Grace Arts Academy student finds peace through music

{Wendy Bobo and Bobbie Wright, AAG piano instructor/Contributed Photo}

“Music takes your mind to a peaceful level,” says Wendy Bobo. 

An Arts Academy at Grace piano student since 2016, she began lessons when she was taking care of her mother, who had Alzheimer’s. Arts Academy at Grace (AAG) is located at Grace Episcopal Church in Lexington, and welcomes people of all ages from throughout the community.

“I needed something for me,” Wendy says of her decision. “Something to relax my mind.”

Her grandson was a student in Arts Discovery Camp, a summer weeklong camp, learning to play the violin. Wendy always wanted to play piano, but life always got in the way. When she was 12, she took lessons briefly, and later her mother bought her a keyboard. Now she owns her own piano, and within a year, she hopes to be ready to play for her church and to go into nursing homes to entertain the residents. Her favorite kind of music is hymns, and she believes nursing home residents will also enjoy her playing of familiar hymns.

She preaches, too, at her church, and says, “Music helps me put sermons together.” 

“Church and music go hand in hand,” she says of why a church like Grace should be involved the arts. “It’s just natural.”

Wendy is an example of why the Arts Academy at Grace has been successful.  In addition to Wendy, five other adults are currently taking music classes from AAG, enriching their lives, and the lives of their families and churches. More than 20 adults have taken art lessons through AAG through the years.

Since 2006, the Arts Academy at Grace has blended race, culture, class, religion, education, economic and social class, and age, unifying people from across the county around a common love for the arts.

AAG is a healing ministry, providing a safe, secure environment for the non-competitive study and practice of the creative arts, aimed at developing the whole person. Through the gifts of hands, voices, bodies, and minds, our children come to see God in themselves as creative and loved individuals. Over 800 students have explored their creativity through AAG since 2006; 127 children have received scholarships for private lessons; 797 children and adults have taken private lessons.

“You’re never too old to learn,” she says. And, at the Arts Academy, you are always welcome!