Lifetime Arts & NYPL
Countee Cullen Branch Library (Manhattan), 3-time grant awardee, teaching Life Maps, collage, drawing, and folded/altered books.
Sheepshead Bay Branch Library (Brooklyn), Watercolor
Spuyten Duyvil Branch Library (Bronx), Folded/Altered Books
Lifetime Arts encourges creative aging by promoting the inclusion of professional arts programs in organizations that serve older adults, preparing artists to develop the creative capacity of adult learners, and fostering lifelong arts learning by increasing opportunities for intergenerational and community-based programming. (Lifetime Arts Website)
Programs included balanced lessons with formal and technical approaches to conceptual and imaginative play. I included within the lesson a life review aspect, so as to create more opportunities to investigate and engender personal and shared meaning. Additionally, I encouraged usage of a variety of art forms as a means of expressing commentary on issues of societal and cultural importance.
Life Maps
Washington Heights Library (Pro Bono)
Countee Cullen Branch – Harlem (Lifetime Arts Grant)
Collage and Beginning Drawing Classes
Maps are tools that help to guide and give direction, and Life Maps can show us where we have been and where we might like to go, in the form of a personal geography. By examining the appearance of maps through the lenses of line, texture, color, and point-of-view, students were introduced to the elements of design and the art of collage.
I included a variety of historical and present day maps with relevance to New York City (cycling maps, bus and subway maps, walking tour maps, etc.). We considered each of these for both their functional aspects as well as their metaphorical qualities. Students then integrated maps for collage making while also drawing upon their life experiences and memories to inspire their work.
I use a disciplined-based art education approach so as to include related activities in the realm of art history, art criticism, and aesthetics, as well as a studio component. Students studied how artists like Romare Bearden and Mark Bradford drew upon city life as a source of inspiration, using collage to express their experience of urban living.