NEWS Spreading a little art around town


Non-profit organization provides Uptown-area schools and San Diego community with outreach programs meant to inspire


By Elena Buckley SDUN Editorial Assistant Art is much more a process


of interpretation than replication, requiring a certain level of pas- sion and creativity. It’s a skill that the creators of ArtReach believe in strongly as they try to instill artistic roots back into the school systems of Uptown and downtown San Diego. ArtReach is a non-profit


organization that began in 2007 and is located at 734 Beech St. on the cusp of Banker’s Hill and Cortez Hill. According to Judy Silbert, the program’s director, the organization grew out of the Mission Federal ArtWalk in Little Italy, which as she explains it, is ArtReach’s “mothership.” “Everybody was very passion- ate about making sure children have art in schools as the increas- ing lack of budgets for such things were happening,” Silbert said. “The ArtWalk team decided we should try to do something about that in our own way—which would be to take artists into schools.” In the first year of the program,


ArtReach’s six resident artists visited area schools, providing all the needed materials to test out their lesson plans. The first school they visited was Garfield Elemen- tary, located at 4487 Oregon St. in North Park. The the artists worked with students in the school and fine-tuned their lessons. Amazingly, the program still uses the same lesson plan that they created on Day One: Hav- ing students assemble a “dream quilt.”


“It lets the kids just explore ideas,” Silbert said. “We call it a ‘Dream Quilt’ because we [ask the children], ‘What are your hopes and dreams?’ ‘What do you picture as something you like about the fu- ture?’ We do some guided thinking about what that might look like. Even in terms of if there is a color that makes you feel a certain way and do you want to portray that.” The ArtReach teachers originally used chalk as their medium but have since transitioned into using water- soluble oil pastels with the students. If the school requests it, they can branch out from the dream quilt slightly and also do multicultural art lessons, such as Dia de los Muertos- themed projects, self-portraits or even a still life. Elizabeth Morton, ArtReach program coordinator, explained


San Diego Uptown News | Feb. 18-Mar. 3, 2011 FROM PAGE 1 MEDIAN


the benefits of the $124,336 construction plan to community members, the mayor, and press during the meeting. “The street median is impor-


tant because it corrects previous action by the city. It will provide important traffic calming mea- sure in the middle of a dense resi- dential area,” Gloria said. The median will correct the


two-lane 70-foot wide residential street in the Altadena neighbor- hood as well as reduce traffic speed near the homes by narrow- ing the street with the median. Groundbreaking for the new


median took place on Feb. 10 and is expected to be complete by June


and will also include landscaping, irrigation and a community sign. While construction activity will take place at the median, it is not an- ticipated that Thorn Street will be closed or vehicular access impeded. For detailed information on the im- provement project, visit sandiego. gov and search for the Thorn Street Median Improvement Project.u


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Washington Elementary School (located at 1789 State St.) fifth graders tackle ArtReach's pilot lesson plan—The Dream Quilt. (Courtesy of ArtReach)


that as the age level of the students increases, so does the level of dif- ficulty and complexity. “As they get older it’s more about emotion,” she said. For the self-portrait work- shops, Morton said that they try and focus on what skills the different age groups have. For kindergarteners, the teachers focus on making shapes and study where the different features of the face are located, while for older children they start adding words about themselves and what they’re good at in their projects. “And then for the fourth and


fifth graders, we actually have them do observation drawings of themselves in the mirrors. It’s pretty unstructured in a way, which is nice,” she said. Silbert said that although all of the skills taught in the schools adhere to the standard art cur- riculum required in California, ArtReach programs also cater to each school’s specific needs, tailor- ing the lesson plans and changing them from school to school. During this past December,


ArtReach artists went to Washing- ton Elementary in Little Italy—a school that they’ve been visiting consistently for three years—and


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helped students create a "Peace Tree." Each child made a three- dimensional ornament of what they thought peace meant. Once complete, each ornament was then hung on the tree for the whole school to enjoy.


see Art, page 9


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