Artists in Schools & Communities

highlights

Pittsburgh Beechwood PreK-5

Students at Pittsburgh Beechwood PreK-5 enjoyed another year of immersive Artist Residency Projects, with students in every grade level participating, and over 600 students, teachers, families, and staff engaged and impacted by the creative process. Pittsburgh Beechwood has been implementing Residency Projects since 2007! Pittsburgh Beechwood students of all ages participated in an after-school interdisciplinary Residency Project with Resident Artists Alison Zapata and Geña Nieves in partnership with the Latino Community Center. Utilizing visual arts, music, and movement, the primary goal of the project was to help Latino students develop knowledge and understanding of their native countries, in addition to pride in their heritage. The Teaching Artists also integrated topics from students’ grade level curricula and general English Language Arts to help increase literacy and learning.

Pittsburgh Beechwood PreK - 5 kindergarten self-portraits created during a Residency Project with Alison Zapata.

First grade students worked with Resident Artist Lindsay Woge to create "mood looms," weaving yarn symbolic of emotions over time.

First graders also explored empathy and the shoe sculptures of Gwen Murphy, exploring the concept of "walking a mile in someone else's shoes"

Second graders drawing flowers during their project with Resident Artist Joanna Abel

Second grade students worked with Resident Artist Joanna Abel to create an Art Garden of pollinator birds and insects and Chihuly-inspired flowers. Collaborating with CMU's Create Lab, students learned to code Flutter-based robots so that pollinators could move around the garden in response to auditory stimuli.

Resident Artist Maritza Mosquera worked with 3rd grade students to study landscapes and artists Marc Chagall and Faith Ringgold and to create art utilizing drawing, watercolor, collage, and screenprinting.

Fourth grade students worked with Resident Artist Lindsay Woge to create Peruvian retalbo boxes, combining found objects, painting, and sculpture to convey an idea, a wish, or a memory.

Fifth grade students worked with Resident Artist Tina Brewer while reading "The Road to Freedom," using Adinkra symbols and studying the African diaspora to create individual dream packets and a collaborative quilt.

Kindergarten

Kindergarten students worked with Teaching Artist/Interdisciplinary Artist Lindsay Woge to repurpose glass and wood doors from the school’s original kindergarten classroom into works of “eye-catching” mixed media art. The students created self-portraits with a variety of media including clay and used collage techniques to create the colorful artwork adorning the school doors and installed in the school hallway.

First Grade

First grade students worked with Teaching Artist/Interdisciplinary Artist Rachael Cooper to create for collaborative Pittsburgh-themed murals on a movable, custom-made garden planter box. The students brainstormed Pittsburgh ideas, then cut them out of clay slabs, glazed them, and assembled them with glue and grout.

Second Grade

Second graders learned about bees with Teaching Artist/Interdisciplinary Artist Joanna Abel in a variety of media and contexts during their Residency Project. The students created bees as props for performing various parts of a bee’s life, created 2D and 3D flowers for their bees to pollinate, and built and entire installation including yellow honeycomb and a repurposed hive that can open up and reveal information about a bee’s life cycle.

Third Grade

Third grade students learned about famous artists with Teaching Artist/Interdisciplinary Artist Maritza Mosquera, combining butterfly imagery with watercolor, drawing materials, and text to create intriguing mixed media masterpieces.

Fifth Grade

Fifth grade students learned about craftsmanship, carpentry, and woodworking with Teaching Artist/Interdisciplinary Artist Zack Ramey. In conjunction with the students’ reading of The Hope Chest by Karen Schwabach, fifth grade students created their own hope chests during this unique residency project. About the project, the fifth grade teachers wrote: the hope chests symbolize their hopes and dreams for the future.

2018-2019 Residency Projects

If you’re viewing on a laptop or desktop, you can hover your cursor over the images to the right of the screen to view captions about these projects.

Kindergarten students worked with Resident Artist Alison Zapata on a 60-day Long Term Residency Project, a unique project model that allows for a more in-depth collaboration between Lead Teacher and Teaching Artist. An LTR provides additional structure, planning time, experiences, and reflection time to implement comprehensive arts integration programming. Kindergarteners had unique opportunities to show what they’re learning, creating self-portraits, learning about Pittsburgh photographer Charles “Teenie” Harris, and exploring music and dance with several visiting artists.

First grade students worked with Resident Artist Lindsay Woge to explore ideas related to empathy, with each student creating a “mood loom,” weaving fibers symbolic of emotions over time. Short-term activities such as journaling, discussions, and games developed prosocial, team-building skills. The students’ culminating project was inspired by contemporary artist Gwen Murphy’s shoe sculptures, with students creating sculptures of their own, reflective of the phrase “walking in someone else’s shoes” to further engage with how our emotions can look like on the outside and feel on the inside.

2nd grade students created an Art Garden installation with Resident Artist Joanna Abel. They designed flowers inspired by Dale Chihuly’s glass sculptures and included pollinators including bees, butterflies, bats, and hummingbirds. Students explored garden inhabitants through drawing, dance, movement, and even through coding, as students collaborated with CMU CREATE Lab’s Flutter-based robots, which they programmed to move through the sculpture in response to the loudness of the school environment.

3rd grade students studied cityscapes with Resident Artist Maritza Mosquera as they explored various media including collage, watercolor, drawing, and screenprinting. Entitled OUR SKY MAGIC and LINE: skymagic-skyline, the project was inspired by artists Marc Chagall and Faith Ringgold and the hilly neighborhoods and scenic vistas of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh Beechwood is located in Pittsburgh’s Beechview neighborhood, an exemplar of a picturesque mountainous neighborhood.

Inspired by the concepts of remembering, saving, and collecting, 4th grade students worked with Resident Artist Lindsay Woge to construct Peruvian retablo boxes, thoughtfully arranged with found objects, painting, and sculpture to convey and important idea, wish, or memory. Journaling, creative writing, and skits inspired by school-year memories supported the art making process, and a visit to the Carnegie International exhibit at the Carnegie Museum of Art inspired students’ interests in these themes.

While reading The Road to Freedom, 5th grade students worked with Resident Artist Tina Williams Brewer to learn about the rich and significant histories of African cultures prior to the disapora. Students created individual fiber dream/prayer packets using Adinkra symbols and collaborated to make legacy quilt panels symbolizing the stories and passages of those who came before.