ADOPT-A-SCHOOL, ARTISTS-IN-CLASSROOM AND ART AND EXPLORATION FIELD TRIPS WITH ANGELS GATE CULTURAL CENTER
Friday, April 13, 2007
Pentel Arts -- Ontario, California
Pentel Arts is proud to announce the Adopt-a-School, Artists-in-Classroom and Art and Exploration Field Trips with Angels Gate Cultural Center have been huge successes.
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The first Artists-in-Classroom program was held at Barton Hill Elementary, in San Pedro CA, and ran from mid-December through the first week in March.
Artists-in-Classrooms is designed to provide the highest quality fine arts education to the greatest number of students in the Harbor area and Southland communities.
Last year, this program provided over 4,000 students with sustained, standards-based arts instruction. Artists-in-Classrooms offers weekly instruction by professional
artist/teachers collaborating with schoolteachers in their classrooms. Classes incorporate a variety of arts and media including: ceramics, poetry, drawing, painting,
sculpture, playwriting and photography and are currently being offered in San Pedro, Carson, Wilmington, Lomita and Harbor City schools.
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Each medium teaches youngsters
a new awareness of themselves and their surroundings and offers them the resources and support to articulate these new perspectives. In addition to, they learn discipline,
judgment, cooperation, problem solving and an appreciation for their own potential and for alternative points of view.
Artist/Teachers offer skill-based lessons, which integrate cross-disciplinary knowledge, educational standards, and an appreciation of cultural diversity. Classes are
offered in 6- and 12-week series to provide students with a sustained, sequential education experience. Each Artist-in-Classrooms class series ends in a culminating
event to celebrate every student's work on an equal footing. Culminating events also help develop a climate of involvement in the arts across school campuses.
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Cultivating each student's individual expression, creativity and achievement is a programming priority. Individual attention fosters students' self-esteem, encourages
active engagement in the learning process and is critical to long-term scholastic achievement. Arts instruction helps students develop a new awareness of themselves and
their surroundings and offers them the resources and support to articulate these perspectives. In addition to art-making, observational and critical thinking skills,
arts education exercises students' self-discipline, team-building and problem-solving faculties. These experiences encourage each child's appreciation for their own
potential and alternative points of view and promote overall scholastic achievement by integrating knowledge of multiple subjects and by increasing students' self-confidence.
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Studies find that youngsters who receive instruction in the arts make higher grades, score higher on standardized tests and are less likely to drop out of school than
those who have not had the benefit of art classes. Additionally, as teachers collaborate with Artists-in-Classrooms artist/teachers, they are introduced to new techniques
and develop insights into their students' capabilities and learning styles. Furthermore, the specialists are inspired by contacts outside of their studios and the immediate
feedback from their ideas, which the students provide.
Conceived and administered by non-profit corporation Angels Gate Cultural Center, Artists-in-Classrooms is a cooperative venture between schools, the Center, community-based
organizations and contributing businesses and foundations. Artists-in-Classrooms works with LA's BEST in providing quality after-school programs in the arts, and has recently
expanded to include the Harbor Youth Arts Initiative, an exciting new program designed to strengthen and develop the impact of Artists-in-Classrooms in Harbor City and
N. Wilmington schools.
The Barton Hill Elementary Adopt-a-School program featured artist/specialist, Robin Bott
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Robin Bott's Bio:
SCULPTURE/MIXED MEDIA
Robin Bott has extensive experience working with children of all ages, including those with special needs. Although she works in a variety of media, she particularly
enjoys three-dimensional projects and was a recent participant at a sculpture symposium in Yuma, Arizona. A resident of Long Beach, where she is pursuing further art
study, she has received public arts commissions and exhibits in local art galleries.
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Miss Bott worked with Mr. Scognallimo's 3rd grade class, where she and the students used a variety of colors in both the markers and oil pastels. They worked on aquatic
themed drawings, paintings, and mosaic tile work. Miss Bott says, "The Pentel Arts product I like the most would be the oil pastels. I use oil pastels with my students
quite often. The students are able to get a better understanding of mixing colors when they are able to experiment with the oil pastels." Pentel Arts products last a long
time and are also very kid friendly. "The colors are beautiful and my students enjoy using them. Their results are always fabulous."
Painter and draftsperson, Logan Fox, led the next Artist-in-Classrooms session.
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Logan Fox's Bio:
PAINTING/DRAWING
The son of missionary parents in Japan, Logan Fox drew so much at an early age that his father hired a fine artist to tutor him. The family moved to Los Angeles when he
was 12, where he continued to draw. He played in rock bands, worked as a ranch hand, and lived on the Picuris Pueblo reservation in New Mexico. While in the Army in Viet Nam,
he drew portraits of the officers. After teaching himself to paint from art books, he took his BA in Studio Art and MFA in Painting and Performance Art.
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Mr. Fox currently exhibits and performs in the Los Angeles area, is a part-time teacher for LAUSD, makes Kopykat paintings of 20th century masters, and does portraits at local
street fairs and by commission. He is also a fine art tutor on-site at Angels Gate Cultural Center.
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Mr. Fox's class is being held at Normont Elementary School in Harbor City. The session began February 26th and runs through May 7th. Here's what Logan says about his
experiences with Pentel Arts products. "I can afford to buy them for my classes and the workability and color selection, in the set of 16 especially, is superior to anything
in the price range (I'm referring to the 200201609 product #). I am so satisfied with Pentel Arts Oil Pastels that I have no reason to even try another brand."
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Along with the Adopt-a-School and Artist-in-Classrooms programs, the Angels Gate Cultural Center also offers Art and Exploration Field Trips. Pentel and Angels Gate have
already sponsored (2) events, one on the 27th and the other on the 29th of March. These Field Trips consist of a 3-hour program, running from 9 am to noon, which includes
gallery tours, artist-lead discussion and 2 fine arts workshops. The Center can accommodate 60-70 students per field trip and requests the attendance of students' classroom teachers.
Angels Gate Cultural Center is a place of creative discovery, exploration and enlightenment, providing the Southern California community and visitors from around the world
with opportunities for enrichment and education. The Center was established as a non-profit corporation 22 years ago in Angels Gate Park on the upper reservation of the former
Fort MacArthur, and is currently home to forty-five artist's studios, two galleries, classrooms, rehearsal space and panoramic views of the Pacific and the Port of
Los Angeles‹one of the largest ports in the world. The Center is an arts education hub in a district of the City that is significantly under served, offering high quality
programming to the communities of San Pedro, Harbor City, Carson, Gardena, Lomita, Wilmington, and Los Angeles. In addition, Angels Gate Cultural Center produces innovative
international residencies and twelve multi-disciplinary shows annually in twenty-six hundred square feet of public gallery space.
Students are divided into two groups upon arrival at Angels Gate. Tours of exhibits in Gallery A and Downstairs Gallery are led by professional artist/teachers who involve
students in a discussion around cross-disciplinary creativity and approaches to looking at art. Subsequently, each group of students participates in two consecutive,
hour-long fine arts workshops in drawing/painting and ceramics. Each child will have produced one to two artworks upon completion of the Field Trip.
ART + EXPLORATION FIELD TRIP SCHEDULE
9:00 greeting outside Gallery A
9:05-9:40 Tour of Gallery A & Downstairs Gallery
9:40 walk to F & G classrooms
9:50 BEGIN WORKSHOP I- drawing
10:40 clean up
10:50 change classes
11:00 BEGIN WORKSHOP II- assemblage
11:50 clean up
12:00 walk to Gallery A
12:05 WRAP UP IN GALLERY A
As you can see, Pentel is much more than just a manufacturer of quality writing instruments. With the successful launch of its new Pentel Arts brand and its enthusiastic
commitment to bettering the community, our youth (which is our greatest resource) will be given a better opportunity at succeeding in school and later on in life's great adventure.
Pentel Arts - Express Yourself.
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