Art Partners / Outreach
The overarching goal of Art Partners is to develop our youth into independent and well-grounded adults. Art Partners places professional teaching artists in the classrooms of area schools and also conducts special programs in Silvermine School of Art's studios. The curriculum-based workshops are designed with the classroom teacher with goals of improving critical thinking, collaboration and literacy skills. Whether in school or on-site, Art Partners reaches minority and under-resourced students and teachers. Art transforms some students and engages all in an opportunity to learn and grow.
The achievement gap in Connecticut is one of the largest in the United States. Art Partners is one program that strives to close this gap. Silvermine serves a diverse socio-economic community through this program. These schools are generally more than 50% minority and 40% qualify for the free lunch program. Since it began in 1992, the program has reached over 10,600 Norwalk and Stamford students between the ages of six and eighteen.
Over the years, Art Partners' workshops have included:
- An intensive seven-week drawing series for students from Briggs High School led by Nomi Silverman and separately, a ceramics program led by Heather Houston. Teamwork, self-expression and cultural history were all elements in these workshops.
- An after school program taught by C.J. Guerin for Nathan Hale Middle School students provided an opportunity for students to experiment and improve artistic skills. Geometry was nicely integrated in lessons on portraiture, the body and perspective.
- Marta Kot created a collage workshop for first grade students at Columbus Magnet Elementary School linked to their unit on bees at the New Pond Farm and created a sculpture workshop linked to poetry and ecology at Brookside Elementary School.
- Two cartooning workshop were taught by Jerry Craft. One workshop linked the elections to political cartooning for fifth graders at Davenport Ridge Elementary School and a second workshop linked visualization of a favorite book to drawing in cartoon form at Ponus Ridge Middle School.
- Each spring, Silvermine Elementary School fifth graders create a delightful mural of the universe that focuses on collaboration, visualization of a chosen curricula-theme, design and use of color. This has become a much-anticipated "rite of passage" for these students.
Art Partners is funded by grants and individual contributions. The program is a recipient of funding from Bank of America Foundation, Lumpkin Family Foundation, NewAlliance Foundation, Exchange Club of New Canaan, The Maurer Family Foundation, and other independent foundations.
Contact Leslee Asch at 203 966-9700, ext. 15 or via email for more information.
