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ARTREACH JUNE NEWSLETTER

JUNE 2, 2025

Curriculum Highlight: Telling Stories Through Art

This year, ArtReach’s Residency Program invited students to answer one transformative question: What is My Story? Through our 10-workshop Core Curriculum, students used drawing, painting, and collage to reflect on identity, memory, and self-expression. Along the way, they built essential art skills like ideation, observational drawing, spatial composition, and the principles of design, all while connecting those tools to their personal stories.

Each lesson added to their “artist toolbox” and encouraged them to find their voice through color, line, shape, and symbolism. Paired with The Artist by Ed Vere, the curriculum celebrated creativity, welcomed mistakes, and reminded every student that their story matters and deserves to be shared.

For their final project, students created large symbolic self-portraits that showed who they are and what matters to them. These artworks were bold, personal, and full of meaning. By sharing their stories through art, students discovered that even our differences can create powerful points of connection.

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Creative Youth Development in Community Spaces & Shelters

We believe in the power of art to build confidence and encourage positive development in youth! In service of that goal, the Community Programs team has hosted several rug tufting, sewing, and block printing workshops for teens, both in our Hillcrest Studio Headquarters and at community centers like the Logan Heights Library.

These workshops provide an accessible way for 11-17-year-old youth to engage with textile art while creating a supportive space to make mistakes, express identity, and build resilience. 

Yasmine & Kristina have been working with a local emergency shelter to help provide youth experiencing homelessness, abuse, or neglect with the technical skills and emotional resilience to join the creative economy.

With the start of summer, the Community Programs team is focusing on Summer Camp at ArtReach Studio HQ! If a little one in your life needs some more screen-free summer fun, check out our collaborative, playful, & hands-on artmaking camps! PLUS – get $50 off any weekly camp in June by using code “junecamp50” at checkout.

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Chaparral Students and ArtReach Team Up for Block-Printed Mural on Resilience

This spring, ArtReach Mural Program led a collaborative mural project at Chaparral High School, working with lead muralist Katy Yeaw and nine student artists to create a vibrant new artwork on campus. Blending block printing and mural painting, the project explored themes of growth, creativity, and resilience.

Each student selected a native plant or animal, such as the California Poppy, Coyote, or Red Diamond Rattlesnake, to represent resilience. Meeting twice a week since early March, ArtReach guided students through the process of sketching, carving, and printing their designs using traditional block printing methods. The students’ final prints were incorporated directly into the mural, forming a cohesive piece that celebrates both individual voice and collective effort.

At the mural dedication, each student’s original print was proudly displayed, recognizing their work as central to the project. This mural stands as a testament to the creativity, dedication, and impact of Chaparral’s youth artists. We were so thrilled to help bring this project to life!

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Summer Events

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ArtReach in the News // San Diegans Giving Back

Last month, ArtReach was fortunate to be featured in the San Diego Jewish Journal!

Many people and organizations in San Diego are engaged in the business of giving. They give to others and their communities because it’s what they do. This story will highlight the work of ArtReach, which provides art experiences and education to San Diego public school students on site and within ArtReach’s neighborhood studio.

ArtReach has been in action since 2008 with the mission to bring free visual arts education to San Diego’s public school students, and was a direct result of the drastic cuts to the state’s education budget, which eliminated virtually all arts classes. What a bleak picture is painted by schools without art. All children need and deserve the experience of creating something concrete from their abstract imaginings and visualizations of the world around them. Art has the power to transform a child’s world, inspire, spark creativity, encourage expressive outlets, build confidence, and mine new potential.

When ArtReach began, it served students in kindergarten through grade six, and now reaches kids from TK all the way through 12th grade. Since 2019, the Mural Program has allowed kids in the community to design 40 murals at schools, libraries, recreation centers, and other public places; the large collaborative works reflected their vision and transformed their space.

Each mural is celebrated with a gathering, dedication, and ribbon-cutting ceremony. These murals not only beautify a school or center, they also instill pride and a sense of belonging that lasts long after the project’s completion, a testimony to the power of collaborative creation. These public murals are on display all over the city; check out Art Crawl. ArtReach also shows its students’ creations at various ArtWalks throughout the county, including Little Italy, Liberty Station, and Carlsbad.

Ignite Creativity // Esteban Sánchez, Ian Stiles-Mikl, Isabel Halpern

In 2024, ArtReach opened its brand new 6,000 sq. ft. studio in the middle of Hillcrest and started a “creative wonderland” of community programs and neighborhood workshops that have reached more than 2,100 budding artists in its first year and became one of several recipients of a $5.2 million grant from the Prebys Foundation. The studio conducts a wide range of classes and summer camps and is the showcase for its mural titled “Ignite Creativity,” which was painted by 200 community members over three weeks and was dedicated last September. This joyful, colorful mural celebrates the vibrant history of Hillcrest and evokes the essence of ArtReach. Thank you, ArtReach, for enriching young minds and beautifying San Diego.