— Stephanie Harren believes that everyone possesses creativity, and she tells that to the students at the Behind the Scenes Camp at the Museum of the Gulf Coast whenever they say they can’t do something.

“All I ask is that you do your best,” she tells them.

Harren is the education coordinator at the museum, and for the past week she has been shuffling teenagers from one art activity to the next, hoping that something sticks with the middle- and high-schoolers. The Behind the Scenes Camp started July 23 and concludes Aug. 3 with the unveiling of exhibits created by the students at a reception from 2 to 4 p.m.

The goal of the two-week long camp is to teach these students how to start an exhibit of their own. Harren took the students, sixth- through tenth-graders, to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Lamar State College-Port Arthur Commercial Music Program and the Pompeiian Villa on Lakeshore Drive. Albert Faggard, a local artist, came by Friday to talk to the students, and the museum supplied the students with T-shirts to tie-dye, as well.

“I want to expose them to the different aspects of art,” Harren said.

Kainat Aziz, 12, came to the camp because she really likes to draw.

“Whenever I get bored, I draw,” she said.

Aziz, who will start sixth grade at Port Neches Middle School in the fall, said she thought art was easy and hard for her at the same time. She likes creating things, but sometimes she doesn’t even know what those things are while she’s drawing them. She chose to sketch a sheepshead minnow for the group’s nature painting assignment Monday.

The group plans to travel to an art studio in Beaumont Tuesday to see a raku pottery demonstration before the students begin to prepare their own art exhibits for their Aug. 3 opening. Harren said she hoped the students found the creativity within themselves and learned how to express it. But the students are not the only ones doing some learning.

“It has stretched and challenged me,” Harren said. “I have to use my creativity to figure out ways to inspire them.”

Harren started working for the museum in June, but she has experience in the field from working at children’s museums in New York, Indianapolis and Chicago. She moved to Port Arthur about four years ago and wanted to get back into a job where she could use what she had learned.

Harren grew up in Indiana and graduated from Purdue University in 1999 with a degree in outdoor recreation and natural resources. For a while, she worked at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, the largest children’s museum in the world, according to its website. But she likes it here because it reminds her of where she grew up.

“I’m ready to stay in one place,” she said. “I’d really like to get more schools involved [with the museum].”

Although the museum has programs already in place, Harren wants to expand its involvement in the community and develop programs to fit the schools’ needs.

“This is a jewel right here that a lot of people just don’t know about,” she said. “There’s a lot of history here.”

The student-created art exhibits will remain on display at the museum until Aug. 24. The camp is $10 a day, unless the student is a member of Team Troupe, in which case it is free. Transportation is provided for field trips, and the students are fed an afternoon snack each day.

bcrum@panews.com