Here it is! No longer waiting in the wings, I am so excited to announce the official launch of The Jaguar Athenaeum (Atha-nee-um). Wow, it has been a long time coming.
I began this project, or, I should say, the idea of this project, a little before freshmen year. I knew that I wanted to complete my Girl Scouts of the USA Girl Scout Gold Award. Girl Scouts had always been a place that taught me that my age didn't determine if I could create incredible, and impactful, projects. As my love for the arts grew, as well as my passion for leadership, management, and graphic design, I knew I wanted to create something to help today's, and hopefully tomorrow's, youth. As a child, and even now, as a teenager, I hear all too often to just "wait until you're older". People didn't take my ideas seriously, even when I presented them in that manner, merely because of my age.
Now, in high school, I face a similar challenge. Despite the internet and thousands upon thousands of articles, blog posts, YouTube videos, and more, I felt lost and confused trying to figure out a timeline for my high school career. I was tired of spending hours trying to find even the smallest of information that was relevant to me. It was exhausting---and as someone who has spent their free time doing deep dives into jobs and careers from age 10, that's saying something.
Eventually, I started to toy with the idea of creating what would soon become the Athenaeum. After a year of research, of figuring out how in the world I would do it, I created The Jaguar Athenaeum club. There is so much I could say about the Athenaeum, and about the incredibly dedicated and talented team that made it a possibility, but I'll just say this:
The Jaguar Athenaeum was created to connect youth in the arts, locally, and eventually beyond, not only to each other, but to the industry. In the age of connection, of information, we refined it to create a handbook to act as a mentor to artistic hopefuls in written, visual, and performative arts. To provide opportunity and knowledge for zero cost, available to everyone, everywhere.
We weren't sure if it was possible. This was our pilot issue, our way to test if we would be able to pull something like this off. We did. And we're only just getting started.
Thank you to everyone who made this project possible, you deserve the world.
Stay tuned for more updates, and please show this post, or our website, https://lnkd.in/ei8pHwQY to any creative you know. We can only help artists if they know we are a resource they can use.
We are extremely excited to announce the publication of our pilot publication, Issue 00: New Beginnings. Our team has been hard at work building industry-standard publication materials to aid youth artists for their professional careers.
Join us in celebration as we release, both online and (for our local Carrboro High students) in-person, this Thursday, January 11th!