Eager to start filming a new promotional video for Meet the Masters’ website, Bonnie Steele and her team members gathered in Stephanie Gutierrez’s third-grade classroom at Las Palmas Elementary School on a recent Friday.

“We are redoing our website video [because] it’s a little old,” said Steele who started her San Clemente Company 25 years ago. “We are planning on just taking snippets here and there for the video.”

Meet the Masters has come a long way. Recognizing a lack of art in her children’s schools, Steele volunteered to start a roving art program that later became her business. Today, Meet the Masters travels from school to school, as near as San Clemente and as far as China, to teach kids the importance of art.

“It really is the only opportunity children have to learn about master artists and do something other than crafts. Cut out the turkey and paint the pumpkin is about all the time the teachers have,” Steele said. “If you’re going to be introduced to the cultural background, it’s so important for the students to have that, and they don’t really get it anywhere else.”

For the video, Meet the Masters’ teacher Diane Cheek spoke to students about 19th century post impressionist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

“As far as the art lessons go, it gives a whole different perspective for the [children], and they learn actual famous artists’ names so as they go through the grades, connections happen for them,” Cheek said.

As the children began the art project, camera operators Paul Shockley, 28, Carlos Mason, 23, and Hollis Cameron, 25, began documenting the children’s experience through their lenses.

“[The video] gives the audience a better representation as to what happens in the classroom,” said Steve Johnson, director of sales and marketing. “People always ask us, ‘What does Meet the Masters do?’ and ‘How do the children react with it?’ So that is what we try to portray in the video.”

Steele explained that when her daughter was in sixth grade she became more aware of the importance of educating young kids about art history.

“I saw that you had to catch them younger because by sixth grade they either decided they did have talent or didn’t and weren’t as willing to be free and express themselves,” Steele said. “Some students will take it as an elective in high school, but right now is the time to catch them, when they’re young and excited about art.”

According to Steele, PTAs fund visits by Meet the Masters, however, there are occasionally special grants that help cover the expense.

Although there have been similar projects that have been going on around the country, Kristen Nelson, principal of Las Palmas, feels that the local program is very well run and organized.

“Meet the Masters is the only program I have ever had at the schools I’ve worked at, and they do an excellent job in teaching art and art history to our students,” Nelson said. “We have been pleased with the outcomes and our parents and students love the program.”

Nelson believes that through art, students can discover a skill that doesn’t surround them in their day-to-day lives.

“I feel it is very important to give students the opportunity to explore a different talent,” Nelson said. “Some kids who struggle with school are wonderful at art and it gives them a platform to excel.”

With the program, kids are not limited to crayons, colored pencils, paper, glue and scissors. Instead, they are able to experiment with different media, such as paint, oil pastels, clay and line drawing, according to Steele and Cheek.

Currently, the company has 35 master artists, and Steele hopes for the program to become a part of more schools.

“Since the program has been running for so long we now have children that went through the program and want to participate as teachers,” Johnson said. “It has spread all over the state and even to Texas, Utah and Oklahoma.”

Meet the Masters has made it a priority to keep evolving the program as time passes and as children learn differently.

“I always find new ways of making [the program] better. We always test [new ideas] in the classroom before we change something,” Steele said. “We want to make sure it works for all the schools. My goal is to just keep working at it and to get into more schools so more kids can have an appreciation for art.”