Happy Earth Day! Art from Craft in Schools 4th graders and Calder Kamin
Earth day is just a few days away! Our Craft in Schools program had a blast hosting reclaimed/reuse artist and sustainability advocate Calder Kamin for our Winter field trips. Our young, neighborhood artists from Mrs. Dror’s Rosewood Elementary 4th grade class were especially inspired by Calder’s work, artist conversations, and reclaimed-art hands on projects. As a group we repurposed marker caps to create a vibrant jump rope (photo at very end, below).
These 4th graders related to Calder’s message of ecological stewardship and environmental values. Calder shared her artist’s journey and ethos for using recyclable materials to address and reduce waste problems through her art residencies. We had lively classroom conversations around the recurring theme of transforming the human made problem of waste into art– because “nature never wastes, that’s why I(Calder) reuse!” In turn, these 4th graders shared about their student-led recycling club and how they repurpose everyday objects for creative and inventive projects. Environmental care and creativity~ what fun!
Each student illustrated a creative, heartfelt thank you card to Calder for our Craft in Schools visits– including illustrations which we were green-lighted to web publish. Please enjoy and share this special collection of inspired art! For more of Calder Kamin’s original work, visit her artist website at www.calderkamin.com; or checkout our 3-d virtual tour on Winter 2023-2024’s Spirit of Play Exhibition page.
Student Illustration Gallery
2024 Winter Highlights: Craft in Schools Field Trips & Partners
As we round the corner from winter into spring, our Craft in Schools program would like to reflect on our most recent and multimedia season of teaching artist & student programs. Throughout February, over 200 students across five schools learned about and explored the creative potential of puppetry, piñatas, reclaimed, and assemblage art from our Spirit of Play: Craft and Imagination exhibition.
Inspired by our most recent PBS Craft in America featured Play & Miniatures episodes, we connected and engaged these students ages 9-18 with featured teaching artists Lorena Robletto, Calder Kamin, and local artist Eleanor Tullock from the Bob Baker Marionette Theatre.
Our gallery visits investigated the environmental impact and hope within reclaimed/reuse art practices, guided by visiting artist Calder Kamin; we had a blast discussing school recycle programs, building out marker-cap jump ropes (pictured below) and exploring how we envision the future based on collective ecological responsibilities. Our curriculum explored poignant historical art related to Black History Month as seen in Schroeder Cherry’s historical puppetry and hopeful Future Voter Series assemblage art. Working with each of these artists was such a treat– full of personal artist-journey insights and messages of creative empowerment.
All of us collaborating educators were impressed and delighted in our students’ depth of inquiry, creative innovation, and visual thinking. Special thanks to the following schools teacher and chaperone collaborators at: Rosewood Elementary, Paul Revere Middle School, Palms Middle School, Fairfax High School, and Van Nuys High School.
Community Partnerships: Reaching this many students in a whirlwind few weeks wouldn’t have been possible without key community partnerships. Our Craft Center would like to show our biggest thanks to all of our teaching artists and shoutout our wonderful LA-community partnerships with Remainders: Creative Reuse Space & Thriftstore in Pasadena; and Señora Robletto’s Mid-City Amazing Piñatas Creative Studio for donating our assemblage/reclaimed, piñata teaching artists, and piñata workshop materials. Do yourself a favor, explore and connect with these wonderful community shops and studios!
For more information about our Craft in Schools program or teaching artist opportunities, please contact (me) Sam@craftinamerica.org or center@craftinamerica.org
2023 Fall Highlights: Craft in Schools Field Trips
What a whirlwind fall we had at Craft in Schools! We couldn’t have run nearly a dozen fieldtrips and class visits without our main textile/multimedia artist, California Fibers organizers, & fellow educator Cameron Taylor Brown. Brown is a long time educator, Textile Arts Los Angeles board member, and founder of the textile resource center ArtsGarage. We were also joined by Ashley Blalock from our Fall group exhibition, as we connected with Palms Middle School’s student-run Crochet Club. The backdrop for this season of dynamic programming included beautiful tapestries, textile, and multimedia installations from artists of the renown California Fibers Collective as featured in our Influences/Influencers: California Fibers exhibition.
From September to December, Cameron Taylor Brown and I (Sam) engaged, and taught over 200 students across five schools the art of creating one’s own loom, collage-weaving, and embroidery. Many of our lessons explored the global-tradition of weaving textiles, how garments, sustainable practices, and how multimedia art typically relegated to the realm of femininity have shaped many industries and social change movements the world over. Students shared their questions, insights, and related craft art to their own meaning making and cultural sense of belonging through our gallery visits, partner activities, and hands-on projects.
It was wonderful encouraging and witnessing students’ design and methodical weaving skills grow in each session. Many of the middle schoolers even learned first-hand how to “warp” a piece of cardboard firmly enough to create a d.i.y. loom, proving once again that creating art doesn’t have to feel inaccessible or wasteful. Special thanks to the following schools, teachers, and chaperone collaborators at: Rosewood Elementary, Joseph Le Conte Middle School, Palms Middle School, Fairfax High School, and Van Nuys High School.
For more information about our Craft in Schools program or teaching artist opportunities, please contact (me) Sam@craftinamerica.org or center@craftinamerica.org
Craft in Schools: End of School Year Student Showcase
In the last week of Craft in America’s Permanent Collection exhibition, we proudly feature artwork made by students from our Craft in Schools program. The student art on display includes completed projects from school-workshops, virtual workshops, and school field trips to the Craft Center led by teaching artists. We’d like to extend a big thank you to Rosewood Elementary, Fairfax and ArTES Magnet High School classrooms for participating in this end of semester Student Showcase.
Over the last six months, 300 students from over six schools engaged in Craft in America’s Exhibition key concepts, vocabulary, art discussions, and artist workshops. K-12 students collaborated with teaching-artists Mandora Young, Victoria May (of Craft in America), Joe Cunningham, Carrie Burckle and the inspiring work of Diedrick Brackens. Featured mediums in this Student Showcase include compact card-loom weavings, quilting, and Hmong Paj Ntaub embroidery as explored in our previous exhibition Inspiration and Home: Highlights from the Episodes.
Craft in America wishes all students and their families a happy end of the school year! We hope to collaborate with more LAUSD schools in the coming school year!
For future Craft in Schools-program inquiries, please contact both:
Education Programs Lead – Sam Sermeno and Craft Center Director – Emily Zaiden
center@craftinamerica.org
Craft in Schools: Home and Inspiration Winter Reflections
As we welcome Spring, our Craft in Schools program proudly reflects on all that we accomplished earlier this year. Thanks to ongoing partnerships with K-12 LAUSD classroom teachers and various teaching artists, we were able to host several on-site field trips, virtual gallery talks, and hands-on craft workshops based on our recent Home and Inspiration Exhibition.
In these educational programs, students were conversationally guided through Visual Thinking Strategies, and journaling and sketch pad prompts as they explored fiber, ceramics, woodworking, and sculptural art. Students ages 8-18 were encouraged to share their curiosity, ideas, and critiques of how they viewed craft and art practices both past and present.
Talented 4th grade weavers proudly show their yarn-weavings
Several classrooms hosted on-site teaching artists, such as Paj Ntaub artist Mandora Young and textile artist Victoria May. Together, we learned about the significance of Paj Ntaub’s mesmerizing embroidery within the Hmong diaspora, while learning the foundations of cross-stitch embroidery. Our neighboring Rosewood Elementary 4th graders enjoyed a dynamic “human loom” weaving exercise as pictured above! And, several classes explored hands-on weaving as seen in Diedrick Brackens’ Kente-cloth inspired weaving. Our Craft in Schools program hopes to continue collaborating with and would like to thank the engaging classes at: Rosewood Elementary, Palms Middle School, Van Nuys High School, ArTES Magnet High School, and Fairfax High School.
Stay tuned for more family and Craft in Schools programming!
Teaching Artist Mandora Young leads a hands-on Paj Ntaub workshop with elementary schoolers
Therman Statom Returns to Los Angeles Central Library
Craft in America is pleased to announce that the Los Angeles Central Library will be hosting a FREE talk with artist Therman Statom on Saturday, June 17 at 2pm. Therman will be talking about his grand chandeliers that hang in the Bradley wing, as well as his efforts in art education and advocacy.
The Center’s “Craft in Schools” Education Program has had a successful school year, primarily because we continue to bring professional artists like Therman to the classrooms that need these artists the most. We are also proud to have doubled our school outreach capacity over the 2016-2017 academic year. Two of our new schools, Rosewood Elementary and Clinton Middle School, had the privilege of working personally with Therman last November. During his workshops with the students, Therman explained his inspirations, methods, and ideas as well as demonstrated various techniques for painting on glass. The students were all too eager to join in the process and soon created their own drawings and paintings on glass panes, which they then assembled into cubes.
Now for the best part. Because of Therman’s longstanding history with the Los Angeles Public Library, the Library is displaying the work that the Clinton Middle School students created under Therman’s guidance back in the fall. The students’ artwork will be displayed in the library rotunda area alongside a special installation of Therman’s stacked glass boxes. We’d like to invite the public to join us at this special talk and to view the work of these inspired young students. If you can’t make it on Saturday, head to the Library over the summer to see their work and Therman’s Trece Lunas in the historic rotunda– and don’t miss the adjacent Children’s Reading room. It’s an LA architectural treasure.
Kazuki Takizawa at Van Nuys High
Kazuki Takizawa spoke to two classes at Van Nuys High this morning, inspiring AP Drawing students to pursue the path of art and others to consider how art is a channel for expression. This was the first exposure most of the students had to blown glass as an art discipline. They asked questions about Kazuki’s process and his inspiration.
With candor and honesty, Kazuki talked about how his sculptural work reflects personal struggles and reveals his inner thoughts and feelings. Viewing glass vessels for their symbolic potential, Kazuki takes inspiration from a Japanese saying that people are like vessels– some are smaller and only able to contain so much, whereas others are larger and able to handle more. In his recent projects, Kazuki has been dedicated to opening conversations about mental illness in our society and he was able to initiate that with these students.
Kazuki also spoke about his interest in Shintoism and the notion of perceiving the inner spirit inside inanimate objects. He ended each session with a q&a, in which the students put their hand-written questions inside one of his original Container Series pieces so that he could address their questions with anonymity. Several students lingered after the talk to speak with Kazuki one-on-one about their own challenges and to share their artwork with him.
Ehren Tool Visits with Fairfax High Students
Ehren Tool, profiled in our SERVICE episode, recently participated in our partnership with Fairfax High Visual Arts Magnet. On November 13th, students from Kelly Cohen’s sculpture classes paid a visit to the Center for a conversation with Ehren. They came prepared with questions both challenging and thought-provoking: Why cups? What emotions come up in the process of making them? Why does he give them away instead of sell them?
The following day Ehren visited Fairfax High (coincidentally his alma mater) for three sessions of wheel-throwing with Ms. Cohen’s students. He was a huge hit. He threw cups while giving a slide presentation — no easy feat — and the students asked insightful questions throughout. As a follow-up, Ms. Cohen is having them bring in objects that they care about to make pressed decorations that emulate Ehren’s approach. We’re all looking forward to seeing what they make.
Educational Outreach: “Imaginary Landscape” book made of monotype prints
Recently, eleven 7-8 year old children from Park Century School had fun making monotypes with Los Angeles artist Christina Carroll and her small press.
The kids expressed themselves with water soluble ink to make landscapes, tying in their curriculum at school. Their original prints were made into an accordion book and given to the school, and each child received a color reproduction of their collaborative book.
Happy Summer kids! We loved having their energy and look forward to the Fall.
We want YOU kids! Cool exhibits and creative artists await to work with you, your teachers and your school curriculum. Come play with us here at the Craft in America Center!