28 Mar, 2024
Art Education Nonprofit Schools offer arts education through stand-alone classes and as part of required course offerings. Nonprofit cultural institutions and community organizations provide field trips, in-school performances and teaching…
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Expanding Access to Art Education and Advocacy through Nonprofit Organizations

Art Education Nonprofit

Schools offer arts education through stand-alone classes and as part of required course offerings. Nonprofit cultural institutions and community organizations provide field trips, in-school performances and teaching artists.

Art education advocates aim to level the playing field of access to quality arts programming. They are using innovative, collaborative and cost-effective approaches to advocacy change.

ProjectArt

In 2011 New York City immigrant Adarsh Alphons founded ProjectArt, which brings free art classes to kids in their local libraries. The program has gained national scale and acclaim, with classes in 43 libraries in six cities.

Students are instructed by local professional artists in classes that are aligned with the National Arts Education Association standards and informed by the teaching artist’s own creative practice. The organization has also partnered with schools and community organizations to help engage students outside of the classroom.

The nonprofit’s most recent development is a student-run gallery, ARTSPACE, in Wimberley. Designed as a platform for high school and college students to learn about the business side of running a gallery, the space hosts exhibitions of their own work and that of professional artists. ARTSPACE also offers internships for local teens. ARTSPACE has already hosted shows by artists such as Daniel Arsham and KAWS.

Art Resource Collaborative for Kids

When Sara Demeter’s son started kindergarten at Boston Public School’s Josiah Quincy Elementary School, she was shocked to learn that there was no arts education in the classroom. Demeter, a Jordanian-born artist, remembered fondly art classes she took as a child, and also recognized the way that arts education helped students focus, build confidence, and develop vital skills for academic learning.

Founded in 2012, ARCK has been delivering creative collaborations with social justice themes to children in Boston Public Schools ever since. Lessons align with academic standards and take a universal approach so that every student can participate. During the shutdown, ARCK will keep bringing lessons to kids while they’re home from school, and is adapting them so that students can continue to work together on their projects remotely.

The American College Dance Association and Dance/USA are two more organizations that support the field of dance through national conferences, adjudication processes, and festivals. For more information, visit their websites.

Studio in a School

When philanthropist and art collector Agnes Gund read in The New York Times that public school funding for arts programs had been cut, she founded Studio in a School to bring professional artists into classrooms to teach visual art. Today, the organization works with more than 150 schools and community-based organizations.

Students participate in full-length, multidisciplinary residencies with artists in their schools. The program team decides placements, and the artists are trained for the specifics of each residency, incorporating school-specific learning goals into their instruction.

The program also offers teen internships, which introduce high schoolers to the arts as careers. Many of the teens who participate in these apprenticeships come back as adult volunteers and teachers, showing younger students how to do the same. The organization’s board of directors includes practicing artists, art historians, curators, gallerists and more. It is funded by grants, fundraising events and services, endowments and board directed contributions. It has also established a fund to support the needs of schools without dedicated spaces to host a studio.

National Art Education Foundation

The National Art Education Foundation is the philanthropic arm of the National Art Education Association, the professional membership organization for pre-K through 12 visual art educators. NAEF supports art instruction and research in all communities. Its Ruth Halvorsen Professional Development Grants support art teacher training; its Mary McMullan Curriculum Integration Grants fund models and pilot projects that bring arts learning into general education curricula. NAEF also offers grants for university-based researchers studying how the arts improve learning.

Founded in 1947, the National Art Education Association now includes 20,000 active members at all levels: teachers at all levels, parents, students, administrators, college professors and researchers, artists and teaching artists. NAEA members are located throughout the 50 states, the District of Columbia, U.S. territories, most Canadian provinces and 25 foreign countries.

Huntington University has an active NAEA club whose members engage in fundraising, attend the North Carolina Art Education Association annual conference in Winston-Salem & conduct service learning with local children. The club recently hosted an art booth at the Laurinburg Arts Festival.

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