Posts tagged Mark Levine
Student Voice Revealed

“Equality is my main thing.”

Maria 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.

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Every Day Is a New Day

“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

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Love. Compassion. Community.

Creative 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.

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An Unforgettable Summer

This summer, Creative Art Works hired a Shay Epps, a former Youth Apprentice, to work as our Field Correspondent for our summer Public Art Youth Employment program. Shay was our eyes and ears on the ground, visiting all six of our worksites on a regular basis until she became a familiar presence. Shay demonstrated a gift for capturing candid photos and honest interviews. We asked her to reflect on her experiences.

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Good News: You’ve Got Awesome Powers!*

Students at Hamilton Grange Middle School are studying Greek Myths in their English Language Arts class. While Greek gods had awesome powers they also had human flaws. To better understand how fictional characters can have complex personalities, these same students will be creating their own versions of gods with a mixtures of powers and flaws in a CAW integrated painting and drawing class.

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What Does Your Self-Portrait Say About You?

Creative Art Works is offering an after-school art-making program for second-grade students at PS 192 in Hamilton Heights. We sat in on a class on making self-portraits that engaged a very energetic group of young artists on many levels. Not only did students this literacy-based program have an opportunity to make art, they also developed public speaking, problem-solving, fine motor and observation skills.

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Short Films, Worthy Subjects

The 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

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So Much 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.

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Six Reasons to be optimistic

“How can you NOT be optimistic about the future when you spend your days working with young people?” This summer, we’re going to try to bottle the experiences of our Youth Apprentices the way you might catch a firefly in a mayonnaise jar. Between now and the middle of August, we will be posting regular "lightning interviews" on our social media and in our newsletters. Read on for a six flashes of inspiration.

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There Are No Mistakes: A Conversation with Teaching Artist Zack Podgorny

As an undergraduate, I studied with Stanley Whitney, who taught me to embrace the unpredictable nature of color. Stanley said you have to admit that some things are beyond your control. When your paints don’t do what you want them to do, you have to turn that into an opportunity. That’s one of the axioms in my classroom, “There are no mistakes in art!”

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Telling Your Own Story, Making Your Own Meaning

Any 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.

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Meshack Merills Brings Down the House

"...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!"

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Working from Home

A CAW Youth Apprentice is making a difference in the world without leaving his block. 

Every morning, Tyrese Kierstedt walks out the front door of his apartment building, hangs a left, goes twenty feet and arrives at his summer job. Tyrese is one of several Youth Apprentices who are painting Creative Art Works' third mural for West Harlem Group Assistance, a community-based development corporation dedicated to revitalizing West and Central Harlem communities. The mural is located on the northwest corner of 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue, half a block north of Communities for Healthy Food at WHGA, a food pantry that promotes healthy lifestyles and provides related services to Harlem residents.

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