Join us as we celebrate the dedication of our talented young artists, explore the transformative power of art in professional settings, and embrace the diverse narratives shaping San Diego’s cultural landscape!
The Mural Program’s First Library Project
This past month was a busy one for the ArtReach Mural Program, as we completed one of our largest murals of the year at the Lemon Grove Public Library (our first library mural, ever!) This project, created in partnership with Lemon Grove School District and San Diego County Library, was designed by Mural Artist Josué Baltézar. This collaborative mural project involved over 50 community members in design ideation and painting through design-input workshops and a community paint day.
This piece highlights the library as an uplifting and beautiful community space, welcoming and accepting of all people. The focal point of the lemon tree represents the community of Lemon Grove, and signifies growth and new beginnings. The books mark the importance of learning, reading, curiosity, and imagination, while the figures show we all have our own stories to tell and create, touching on family resilience, hope, kindness, caregiving, and neighborhood unity. We have an already seen its impact on this beloved cornerstone of the Lemon Grove community.
We would like to share a special shout-out to Scott Borden and Michael Saltsman, Co-Owners of Uptown Tavern, as well as The Rice Family Foundation, for making this project possible.
Student-Partnered Artist Residency K-12 (SPARK)
Student artists at Miller Elementary collaborated with local artist Katie Ruiz of the Pom Pom Project to create a large-scale, collaborative pom pom installation at their school. UTK and Kindergarten students worked with Katie and Teaching Artist Sierra Aguilar for four weeks, learning about the Pom Pom Project and craftivism, learning how to make pom poms, and creating hundreds of pom poms needed for our large scale installation. Students chose the theme of kindness and designed a rainbow heart that could be seen all across the campus to communicate this theme.
It was so much fun to create the pom poms alongside Katie and to see all of their hard work come together into a big statement. Seeing the vibrant colors and feeling the soft pom poms made everyone excited. Learning from Katie about how art can transform minds and communities gave deeper meaning to our fun and creative work.
Community. Access. Connection. Across San Diego
Our Community Programs team has been busy at many San Diego high schools, libraries, and ArtReach HQ, as well as a series of workshops highlighting Indigenous Artists. In partnership with the Southern California American Indian Resource Center and funded by the California Arts Council Impact Grant, this series featured workshops on traditional Indigenous craft mediums including drum making, loom stitch beading, jewelry making, and parfleche bags.
Artist Steven Garcia taught families how to create a rawhide drum from scratch—which included stretching, lacing, drying, & painting! At the end of the workshop, Steven and Kathy led everyone through a ceremonial drum circle and tobacco offering.
Back at ArtReach HQ, Steven led a Loom Stitch Beading workshop that transformed thousands of tiny seed beads into intricate designs. Kathy Willcuts Garcia taught about the history of parfleche bags and their importance to the Lakota people and participants created their own design on rawhide.
This workshop series will come to a close this weekend with an acrylic painting workshop led by featured Youth Artist, Taté Garcia.
In recognizing and celebrating the Artists who shared their knowledge as well as workshop participants, ArtReach is organizing a culminating exhibition of the pieces produced during the workshops and of the Artists’ own practices at the Grossmont Health and Wellness Library in June.
Ongoing Partnership with Jefferson Elementary
In-Class Residency Program Manager Brooke Benedix and Teaching Artist Aiza Pedregon participated in Jefferson Elementary’s third annual Salsa Fest on April 20. Since 2014, ArtReach and Jefferson Elementary have been cultivating a growing partnership to bolster Jefferson’s legacy as an IB STEAM Magnet school in the North Park community. What began as a district-funded grant to bring ArtReach workshops to Jefferson has since blossomed into a parent-led foundation, Friends of Jefferson, that organizes and leads fundraisers throughout the school year to bring programs like ArtReach into their students’ school days.
Salsa Fest is the Friends of Jefferson’s biggest fundraiser of the year and was held at the North Park Mini Park. Students, staff, and families of the Jefferson community, and supporters of neighboring schools showed up for salsa tastings, dancing, face painting, and creating a pepper in the April sunshine. Artists were asked to create their own pepper with style and give it a silly name to match. ArtReach’s multi-year partnership with the Friends of Jefferson is one our staff takes pride in with the collaboration of parent support and intentionality of staff support to serve students IB focused art curriculum and dynamic art projects.
Professional Development at Hotel Del Coronado
We recently partnered with Wentworth Collective to lead a corporate painting event for 160 insurance professionals at Hotel Del Coronado! Led by Teaching Artist Laurie Evans, teams collaborated to design and paint 24 foam letters, culminating in a visually stunning representation of “partnership & independence” that reflected both the artist’s individuality and the organization’s collective spirit.
Letters were themed after five modern artists—Yayoi Kusama, Jean-Michel Basquiat, David Hockney, Niki De Saint Phalle, and Andy Warhol—each symbolizing a unique artistic movement. Participants explored their creativity using acrylic paint and markers, inspired by aspects like Kusama’s polka dots or Basquiat’s expressive style, against the backdrop of an inspiring venue and a sunny San Diego day.
Central to the event’s success were the ArtReach Teaching Artists and our wonderful volunteers who served as experts on their assigned focus artists. Their expertise not only facilitated the creative process but also ignited inspiration among participants.
Are you interested in a painting event for your company? Please reach out to anna@artreachsandiego.org.
Visit Us at Pride by the Beach
Our Community Programs team will have a table, information, and an art activity at Pride By the Beach, a youth-centered Pride event produced by the North County LGBTQ Resource Center on June 1st, 2024 from 12-6pm in Oceanside. We hope to see you there!
You May Also Like:
