Young people in a CAW creative workforce development program learned graphic design techniques such as composition, use of color, visual literacy, and storytelling through words and images. Learning these skills offered these interns a chance to practice transferable career skills such as presentation and interviewing techniques, critical thinking, problem solving, and collaboration. The program also amplified youth voices by asking participants to design effective posters on a social justice issue of their choice.
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.
Want some inspiration? For the first time ever, all three of our Honorees for the Creative Art Works Annual Benefit for Kids are successful and inspiring women. Congratulations to Whitney Arcaro of RXR Realty; Karen Lupuloff, Supervising Judge for New York Family Court; and our Youth Honoree Natajha Graham, a former Youth Apprentice and programs Intern currently enrolled at Spelman College. Check out their brief video interviews and their award presentations from our Virtual Gala on April 22nd.
Students in Creative Art Works’ Digital Design class at PS/MS 278 took a deep dive into manipulating images and text. Students worked in Pixlr, a free software similar to Adobe Photoshop. Each project focused on a specific aspect of digital design, including collage, masking, and manipulating type. The results were beautiful, surreal, funny, and often thought-provoking. Presented within is a selection of artwork along with some recorded statements by the artists themselves.
“My art doesn’t always need to be perfect; however, it always needs to have some type of meaning behind it. I work with many types of mediums. I don’t like sticking with just one. I love using markers because they make my drawings more vibrant and colorful. I also love using watercolors because painting with them is fun and interesting to use. I take my time with each drawing. I like to include a lot of details, colors and value into each art piece. I like my art to be eye candy and to appeal to others.”
“I always try to think "How can I also have fun in this class?" My philosophy has always been that, if I am having fun as a teacher, my students will automatically catch that enthusiasm, and therefore they will naturally learn with passion. I add a lot of interactive resources, poll questions, virtual field trips, and soundscapes.”
CAW Teaching Artist Fabio Puentes on the CASA Art Around the World program at Queens PS 88
“The biggest thing I learned from the program was the ability to tell a character's story with just their appearance. The way a character looks reveals so much about them – where they live, where they work, what they like to do. I realized the importance of visual communication and I wanted to expand on that the more I learned. My favorite assignment so far has been the proportions assignment, in which we had to take one character and play with their body type. For example, how changing the length of a character’s legs and arms changes the essence of their design.”
A good video game or animated movie can blur the line between fantasy and reality. At the heart of many of these immersive entertainment experiences are unique characters that make us laugh, cry, cheer, and dream. If you’ve ever looked at the credits of your favorite animated feature, you already know that every character is the product of hundreds of hours of work by an army of talented artists. Recently, Creative Art Works joined forces with FunPlus, an international interactive entertainment company, to draw out some of the secrets of this fascinating process.
“The “Passions Program” is about choice. When I hear students say they’ll take whatever class [Creative Art Works Teaching Artist] Megan teaches, I know she is building solid relationships with our kids.”
– Kimani Davis, Dean of School Culture, School in the Square
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.
“The fascinating part was how CAW adjusted the program in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. CAW’s Teaching Artists were amazing at capturing our kid’s attention even though the classes were online. They developed relationships with our kids virtually. They took all of our stakeholders into account, but they allowed our students to be the orchestrators of the final artwork.” — Melvin Thomas, Climate and Culture Coordinator, PS 72
“It was something new that I wanted to try and it was totally different than what I expected. It was great learning about my strengths and weaknesses and discovering a love of photography. But mostly, I loved working with a lot of new friends. Our art had a lot of personal meaning behind it and it was surprising to hear other students telling so many stories about their art.”
Creative Art Work’s Remote Digital Public Art Youth Employment Program was the first remote job for all of our Youth Apprentices, and what a job it was! In addition to learning serious skills for the digital workplace, they grappled with challenging topics and crafted compelling messages about social justice issues, including racial and gender equality, animal rights, domestic abuse, child labor, climate change, family separation, mental hygiene and drug addiction, and the rising cost of health care. The quantity and quality of the work produced is staggering.
This summer, Creative Art Works is offering a Remote Digital Public Art Youth Employment Program that employs more than 40 teens and young adults from all over New York City. This digital art and photography apprenticeship is designed to build real-life employment skills for the digital age. It also gives Youth Apprentices (YA’s) a voice in the conversation about some of the social justice issues that have gained momentum in the past year. The work is intense, with daily deadlines and regular feedback from fellow YA’s, CAW teaching staff, and guest commentators from major branding, graphics and media companies.
Listen to Interviews with Our 2020 Benefit Honorees
Jerome Montrone and Teddy Swenson share a few brief words on their connection to our work.We are also pleased to introduce this year's youth honorees — drum roll, please! — Kashmonae LaShure and Devalis Carver!
To our students and youth apprentices especially: You are the center of all that we do, and we stand in solidarity with you in stating unequivocally that Black lives matter.
We also want you to know what solidarity looks like to us. It means that we will continue:
to see you -- your innate worth, your resiliency, and your dignity,
to generate opportunities for you to develop your creativity and self-determination, which we see as a fundamental human right, and
How do organizations provide a Public Art Youth Employment program during a quarantine? Creative Art Works and Catholic Charities Alianza collaborated to develop a remote graphic design internship that created after-school jobs to over 40 students from Liberty High School. Internslearned the principles of effective design and how to use photo editing software. For a final project, each intern created posters that answer the question, "What do we want to hold on to from our lives before the pandemic?"
At Creative Art Works, we are proud that all management and administrative staff have direct personal and professional experience in the arts, education and/or youth development in addition to nonprofit management. Most of us remain active as performers or artists in our spare time. Our new Intern is no exception. Read our engaging conversation with Melisa in our latest blog.
