Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Supporting young artists in Los Angeles

In 2013 the Craft in America Center launched a pilot program to support aspiring artists at Fairfax High School's Visual Arts Magnet. Our goal has been to give students in public high schools the chance to meet some of the leading working, professional artists in the field and to learn about the trajectory of their careers. The arts often suffer at the expense of the otherwise successful STEM education model in public schools (science, technology, engineering, mathematics), and for this reason we think our project is vital to giving art students a voice and granting them access to creative resources.

Our most recent collaboration involved glass artists Paul Marioni and Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend, whose work is currently on exhibit at the Center in Seeing Into It: Messages in Glass. Previous participating artists have been potter Jeff Oestreich, collage artist Hidde Van Dyum, and illustrator JT Steiny.


Catch a timeline of Paul and Susan's activities here:

March 20 & 21Paul speaking to a 3D sculpture class about self-portraiture and being a life-long, professional artist. He visited two classes and asked them to sketch self-portraits which he then critiqued.



March 24: Paul and Susan giving a walk-thru of the show to the two art classes. 
The bus provided was courtesy of Councilman Paul Koretz's office and the city of LA.
Visiting classes were advanced painting (teacher: Elizabeth Kim) and 3D sculpture (teacher: Kelly Cohen).





April 4: (above) Fairfax students from a workshop led by Susan. She had them paint on acrylic to mimic her layered-glass technique using doodles. First, she started by having them think about defining a doodle (whatever your unconscious wants to release), paint doodles, then add color on the other side of the panel; (center) Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend; (below) Susan and Kelly Cohen, Teacher, 3D Sculpture.

April 4: Susan talks to students about the unconscious 


To learn more about our Fairfax High School pilot program, click here.

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