The Artsmith Year in Review

It’s August, summer sales are in full swing, and temperatures here in the Bronx have been hovering in the 70s and 80s. What does that mean? The start of a new school year is just around the corner. If you’re anything like our students you want to slow things down a bit so let’s rewind and take a look back at the last year at Artsmith.

Book Clubs

We launched two book clubs earlier this year – Bookworms, our club for young readers, and Beyond Words, our club for teens.

Bookworms aims to instill a love of reading from a young age. For each monthly meeting during the school year we choose a book that teaches an important lesson in fun and innovative ways. Sometimes authors stop in to work with the students, too!

The students had such a great time with Ama Karikari Yawson when she visited the Words vs. Pictures program that we brought her back for Bookworms. She introduced a new set of students to Sunne’s Gift, a book about bullying and self-love, and taught the students about community engagement with the first book in her Kwanzaa Nana series. See how much fun the students had writing their own stories in the Bookworms picture gallery.

Beyond Words also meets monthly during the academic year and, like Bookworms, we invite authors in to discuss their work. The club kicked off with a visit from author Dan-el Padilla Peralta at its first meeting. He used his memoir, Undocumented: A Dominican Boy’s Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League, to bring the very important and timely topic of immigration to the students. Watch Dan-el’s full talk and the Q&A session on Artsmith’s YouTube channel.

Dream Jordan, author of Hot Girl, also visited Beyond Words. She spoke to the teens about how peer pressure led her down the wrong path before she turned her life around. The students spoke about their own experiences and their struggles to do the right thing when situations threaten to lead them astray. More than one student remarked how they were grateful to have a safe place to talk about the issues they deal with daily and how encouraged they were to see someone who achieved success after a rocky start.

Words vs. Pictures

Words vs. Pictures continued to spark creativity and self-exploration with elementary and middle school students in its second year. The students completed literary and visual arts projects, some that focused on who they are and some that took them to far off lands to learn about others.

The program started off with the students making identity collages. As the year progressed they delved deeper into who they are by writing acrostic poems and short stories based on the meaning of their names, and painting self portraits.

In addition to exploring who they are, the students participated in projects that helped them learn about other cultures. One of our student’s love of all things Japanese inspired us. We used Notan, the Japanese design principle of light and dark, to teach the students about contrast and positive and negative space. They also learned about Suminagashi, a Japanese paper marbling technique that uses ink floating in water, and created their own prints.

Other projects included body tracing art, painting still lifes, sketching trolls, and using tissue paper leftover from a previous project to make maps on Earth Day, to name a few. Of all the projects, the students’ three favorite were continuous line drawings with Bronx artist Sashalynillo, songwriting with the music collective Red Sahara, and writing letters to President Obama. Check out the Words vs. Pictures picture gallery to see some of the great things our students did.

Outside the Classroom

Great things didn’t just happen in the classroom. A new member joined the board of directors; and the advisory council, which signed its first member late last year, is now 4 strong. Meet the team that’s leading Artsmith on our About Us page.

Tricia Smith, president and founder, was nominated for a Bronx Volunteer Coalition Volunteer of the Year Award in the Neighborhood Impact category. Thanks to all those who voted her to a second place finish.

Artsmith participated in its first community fair this summer. The children that attended the Fair @ The Square in Westchester Square had a great time painting pictures at our tent. Even the young ladies from Elite Stars Dance Academy took time out between performances to have a little fun with paint. We were back in Westchester Square this past Saturday, August 19th, at the Back to School Health & Wellness Event in Owen F. Dolan Park.

Artsmith also received it’s very first grant! Citizens Committee for New York City awarded one of it’s 2017 Neighborhood Grants to Artsmith. Neighborhood Grants are micro-grants of up to $3,000 given to resident-led groups to work on community and school projects throughout the city. Artsmith will be using the grant to start a photography program for teens residing in the Wakefield section of the Bronx. See why Citizens Committee thinks the project is a great idea.

A Look Ahead

The photography program isn’t the only great thing happening in the new school year. Bookworms and Beyond Words will continue to engage students in literary exercises. We have great book selections for our young readers and teens and we’ll let you know as we read them so you can read along with us. We’re going to teach our students more about Japan and other cultures around the world with art projects in Words vs. Pictures.

Our students won’t be the only ones learning about Japan. We’re going to take you on the journey with us with a new blog series by Lorrie Hayman. She’ll teach you about various Japanese art forms while exploring how art and culture influence each other. Try your hand at the different art forms and share your works with us. The series launches next month.

The coming months will also see the return of Palettes and Palates events. We look forward to seeing you out at various eatieries in the Bronx painting and mingling with other community members.

We also have some fun surprises in store for you. We know you’re going to love them so stay tuned!