Art as a Tool for Community Building audio

Greetings friends,
I was a panelist at this conference representing our DMUUC Green Sanctuary Committee. I was the “and many more”. We were asked to speak about art as a tool for community building around greening our church community. Here is an audio of my presentation.

Goodnow Garden Totem Project

This is an awesome project! I was invited to a 6 day residency by Amy Macht (The Macht Foundation) and Gloria Jenkins from the Goodnow Community Center in Baltimore. I have worked with them before to create Good Character Banners, Ancestor Masks and even a fiberglass Baltimore Crab sculpture with the young people who come to them for after school activities.

When I arrived at the center for a planning meeting, I saw the new community garden that they had created last Summer. I immediately envisioned the totems in my mind's eye! I was told that their neighborhood has new residents who are refugees from Bhuton and the Congo. The fact is that they had requested the opportunity to grow food on some unused land at the center. Out of this sprung a Community Garden.

Six workshops later, our participants had reviewed totem history in the Americas as well as abroad to inspire them. The created shapes and sketches for each piece on the poles. They then painted their shapes which were assembled onto the poles to bring the energy of growth, partnership and sustainability to their own garden.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Collaboration

Within each residency, students achieve success as individual artists as well as in collaboration with fellow students.

Charles Drew ES Character Banners 2009

2009 Character Banner Project, Charles Drew ES in Silver Spring MD

Caryl Henry Alexander and Jesse Alexander present:

Kudos to the Montgomery County Skilled Craftspeople!

A great crew of four craftspeople from Montgomery County's Department of Education installed the banners at Rosemary Hill. What a great experience to have their support on the project. Thank you!

Rosemary Hill Banner Project Dedication

Miranda Bradley, Art Specialist, RHES

Healthy Lifestyles Banner Project PICS!

Chesapeake Bay Life Banner Project

This 3rd and 4th grade banner project was created by integrating fourth grade Chesapeake Bay science curriculum and MD fine arts content standards.

Our focus was to identify the key components to a healthy bay, it’s floor, water and watershed. Together we identified important organisms that live in the bay’s environment and created drawings and paintings to represent them. The mural came together as a powerful depiction of the interdependence of all who live in Chesapeake Bay watershed.

More than 120 students, faculty, staff and PTA volunteers collaborated on the 14ft x 12ft artwork’s concept, design and painting.

The project is supported by


and the Fairland EC PTA