We Learn. We do. We Teach.

In 2014 and 2015 Art Division students and staff were invited to teach a week-long drawing and printmaking workshops at the Gadsden Arts Center in Quincy, Florida. The purpose of the workshops was for the Center to connect with  the Latino community. On both occasions, the students were very enthusiastic about learning the process of printmaking. The Gadsden experience also allowed our students to teach a skill they learned at Art Division to the kids in Florida. Through this experience, we realized that our students are perfect candidates to teach art in the Hispanic community.

Para Los Ninos - Gratts

After the Gadsden workshops, it was decided that we could provide the same programming in our own community. With art being the first subject being cut from the public school systems, we realized that there are many children in our neighborhood that are not given the opportunity to learn about art. In 2014, we partnered with Para Los Niños Gratts Primary Center, a charter school serving students in kindergarten and first grade.

This school had no previous art program and also lacked an art classroom. We were able to build  a program using an existing outdoor space to create a “classroom” that was conducive to accommodating 25-40 students at a time. During the first phase, (semester one) two of our students taught a three month art class based on the Reggio Emilia Approach. One hundred forty students were able to explore different art forms taught by our students. Through increased funding, we are able to currently have four Art Division students teaching at Gratts. To date, 10 of our students have taught at Gratts.
​
Our students are  being trained at Art Division in various principles of teaching such as the Reggio Emilia theory, how to organize and create a syllabus, how to approach difficult situations, etc. The training workshops are being conducted by professionals in each field.

Printmaking Workshops

Learn, Do, Teach is Art Division’s innovative program that first trains Art Division students in printmaking and then brings them into a community setting where they lead a workshop for children. The program is based on Art Division’s on-going printmaking class and provides advanced students with the opportunity to share their growing expertise with children who have limited exposure to arts education. In 2017, Art Division held a printing workshops in Desert Hot Springs and USC Fisher Museum of Art.

We have expanded the program to include more local organizations and have also extended our reach further into our own community. We have also diversified our workshops to include other disciplines, such as drawing, painting, and creative writing. We are also looking forward to an upcoming project that would will include a portable press, so that we can easily bring printing workshops to almost any location. 

Alexandria House

Alexandria House is a transitional residence and house of hospitality. They provide safe and supportive housing for women and children in the process of moving from emergency shelter to economic stability and permanent housing. Art Division has partnered with Alexandria House to implement collaborative projects between AD students and AH’s young children and teenage residents 6-18 (y/o). Participating AD students have exposed the Alexandria House youth to different art disciplines and will be covering a wide range of creative, artistic practices (including painting, drawing, ceramics, photography, filmmaking, etc). A culminating, collective exhibition of the students’ final artwork will be held at the Art Division Gallery.

Alimento

For the past 7 years Art Division partners with Skylight Theatre to prepare over 300 sack lunches and distribute them to the hungry in the MacArthur Park area of Los Angeles. Funds are raised at our annual Alimento events at the Skylight Theatre and First Congregational Church of Los Angeles which provide funds for the food give-away.

St. Anne's Outreach Program

Art Division piloted an outreach program at St. Anne’s whose mission is: Working together to build safe, nurturing and resilient families—from pregnancy to parenthood and childhood to adulthood—for generations to come. Art Division provided art classes to the young women of St. Anne’s led by one of our students. 

High School Summer Art Camp 2018

Alexandria House

Alimento Concert 2018

High School Summer Art Camp 2018

Art Division x Art Center- Socially Engaged Art

Sponsored by the Mary Pickford Foundation, this Designmatters studio teamed ArtCenter Fine Art students with artists from Art Division, a non-profit organization located in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles that serves young artists committed to pursuing and studying the visual arts. As a field that blurs the lines between art and life, the Spring 2018 studio, Socially Engaged Art, emphasized participation, dialogue, and action from a place of shared concerns. The class was formatted to encourage collaboration to foster skills of negotiation, while holding space for individual voices and unexpected innovation within art production. Employing the empowering practice of socially engaged art, student teams created collaborative works that explored social issues and presented their work in a public exhibition entitled “DESC | LISADO: Descentralizado, Desentralisado, Decentralized,” mounted on ArtCenter’s campus and at a Chinatown gallery.

Please visit the link below to learn more!
​designmattersatartcenter.org/proj/socially-engaged-art/overview/

Art Division Community Bus Stop Project

The Art Division Community Bus Stop Project is a collaboration between Art Division and Outfront/Decaux. The project intends to empower artists to re-imagine public spaces and transform the way the commuters experience public transit through art.

This art-activation runs along 6th St (between Alvarado – Vermont)
Art Division is also dedicated to community engagement and to building a thriving arts community in the Rampart District.

On October 5th 2019, we held an opening reception and walkthrough of the Art Division Community Bus Stop Project that was open to the public. It was such a great event. View photos below!

Thank you to Outfront/JCDecaux for providing this wonderful opportunity for our students.
CLICK HERE to learn more about Outfront/JCDecaux's community activations.