Over the course of the pandemic, Creative Art Works distributed over 820 “art-to-go” bags. The bags contained a wealth of art materials to be used during a free remote art-making program, called Community Works: Design + Build, which ran every day during Spring Break. A combination of urban design and mixed media arts, this program invited young people to imagine ways they might improve their own neighborhoods.
Read MoreMaria Castro is in the seventh grade at Hamilton Grange Middle School and a participant in Creative Art Works in-school digital art program, where she has been creating posters that promote social justice issues that matter to her. Maria says her opinions have been shaped by her family and her teachers, but she has also been influenced by the social upheaval happening around the world in recent years.
Read More“I like the way I’m growing as a person. I never used to listen to anybody. I never wanted to do what I was supposed to do, but now I understand as you get older, a whole lot of things change. You’ve got to move different.”
– CAW Youth Apprentice Deysean Nesbit
Read More“One thing I learned painting this mural was patience. I had a lot of arguments with my teammates over the summer, but I had to learn to get over it. We used a lot of tools this summer, but two big ones were compassion and teamwork.”
– CAW Youth Apprentice Floyd Thompson
Read MoreCreative Art Works has produced many fine murals in and around Jacob Schiff School Campus which is home to our program partners, Hamilton Grange Middle School and PS 192. CAW murals inside the campus and along 138th Street include Magic with Logic, Dreams of a Creative Revolution, Migrations, and The More You Give the More You Grow. This summer, our Youth Apprentices added a stunning new mural to this impressive collection. Peace of Our Time celebrates the history and cultural diversity of Hamilton Heights and pays homage to the contributions of migrant communities.
Read MoreWow, I loved that film. It speaks to the work that we do… to help girls write and form their own stories around social justice issues. Because, if a girl can tell her story and save her own life, she can save the lives of girls everywhere. And you do that through this film, and all the other films – you make a difference.
Read More“Kids at this age can be territorial about art materials. They think in terms of ‘my paper,’ and ‘my paint.’ So, when they are asked to share a single sheet of paper, their instinct is to draw a line down the middle and stick to their side. But when they discover that mixing their colors and joining their lines together can create something unexpected, they warm up to the idea of collaborating.” — Teaching Artist Laura Mychal
Read MoreWe believe that the life-affirming experience of making art is for everybody and that creating beauty has physical, emotional, and spiritual benefits. So, we are pleased to offer the first in a planned series of home-based art projects for families. This self-portrait project is among our most joyous. It can be adapted for any level, and you probably have most of the materials on hand!
Read More“Kids at this age are perfectly ready to create stories. Characters spill from their brains. These characters might be the product of an active imagination, or a response to something they read in books or saw on TV, or they may possibly be a way of processing their own personal development.”
— CAW Teaching Artist Ayla Rexroth on student-created cartoon characters in the Cartoon and Anatomy program at Hamilton Grange Middle School.
Read MoreThe most important connections in our lives are the ones closest to home. This summer, our Multimedia Team created five short films about nonprofits and other organizations that work to improve the quality of life in our city. The subjects include pianos in public places, a grass-roots effort to make improvements to a local city park, an ambitious plan to create murals in Upper Manhattan of 314 North American birds threatened by climate change, and a program that brings soccer and poetry to young NYC residents. Of course, there is also a documentary about Creative Art Works summer Public Art Youth Employment program.
Read More“Migrations” is part of the The Audubon Mural Project, a collaboration between the National Audubon Society and Gitler &_____ Gallery to create murals of North American birds around Washington Heights, where John James Audubon lived during the last years of his life. The project’s goal is to commission artists to paint murals of 314 species of birds which are threatened by a warming climate.
Read MoreOur first set of "lightning interviews" were recorded on only the second day of our summer Public Art Youth Employment program, when our Youth Apprentices were just starting to get a handle on their job responsibilities. We're now past the halfway point, so our young painters and videographers have some experience under their belts. They know their jobs. They know their projects have tight, non-negotiable, deadlines. They know that there are high expectations.
And they are rising to the occasion.
Read MoreStop-motion animation is a multidisciplinary art form that incorporates writing, sculpture, painting and digital video techniques. For this project, students wrote short scenes, built miniature sets, and designed characters using modeling clay. That part of the process is limited only by the imagination of the artist. Animating the characters, by contrast, requires patience, planning, and communication.
Read MoreIn the internet age, when social media platforms allow young people to instantly broadcast their thoughts and opinions to the world with a just a few taps on their smart phone, face-to-face conversations can seem quaint, if not downright low-tech. Yet impromptu speaking is a skill that both kids and adults use every day in school, with friends and family, and on the job. In January, students in CAW after-school art workshops had a chance to talk about their art to friends, family, teachers and administrative staff in RL (real-life) at culmination events.
Read MoreAny parent who has ever read a picture book to their child knows that some days the child will insist that it’s their turn to tell the story. As young children look at pictures, they naturally tell stories about what might be happening. They do this with their parents, their siblings, their classmates and their teachers. By constructing their own meanings about what they see, children become active creators of their own knowledge.
Read MoreHow can a social media post help students better understand the motivations of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird? What qualities do Greek gods share with everyday heroes? These are questions that students in Creative Art Works' integrated arts programs are contemplating with this fall.
Read More"...Our mural began and we finished the plan,
And I just want to say how proud that I am.
I’m blessed for my God, blessed for my people,
Blessed to be up here rather down there with evil.
Blessed to be on the mural that’s mentioned,
The mural that brings out attention,
The mural that we have invented,
This is our Ascension!"
"...our final proposal to the client was all of our ideas put together... We sorted. We found a way to put it all together, so now everyone’s satisfied with what they see."
CAW Summer Youth Apprentice Cyrell Primo shares her #SummerJobStories and touches on the intersection of music, art and ideas.
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