Alan Kim | The Roanoke Times

Lucinda McDermott Piro, who started a summer youth arts camp called ArtXtreme, discusses the program with her husband Jon Piro, who is one of the instructors particpating in the camp.

RADFORD -- "What was I thinking?" Lucinda McDermott Piro wailed with a laugh as she sat in her home.

She wasn't talking about the color scheme of her living room, the walls of which are each painted a different vibrant hue.

And she wasn't having second thoughts about D'Artagnan, the cat haughtily eyeing McDermott Piro from his place on the carpet.

She was jokingly referring to ArtsXtreme, the multi-arts summer camp that makes its debut in Radford on Tuesday and runs through July 21.

The professionally trained dramatist, who moved to Radford three years ago to teach at Radford University, has spent the last seven months organizing the camp.

"It's like a full-time job," Jon Piro, McDermott Piro's husband, said of his wife's role as artistic director of the camp.

However, it's a job that McDermott Piro said she is happy to have.

"You do it because you love it," she said. "You can't not do it."

The importance of helping children learn to appreciate the arts was instilled during McDermott Piro's childhood.

In the South Carolina home where she was raised, celebrating the arts was the norm with her art professor father, clothing designer mother and music-and-dance-loving sisters.

When the family moved to Southwest Virginia, McDermott Piro's parents enrolled her in a summer day camp, now known as Fine Arts in Rockbridge.

"It was the most amazing, amazing thing," McDermott Piro said.

She wanted to create a similar experience in Radford.

Although there are other arts camps in the New River Valley, McDermott Piro said she wants to set ArtsXtreme apart with a curriculum ranging from jewelry-making to pottery to dance.

Once she contacted Tanya Ridpath, Radford University's conference services director, to help nail down the registration and spacing logistics, McDermott Piro said finding local professional artists to teach the classes was a cinch.

She assumed the role as the teacher for a few of the drama courses herself and recruited Jon Piro to teach audio engineering and songwriting.

Her sister, Lola Davis-Jones, will be coming from North Carolina to teach dance and drama and play production.

McDermott Piro e-mailed her Radford University art department colleagues, such as Jennifer Collins, who will be teaching mixed media and landscape painting.

A chance visit to the Vintage Cellar in Blacksburg resulted in McDermott Piro inviting Radford University graduate student Jillian Sessoms to teach ArtsXtreme's morning music class.

Before Sessoms had her first experience teaching children last semester, she had her concerns about dealing with kids.

"I thought they were going to be running around and screaming and crazy," she said with a laugh.

However, she said her experience helping hearing-impaired children study music was so rewarding that she jumped at the chance to join the ArtsXtreme staff.

"I hope I can spark the creative side in them," Sessoms said, adding that she hopes to encourage her students to continue their music studies once the camp is over.

Carol Crawford Smith, owner and director of the Center of Dance in Blacksburg, helped McDermott Piro find her teachers for contemporary, jazz and modern dance.

McDermott Piro has dedicated ArtsXtreme to the memory of Kitty Irwin, the Radford University graphic designer who died in June.

Irwin helped McDermott Piro get the camp off the ground, offering suggestions such as hiring Alison Pack to teach the jewelry-making course.

Irwin also pointed McDermott Piro in the direction of Web designer Kevin Smith, who created the camp's site.

Like Irwin, McDermott Piro and the rest of the camp's staff want to help children find their individual voice and appreciate their artistic capabilities.

"I think it's bunk," McDermott Piro said of the notion that some people either lose their creativity as they grow older or never possess it at all. "We're all born creative."

Currently, about 40 children from the New River Valley are signed up for ArtsXtreme, and McDermott Piro said she will continue to accept students up to the camp's opening day.

While some of the classes will have a presentation at the culmination of the program, McDermott Piro said the program is focused on the learning process rather than a finished product.

"We want to provide kids with a rounded experience beyond what they get in school," she said.

McDermott Piro already has a clear vision of the future for ArtsXtreme, saying that she would be able to chart the success of the program if at the end there were a "public outcry for this to be something year-round."

"Radford has the opportunity and the potential for being the center of arts for the New River Valley," McDermott Piro said, thinking further down the line.

ArtsXtreme has classes for students in grades two through 12. For more information, see www.artsxtreme.com.