Graffiti: Public Menace and Public Art?

Last night, the Winston-Salem City Council held a public hearing on the possibility of making tighter restrictions to discourage graffiti artists. Graffiti has its obvious destructive qualities, but it's also a form of public art.

Work by artist/photographer, JR.

And in the instance below, discovered at inhabitat.org, graffiti can mobilize a community. Artists Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn work with youth to paint humongous murals in favelas (large squatter settlements) in Brazil.

Images from favelapainting.com.

City of W-S Human Relations Department and WFU Art Department Collaborate on Art Project as Part of Kenan Institute for the Arts' ACCORD Initiative

As part of the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts’ ACCORD Initiative, the City of Winston-Salem Human Relations Department and the Wake Forest University (WFU) Art Department are collaborating on a visual art project entitled Transforming Race.

The Transforming Race project will culminate in the presentation of visual art pieces by five public high school students and five WFU art students that address issues relating to racial identity and diversity at a gallery opening on Thursday, June 10, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Liberty Arts Center at 526 North Liberty Street in downtown Winston-Salem. The opening is free and open to the public. The art will remain on display at the Liberty Arts Center for just one evening before traveling to high schools throughout the county during the next academic year.

Photo credit: Paul Marley, WFU Art Department.

The ACCORD initiative, which stands for Artists Contributing to Civic-Oriented and Responsive Democracy, is a project of the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts dedicated to sparking dialogue about the essential role of the arts and civic-minded artists within a thriving democracy. Through this initiative, the Institute is partnering local nonprofit organizations and governmental agencies with area college students to create arts-based projects that address community needs and/or social issues.

The high school and college students participating in the Transforming Race project are working together in pairs to examine racial attitudes, personal experiences, and the overall relevance of diversity. The goals of Transforming Race are to: create a dialogue among participants about racial identity that leads to insights about those different from themselves; have participants work together to find words, images and metaphors that can communicate the problems and joys of being a person raised in a multiracial, post-segregation society; use the content developed in the workshop to create art objects that convey the feelings, attitudes and conclusions of the participants; and use the art to communicate issues of racial identity beyond the participants to the high school community and further.Participants in the project include five artists from WFU: Becky Bowers, senior; Courtney Whicker, junior; Mary Alice McCullough, freshman; Katie Wolf, freshman; and Lauren Arrington, junior; as well as a videographer, Courteney Morris, senior. Participating high school artists are Rae-Yao Lee, a junior at Reagan High School; Victor Mendoza, a junior at Parkland High School; Elizabeth Rosales, , a junior at Parkland High School; Brandon Wilkins, a junior at Parkland High School; and Jonathan Cunningham, a sophomore at Mt. Tabor High School.

Transforming Race is the second project of the ACCORD Initiative. This partnership project is a strong example of such community outreach. For more information, contact the Kenan Institute at 722-0030.

My Art Generates Power. What Can Your Art Do?

Via the highly informative green design blog, inhabitat.org, I learned of a call for artists for the Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI). LAGI describes itself as a program that brings together...

artists, architects, scientists, landscape architects, and engineers in a
first of its kind collaboration. The goal of the Land Art Generator Initiative
is to design and construct a series of land art installations across the United
Arab Emirates that uniquely combine aesthetics with clean energy generation.

LAGI hopes to create a tourist destination around the ability to view these sculptural projects that also generate energy.

LAGI is currently holding an international design competition in which design teams can choose between three different sites, one of which is shown below. LAGI intends to see winning concepts through to construction with the artist team that proposed the design. Want to create a permanent land art structure in Abu Dhabi? Get drawing!

Image from www.landartgenerator.org.

Review of The Yesman

Check out Jana Tasich's review of The Yes Man, an original play that is the result of a collaboration between The Enrichment Center, students at UNCSA, and Art Tasting.

Local Theater Students Use Arts To Teach

Here is an article from the May 6, 2010 edition of the Winston-Salem Chronicle on Wake Forest University theater students using teachers' curricula to further students' understanding of their lessons. Excuse the format- I didn't have a scanner big enough to get the full page in one file.

Creative Aging Symposium: Thursday and Friday in Greensboro

The Creative Aging Symposium offers artists and healthcare professionals ways to embrace creativity and advance culture change in aging service environments. Because of the rapidly expanding older population and related lifestyle changes, we must find new ways to improve the quality of life for older adults of all ability levels. This highly interactive two-day Symposium will highlight important research results and raise awareness of resources available at the national, state and local levels during the General Session on Thursday. Workshops on Friday will offer experiential concurrent sessions providing valuable hands-on tools to encourage innovative thought and implementation of new creative programs.

Objectives: (1) learn about the untapped potential of older adults and the growing field of creative aging, including research and programming at the national, state and local levels (2) receive hands-on training in creative programs that you can take back to your community (3) learn about the resources and creative opportunities that exist for older adults locally, regionally and nationally, and (4) connect with other artists and aging service providers in your area.

What an impressive organization to have right here in the Piedmont. Attend if you can!

Teaching Literacy While Instilling Empathy in Students

Troubles, Worries, Work

Moving day. It always scared me to death.
Troubles, worries, work.
It includes everything to make me crazy. Some people
like it, but not me. There is always some
hope but what are hopes? Hopes bring
troubles, worries, work,
and they include everything to make me crazy. Some people
like it, but not me. I would like not to move.
I would like to stay, because actually days
are not moving. There are no moving days.
Time stays. We move. I would like to stay
not to move.

-- Madmax

Stumbled upon a great resource called Teaching Tolerance, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center. One particular project drew me in-- teachers use poetry by homeless people to teach literacy. Students read and understand a poem, write a poem based on their feelings about home, learn to understand why some people are homeless, and empathize with other homeless children. This method of teaching has such multiplying benefits. While attempting to reach a singular of teaching literacy, teachers can affect students' emotional maturity, give a social studies lesson, and encourage students to express themselves in artistic ways.

The poem above is from a writing workshop at the Clergy Coalition Shelter for the Homeless in Hoboken, New Jersey.