School Programs Spring 2012

We are four weeks into our 2012 school programming here at K.I.D.S. Art Ed.! We’re so excited to be working with Kindergarten - 5^th grade at P.S. 15 and Brooklyn New School again this year, and have been getting excellent feedback from our teachers and students so far.

Our workshop this spring is based on Kentler’s current exhibition, The Influential Female: Drawings Inspired by Women in History. The group show, which focuses on issues of female identity and strength, has been a rich source of inspiration for the students. More information about this beautiful show can be found at Kentler’s website, www.kentlergallery.org.

Each gallery visit begins with a general class intro, after which the group is broken up into two sections. One half of the class is sent to the front gallery, where students practice observational drawing with teaching artist Lance Paladino. The figural drawings of Clarity Haynes and Viviane Silvera serve as models for the students to explore shape, tone, and detail using ebony pencils and kneaded erasers. Each student chooses a drawing to work from and is given the opportunity to share his or her drawings with the group:

In the back gallery space, teaching artist Meghan Keane provides students with a pile of writing utensils, office supplies, ribbon and other materials for a more free-form drawing exercise. Students are prompted to think of an event or accomplishment that they are proud of and are then asked to recreate that event using the various supplies in front of them. Taking cues from the colorful drawings and hanging installations on view, some students decide to make flat pictures on the floor while others use a more sculptural, three-dimensional approach. The wide range of creativity among different grade levels and within single classes is amazing! Here are some examples of what students have come up with:

After each half of the workshop, the students switch rooms. This gives them a complete 90-minute experience with exposure to both formal and exploratory drawing methods. At the end of the visit, an enthusiastic wrap-up session catalogs what students saw, learned, and created and generates ideas for future drawings.

We still have two weeks of gallery visits left before we start with post visits, where the teaching artists will follow up with their lessons in the classroom. The unfinished drawings from Lance’s segment and photos of the students’ “temporary” constructions are given back to them as starting points for a final project. At the end of the post visit, students’ finished work is hung in the hallways of their school.

Stay tuned for updates on future programs. Thanks for stopping in on the K.I.D.S. Art Ed. blog!

Drawing Together Family Workshop at RHI

Blog post written by K.I.D.S. Teaching Artist Meghan Keane

Today was our first Drawing Together Family Workshop hosted in the Red Hook Initiative space!

Today's workshop focused on creating colorful line drawings that related to a favorite summer activity or summer word.

To warm up, kids and their parent or accompanying adult brainstormed words that reminded them of summer. Then, we made a group list and everyone shared two of their favorite words/activities from their list.

Our fantastic group list of summer activities and summer words (that could have gone on for another 5 pages!)

Next, students were asked to think of colors related to their word/activity (i.e. sun = yellows, reds, oranges). Ready to start their drawings, students, with help from their adult, created drawings using just the colors that they thought related to their word. They worked hard to only use line and to create patterns or designs, but sometimes it was challenging!

Can you guess what summer word / activity each artist was thinking of by looking at the colors in the drawings below? Give it a shot!

Ricky (RHI) and niece with "House" drawings

"Pool I"

"Beach"

"Pool II"

"Grow flowers and plants"

Young artists, their drawings, and their moms : Estelle with Jasmine and Simone, Tiffany with Natalie

Longtime DT fans: Sarah with daughters Chloe (l) and Josie (r). Their artwork shows is about their visit to Connecticut and a pool with a rainbow.

Looking forward to more DT this fall!

Want to join us at our next free workshop for families?

Email KIDS Director Mollie McQuarrie to be added to our FREE Drawing Together Family Workshops e-newsletter! mollie (at) kentlergallery (dot) org

Thanks and Happy Summer!

MK

Reflections: Our first after-school program with RHI

Blog post written by K.I.D.S. Teaching Artist Meghan Keane

"This past spring 2010 I taught the first collaborative Red Hook Initiative + K.I.D.S. After School Program.

I spent six after school sessions with eight young, creative, energetic guys. The program I designed was a response to the current exhibition at the Kentler -- two temporary art installations created by artists Ilene Sunshine and Mary Ting. Both artists created their installations during the month of January, using the gallery as if it were their own studio space.

For the after school program, our main theme was exploring color and its expressive potential. However, we were inspired by the exhibition's impermanent, large-scale, architecturally-responsive qualities. Ultimately, the students spent each week talking about, thinking about, and making art that explored positive (colorful) expression and negative or weighty (colorless) expression. We saved the art work at the end of each session in preparation for using ALL the work (drawings, mixed media) in one final installation -- wrapping two classroom desks as an on-site installation! For this final project we not only spent time looking at the works by Sunshine and Ting in the gallery, but also at works by Christo & Jean Claude, best known for wrapping historical buildings and designing The Gates in Central Park.

Our six weeks together were incremental, dynamic and, as you'll see, built up to our final collaborative project...

WEEK ONE: Creating texture, Exploring color

Students explored texture and color through rubbings of hardware supplies: filters, washers, etc. Students noticed that the rubbings that were made only with pencil (graphite) were not as lively or as positive feeling as the rubbings they made with vibrant colored pencils.

<----- sample student rubbing

WEEK TWO: Responding to Haiti devastation

Students were asked to imagine a city before and after an earthquake. They were also asked to use color to help their audience pick out the city in its prime vs. the city after a disaster. We had a good conversation about what sort of colors could not only illustrate (cement gray, rubble brown) but express devastation and desperation (dark, muted colors). Many students noted they were tired of talking about the subject but were intrigued by the challenge of visually representing these hypothetical cities. One student taped piles of rubber bands to paper and flipped it upside down to indicate tremors -- a shakable, quaking conceptual drawing!

WEEK THREE: Drawing to Music

Students made a series of drawings to music -- fast music and slow music. They chose colored pencils or colorless graphite depending on the speed and emotion of the music. At the end of the day we divided the drawings into two piles, thinking of our future installation that would likely be in two parts. The piles were: drawings that expressed positive emotions (usually colorful with fast lines) vs. negative or more brooding emotions (less colorful with slower lines).

WEEK FOUR: Field Trip!!

During our class visit to the Kentler International Drawing Space, almost thwarted by snow and skunky weather, the students glowed and showed off their amazing perceptive skills. They pointed out that this was not your normal picture exhibition: this new art hung from the walls, the ceiling, wrapped around corners, took up floor space, and required your total attention so as not to step on it!

Above: Ilene Sunshine installation, February 2010

WEEK FIVE: Analyzing Color, Playfully

Photocopying a recent art book I had created, the students were asked to revisit the idea of texture through coloring and color designs. Students used artist quality markers on these ready-to-color images, but had to keep in mind which pile they would like their drawing to go towards at the end of the day: the positive or the negative expression pile. Students colored liberally but kept the colors true to the +/- theme.

Taking the dialectic we had been working with all along, we decided to name our forthcoming installation project in advance: during this session we also brainstormed, discussed, and voted on titles for each installation. The guys ended up finally agreeing upon the titles BEAUTY and GORE as the two words that they wanted to describe their upcoming wrapping installation. Quite a busy day with lots of good art-making and art title debating!

Above: Students designed fonts for each of the titles out of wiki-stiks; they decided together that they wanted to include the hand-made titles in the installation the following week.

WEEK SIX: "Beauty : Gore" Final Project, Student-designed Desk Wrapping

Keeping in mind all that we'd worked on and discussed over the past five weeks, the students divided into two groups, each working on wrapping one giant desk (table) with the artwork they had created over the course of the spring. The Beauty installation-wrap used the drawings that had been placed in the "positive emotion" pile; the Gore installation-wrap used the drawings that had been placed in the "negative emotion" pile. The students spent the whole session creating their temporary installation, covering the desks with works from the past six weeks, while I documented the process with guest filmmaker, Michael Keane, who shot video of the process for the students.

Above: Detail of the title GORE, each letter wrapped around one leg of the desk.

At the end we celebrated, took final photos, and delighted in the ephemeral quality of the work by allowing the boys to help deconstruct the installation! A great finale to six weeks of hard work and lots of colorful fun!

I look forward to teaching this coming fall session of RHI+K.I.D.S. After School and to the Kentler's ongoing collaborations with RHI! Onward!"

-Meghan

Program Enhancements and Other Exciting Changes at GKEF

Program Enhancements

I'm really excited about what is happening with our program in Guinea right now. The "Guinea Kids" are being provided the opportunities to broaden their educational experience through field trips to learn about their greater community. They will travel to see downtown Conakry, Medina - the largest market in Conakry, and perhaps even a museum! All of which most of the children have never seen or experienced. Many of the children have never left their neighborhood of Enco-Cinq.

Karim Koumbassa, GKEF board member and family/community member in Enco-Cinq, came to me with this brilliant idea several weeks before he left Seattle to travel back home to Guinea for a few months. He will also take the children to visit some farm land where they will learn about where their food comes from while helping tend rice fields and fruit trees. "I want them to learn about all the things a person needs to know in life," said Karim.

We are fortunate to have Karim in Guinea once again this year to make sure the program in running smoothly, to meet with the parents of the students, and to make any needed adjustments. Karim truly has a passion for and dedication to helping all of these children.

GKEF has also added a new tutor, Mousa, who is helping Soumah give the students more specialized attention. Soumah focuses on the younger students and Mousa, the older ones.

New Fiscal Sponsor

We now have a new fiscal sponsor! Transformation of Education is an organization committed to creating a breakthrough in education where learning has no boundaries and no limits, where people learn to think big, adapt to their environment, and ultimately live a life actively engaged in fulfilling their dreams, driven by educators around the world who are passionate about making a difference. GKEF is proud to be associated with these ideals!

And...we have a new online donation page with Firstgiving.

New Website Coming Soon!....

We have been working hard to create a beautiful website with more information about who we are and more stories about the children in Guinea. Board member, Greg Evans, has volunteered countless hours toward building us this website. Please take a look when it launches and let us know what you think!

And the winner (of our first Cake Design Contest) is...

Here's his cake design: Congratulations, Liam! This means that Baked will be baking Liam's cake and, after giving him a free slice, will then sell the rest to customers until its gone. Its bound to go fast! YUM. The date of this event event is TBD- stay posted.

Cake Contest 2011:Contestants

Kentler celebrated its Birthday this year with lots and lots of cake!  Our neighbors at Baked (an award winning bakery) made gorgeous cakes and we ate it with glee, joy and multi-generational-sugar-heaven spirit.

The kids drew pictures of their ideal cakes as part of our first ever cake design contest for kids.  The winning cake design will have their cake baked by Baked and the winning designer will get a free slice.  You can have a slice too but you have to check in here to find out when it will be made and then you have get on down to Red Hook.  Oh, and unless you're the winning designer, you'll have to pay for your slice (or two-Baked cakes are DELICIOUS).  

These are the contestants.  Which one would you vote for?

K.I.D.S. Art Education NEWSLETTER - Fall 2011

Dear K.I.D.S. Art Education Friends and Supporters,

Kentler International Drawing Space sees Art Education as part of its mission to make art a vital and integral part of our local community life. Our K.I.D.S. Art Ed program is designed around the gallery's contemporary art exhibitions. We bring art and art-making experiences to students, youth, adults and families; cultivating the vibrant creative potential of our neighborhood.  

  

Kentler's 2010-2011 season has been an especially exciting one! Many of you know that we were the recipient of a grant made possible by Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez.  These funds allowed us to deepen and extend our work in Red Hook, Brooklyn.  We not only garnered new partnerships with three Red Hook community organizations to provide after school art programs (Red Hook Community Justice Center, Red Hook Initiative, and Good Shepherds Services), we also continued to provide our school programs to 40 teachers from three local schools (PS 15, PS 676 and PS 146 Brooklyn New School) and we continued to offer our popular weekend Drawing Together workshops for families.  We were able to reach over 1000 children, youth and families. All of these programs were free of charge for participants. With budget cuts deeply effecting underserved communities like Red Hook we were extremely proud to be able to provide these rich creative opportunities to our neighbors. 

UPCOMING EVENT:

To celebrate the successes of the past year you are invited to attend a celebration: 

Sunday, December 11, 2-4 pm.

We will be highlighting the amazing work of our K.I.D.S. Art Ed team and their students whose art will be installed in the gallery for you to enjoy firsthand. We want to thank our many supporters and celebrate the spirit of creativity, collaboration,and community in Red Hook.   SAVE THE DATE!

SPREAD THE WORD

Finally, please help us share our successes and dedication to art in education with others. With our K.I.D.S. Art Ed federal grant ending we need to spread the word to garner new sources of support. The kids need us.  Budget cuts have compromised the presence of the arts in schools. We strive to fill that void but we can't do it without your help. Help us turn our efforts to bring rich art experiences into the lives of any and all children a reality.  Spread the word about these events and bring friends.

And for those who haven't been following our blog regularly please check it out!
Make comments. Give feedback. Spread the word!

  

Mollie McQuarrie

K.I.D.S. Art Ed Director