We are pleased to introduce you to three new members of the Creative Art Works Family: Program Manager Donna Maganello, Program Manager Riki Sabel, and Program Associate Maddie De Leon. We’ve been having a wonderful time getting to know all three of them over the past few months, and we hope you will enjoy learning a bit about them as well.
Read MoreAt a back-to-school community event in School District 4 in East Harlem earlier this month, Creative Art Works invited students to build a mini diorama of “the classroom of their dreams.” The results ranged from charming to whimsical. While this free art-making project was a lot of fun, it also utilized real academic skills, such as creative problem-solving and spatial and motor skills. Come inside the classroom of our dreams to see selections from this joyful event.
Read More“We want the students to know that this school is a nurturing and safe environment, and that, no matter where they come from or where they go to in their daily lives, when they come through these doors they will find a support system and people who care about them and want them to grow. ”
— CAW Youth Apprentice Joshua Grant
Read MoreFrom its inception, this mural was intended to be a statement piece for the lobby of Bronx County Family Court that would break down barriers and engage the community. One goal was that everyone who enters the building should be able to see themselves represented in the art. If this mural achieves that goal, it might be in large part because the team of Creative Art Works Youth Apprentices (YAs) who executed this mural mirror the fabric of The Bronx.
Read MoreRead MoreThe process of working on this mural has been so great. I gained new skills. I'm not as shy as I was before. It was an amazing experience getting to know the people of this community and interacting with them and learning the history of this place. That is going stay with me forever.
— David Tovar, CAW Youth Apprentice, Summer 2022
This spring, Creative Art Works students and Youth Apprentices at more than 20 partner schools produced a prodigious outpouring of joyful and thought-provoking art. The work is stunning in its variety, quality, and sheer quantity. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, we’ve updated the art gallery page on our website, and we encourage you to take a few minutes to enjoy some of this work.
Read MoreWe are proud to announce that Janet Woods of Savills has join the board of Creative Art Works. As Vice Chairman and Northeast Region Lead, Janet Woods provides management of the firm’s tenant representation services in Boston, Connecticut, Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey, Miami. She also serves on the company’s Board of Directors and the North American Management Board. We sat down with Janet to talk about her introduction to CAW through a summer Public Art Youth Employment program, the importance of mentorship, and the intersection between athletics and creative youth development.
Read MoreOur kids are meeting, and building, in three dimensions! CAW is providing out-of-school-time programs to students in Manhattan, The Bronx, and Queens through the Cultural After School Adventures initiative. These programs provide enrichment, social emotional support, and community building to students during these challenging times.
Read MoreMaking the transition from middle school to high school can be overwhelming. Students suddenly have a lot more choices and a lot more responsibility. Students can become so focused on getting through each class that they never stop to think about why they are going to school in the first place. The Foundations class at A. Philip Randolph Campus High School is intended to address this very issue. Creative Art Works is providing a digital arts curriculum that integrates with the Foundations program and offers students an alternative point of entry to some essential questions.
“I remember when I was younger my mom and I would sit down on the living room floor and rummage through boxes of family pictures. We looked for portraits of my grandparents and other family members who lived far from us. I liked to ask questions about who everyone was... My mom always responded with “no sé Arecis. No vivo de recuerdos.” Read more in our profile of former CAW Youth Apprentice Arecis Tiburcio Zane.
Read MoreNermen first joined Creative Art Works last summer on the graphic design team in the multimedia program [link] because she wanted to try something outside her comfort zone and not directly related to a medical career path; however, she discovered a passion for the arts and their ability to amplify issues of social justice and public health. When the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene invited CAW to collaborate with the Center for Active Design to provide photography for the upcoming revised edition of the award-winning Active Design Guidelines, Nermen was chosen as one of six CAW all-stars to participate in the program. Over the course of this program, Nermen included a brief synopsis of her photography assignments with her weekly submissions. We were captivated by her anecdotes and invited her to expand on her experiences as a CAW Youth Apprentice.
Read More“The Center for Active Design wanted to amplify youth voices in their revised Active Design Guidelines. More than offering paid creative youth development, this program challenged our young people to take a sense of agency in the future of our city.”
— CAW Executive Director Brian Ricklin
Read More“When I go into the classroom, I know my content and I have my lesson plan, but let’s say it’s more like a road map. There are always different ways in, different paths and shortcuts. Sometimes your students put up detour signs, and they will tell you if you need to go somewhere first before you can accomplish your instructional goals. Sometimes you have to take the scenic roads.”
— CAW Teaching Artist Ivory Nunez-Medrano
Read More“Art has the inherent advantage of connecting to youth in a way that gives them space to tell their stories. Since the stories we tell ourselves impact the kind of person we become, my goal is to help young people become self-aware so that they not only envision, but live out, their own great stories.”
– CAW Teaching Artist Ryan Davis
Read MoreThis summer, Creative Art Works employed over 150 young people through our public art youth employment programs. About half of those Youth Apprentices participated in multimedia workforce programs. This group was sub-divided into cohorts, each specializing in one of three disciplines: documentary filmmaking, animated storytelling, and graphic arts. While all of CAW's youth employment is grounded in social justice, this was especially true for the multimedia teams who tackled subjects including global warming and environmental degradation, police and prison reform, and access to affordable healthcare and housing. Industry professionals and experts on criminal and environmental justice met with our YA’s on a weekly basis to advise them on the issues and help them craft a compelling message. We invite you to sample some of the many videos and images created by our Youth Apprentices.
Hope and Balance is the eighth project Creative Art Works has created for our long-standing partner, the New York State Family Court and the third for the Bronx Division. The three interconnected panoramas will be installed in the third floor courtroom of Bronx Family Court, which is the largest and grandest courtroom in the building. This is a first for any CAW artwork in either the Bronx or Manhattan division — previous works have been displayed in the lobby or waiting rooms.
Read More“I think that a lot of people are scared to start. I know a lot of people here were scared to start painting, because they were afraid to mess up the mural, because this was a project for the people. But I think it's okay to try new things. And it's okay to just let yourself have fun while working. You always want to make sure that you're doing a good job, but you can still have fun and not stress yourself out so much. I feel like you should do something that you actually care about, because you get more out of it, just emotionally and mentally and physically. You enjoy it more.”
Read MoreThey call themselves the “Bodega Cats.” They are eighteen NYC residents between the ages of 16 and 21 who gathered in East Harlem to paint a massive mural in the atrium of The Crossing, an L+M / Invesco mixed-income residential development. These Youth Apprentices represent the cultural, ethnic, religious, and gender diversity of our city, but they dedicated their summer to creating a work of public art that, “preserves the history, culture, diversity, intergenerational unity, and flavor of East Harlem.”
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