Craft In Schools & Community Outreach

An educational outreach program that connects students to professional artists through field trips at the Craft in America Center where students experience hands-on workshops and artist talks.

Our Program

We bring the mission of Craft in America to public, underserved schools in the greater Los Angeles area through visitation to our center exhibitions and hands-on workshops with acclaimed contemporary craft artists working in various media. Uniquely, this funded program offers both museum-onsite field trips and virtual artist-led workshops to youth participants, all free of cost. Craft in America seeks to provide our community with needed supplementary art education, especially to those students who would benefit the most. At the end of each school year, our Center proudly hosts a collective Student Art Exhibition featuring work by students who participated in Craft in Schools.

Who We Work With

In 2012, Craft in America initiated a pilot program with LAUSD’s Fairfax Magnet Center for Visual Arts to bring artists into the classroom and students into the Craft in America Center. We then added Van Nuys High School to our school outreach program in 2015. In 2016 we began working with Rosewood Elementary and Clinton Middle School, which expanded the age range of the students we reach. We now work with several local and regional school districts and classrooms at all grade levels.We welcome collaboration with more schools across Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley who wish to visit our Center for field trips and meet with artists.

We strive to give local, underserved public school students the chance to meet some of the leading working, professional artists in the field and to hear personally about these artists’ careers and how they create their art. Our hope is to continue to grow this program in order to serve more schools and educate young students about the power of the handmade and the meaning of craft. 

School Partnerships include:

  • Fairfax High School
  • Van Nuys High School
  • ArTES Magnet High School
  • Jefferson High School
  • Paul Revere Middle School
  • Joseph Le Conte Middle School
  • Palms Middle School
  • Clinton Middle School
  • Grandview Elementary
  • Rosewood Elementary and more!

Participating Artists

Craft in Schools students have met and worked directly with countless nationally-acclaimed artists over the decade since the program began. These invaluable encounters are opportunities for students to learn about the vast range of contemporary and traditional craft materials, methods, and hands-on craft approaches. Through these personal interactions, artists speak about how they have pursued their passions, overcome struggles, and found creative pathways, which empowers the students to follow their dreams.

Teaching artists we’ve collaborated with include: 

Ceramic artists Joan Takayama-Ogwaa, Jeff Oestreich, and Ehren Tool; collage artist Hidde Van Duym; illustrator JT Steiny; glass artists Therman Statom, Paul Marioni, and Susan Stinsmuehlen-Amend; metalsmith Jaydan Moore; book artist Catherine Alice Michaelis; multimedia artists Lorena Robletto, Isaias Rodriguez, Francisco Palomares, Calder Kamin, and Giovanni Valderas; fiber artists Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, Mandora Young, Karyl Sisson, Corine Pearce, Cameron Taylor Brown, Joe Cunningham, and Victoria May; bootmaker/leatherworker Lisa Sorrell & many others.

Fairfax
Mandora Young at Rosewood Elementary, Craft in America
group of elementary schools children dressed in many blue shirts speak to an artist with white hair and glasses standing in front of various ceramics cases
Large human weaving project
Paul Marioni speaks to students about his work at Fairfax High School Arts Magnet.
Yamamoto teaches local Van Nuys High School students about carved wood block traditions and printmaking.
Fairfax
high school students face the from tof a gallery with clipboards doing sketches as one students appears to be laughing in the center

Higher Education

Since 2012, Craft in America has partnered with Otis College of Art and Design’s Integrated Learning class, Clay in L.A.:1945 to Present as a site partner. Over the years, students, and interns have visited the Center to discuss the current exhibition, watch episode footage and draw connections to their class work and personal practices.  In one particular project, they utilized our craft library resources and examined the history of the Otis Ceramic Department and specifically the impact of Peter Voulkos on the early studio clay artists in the 1950s.

Primary Faculty: Joan Takayama-Ogawa

Otis students at the Craft in America Center
Emily Zaiden gives a tour of Politically Speaking

Craft Library & Continuing Education

Students, exhibition attendees,  and fellow art professionals alike are encouraged to browse and continue utilizing our extensive craft library resources at the Center. Our library features over 3,000 of specialized books on various disciplines, artists, and c!ultural perspectives on craft art. Our library also boasts access to dozens of seminal craft-art magazines. Further, our library/gallery shared space features rotating displays of niche books and materials that reflect the current art exhibition at any given time.

The library is open to the public Tuesday – Saturday, from noon to 6pm.

Contact Us

For those interested in our programs, or for more information to learn about professional development outreach please contact Center@craftinamerica.org

These activities are supported by:

National Endowment for the Arts NEA, www.arts.gov
The Craft in America Center is supported in part by a grant from the LA County Department of Arts & Culture. www.lacountyarts.org/about
The Craft in America Center is supported in part by a grant from the California Arts Council, a state agency. Learn more at www.arts.ca.gov