SRAC from 2013 to the present and current Fine Arts Curriculum Specialist (K-12) for Caddo Parish Public Schools, was an assistant principal at Caddo Magnet High and previously an art teacher. They share vivid memories of going to battle to keep art alive in Caddo Parish Schools, advocating that arts education was critical to the total curriculum and vital to learning science, technology, engineering, and math. As far back as the Renaissance, Da Vinci himself had proven this through his use of art to visualize concepts of science and innovation. In the end, the fight came down to funding. Advocates of the arts were given two choices: raise more than a million dollars or play a strong role in the advocacy of a one-cent city tax for schools.  

It was a Caddo Magnet High School teacher, Kathy Sledge, who came up with the idea that “anything in Louisiana worth having is worth celebrating with a festival,” and on a spring weekend in 1984, a festival of art filled the Shreveport Municipal Auditorium parking lot with an entire year’s worth of student visual and literary artwork. Theatre and music students performed historical reenactments in nearby Oakland Cemetery. It was a poignant, explosive display of the magnitude of the students’ creativity and the impact it could have on a community. Parents and voters saw and believed, and that very weekend the one-cent tax passed and saved the arts in Caddo Parish Schools. 

Atchison and Price helped plan that first ArtBreak. Their memories of the festival throughout its forty-year history tell the story of how far it has come from that small festival site—the Municipal parking lot and Oakland cemetery—to the 100,000-square-foot Shreveport Convention Center. Grandparents who once displayed their art at ArtBreak now see their grandchildren’s art highlighted. Sponsors committed to showcasing the arts programs and the artistic achievements of students have soared to include McDonald’s / Gilley Enterprises, Inc., Bonvenu Bank, The Community Foundation of North Louisiana, Community Network, Inc., Verizon, BOM Bank, Union Pacific, KTAL NBC 6, Sign It, and Shreveport Regional Airport, in addition to the Alta and John Franks Foundation, the Leonard W. and Betty Phillips Foundation, and Dr. and Mrs. Michael Acurio. Stars have been born on the ArtBreak stage, including Grammy Award–winning blues rock artist Kenny Wayne Shepherd, who took the stage of ArtBreak at the age of thirteen; rock, pop, and country drummer Brady Blade Jr.; Captain Shreve graduate Willie Jones, who is featured on Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter album, and most recently, young Max Chambers, who used his ArtBreak 2023 performance video to compete on The Voice and played Little Michael in MJ: the Musical on Broadway. Price, a professional artist himself, has been called the “father of ArtBreak.” Atchison noted that Henry’s consistency of leadership and vision has insured the integrity of ArtBreak and has brought the festival to where it is today. 

One of the biggest advancements in the forty years of ArtBreak, however, goes back to the initial argument from the arts advocates on how critical art education is to the total curriculum. Today S.T.E.A.M. activities make up the largest component of ArtBreak. Students learn Archimedes’ principle through the creation of river-worthy paper boats; build a loom with popsicle sticks and PVC to weave necklaces and learn about circumference; and explain the work of wind turbines with painted pinwheels.  

Forty years is proof of the transformative power of art to show resilience in the face of possible loss, to connect generations, to encourage innovation, to unite communities, to unlock difficult science and math concepts and even make them fun, and to open talent and career paths. It took a healthy village—an entire community of people committed to the significant and lasting impact of art education on our cultural literacy. Four decades and we are celebrating bigger, bolder, and brighter than ever with ArtBreak 40. 

SHREVEPORT REGIONAL ARTS COUNCIL 

Central ARTSTATION, 801 Crockett St. HOURS 

Artspace, 708 Texas Street Artspace: Tuesday–Friday, 11a.m.–5 p.m. 

shrevearts.org (318) 673-6535 Saturday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m.