Art making, art access, and art education cannot be separated from a communal quest for justice. I believe at a basic level that art provides a place to rest our racing minds, and to work through pain, confusion, questions. It can be used as a powerful tool to communicate, translate across power structures, and upend our current systems. Making art is a hope-creator.
I love collaborating with other teaching artists, and fusing movement & theater arts activities with hands-on visual arts projects.
Mini Library Project with Free Library of Philadelphia, Bregy School, and Art Sanctuary. 2019
Star Hamilton and I worked with inventor 7th graders on designing mini libraries by experimenting with different processes of printing and layering.
We focused on Jewell Parker Rhodes’s Ghost Boys. Through our design process with the students, we are seeking inspiration from public artists and utilitarian message-based work. The libraries will hold free copies of the books, thanks to the Free Library, free for the public. Coming to a corner near you.
how does text become its own place of respite
Shout out to Myung Gyun You for helping construct the libraries.
We as teaching artists are thinking lots about how we take action alongside students, and the context in which students are asked to take action themselves: which students, which schools- art education is not created equal.
Art Quest Specialty Art with Germantown Academy, 2018.
We explored Fabric Art; Nature Art; Painting; and Stop Motion/Sculpture Studio, for full day studio work days. Lots of Visual Thinking Strategies; Giving Feedback to their Peers; and experimenting as studio artists. 8 - 12 year old students.
3 Workshops leading to an installation with 8 high school students.
Collaborating Teaching Artist Star Hamilton. In partnership with Art Sanctuary + an existing curriculum examining the justice system and the school-to-prison pipeline with Eastern State Penitentiary Museum. Summer 2017.
Text-inspired textile and paint-based visual projects with 8th graders. 2017
We worked with Art Sanctuary at the Bregy School in South Philadelphia, where we engaged with the book brown girl dreaming, by Jacqueline Woodson. We work with recycled materials, cloth, paint, glues, and installation materials to encourage students to trust their own freedoms with new materials, to experiment, and to collage their ideas.
Where Dreams Begin: 3 pilot workshops, in collaboration with Kym Boyce. 2017
We worked with 6th and 8th graders at the Highbridge Green middle school in the Bronx, fusing poetry & language with visual art.
Biomes + Nick Cave at the Mifflin School. 2017
Week-long workshop with 5th graders where we investigated biomes, costuming, Nick Cave's work, and body casting/abstract fashion creation.
PreK Summer Art at Germantown Academy. 2017
I am learning to work with little ones! Art activities for preK (3-5yr olds): material exploration, motor skills, age-based solstice- and nature-inspired works at Germantown Academy. Movement, imagination, and dance-based activities.