SchoolArts - August/September 2008

Elementary

art Partners for New orleans

“The teaching staff and students of these public schools are delighted with excitement and gratitude for being able to participate in such a wonderful activity that will bring a bit of color back into the schools and community.”

—Todd Shaffer, Teaching Artist, Young Audiences Louisiana

Amanda Sirianni

New Orleans’ cultural heritage has come to life in four city schools through inspiring murals created by a partnership between Young Audiences (YA), Crayola, and the National Art Education Association (NAEA). Young Audiences is a national source of arts-in-education programs and services, and NAEA is the nation’s largest organization for the visual arts. Crayola, maker of traditional and innovative arts and crafts materials, is well known to parents and teachers.

The project was aimed at revitalizing arts education programs in New Orleans public and charter schools, including William J. Fischer, Mar- tin Behrman, Harriet R. Tubman, and Kate Middleton Elementary, which were all damaged by Hurri- cane Katrina nearly three years ago. Through the partnership, students from the Louisiana chapter of Young Audiences demonstrated that the rich culture and deep roots of New Orleans is still alive and thriving.

With Crayola’s donation of art supplies to each school, and the programs provided by Young Audiences, teachers at these four schools ensured that their students experienced the benefits of art education.

Mural Creation

Young Audiences Louisiana’s teaching artists, Todd Shaffer and Kyle Bravo worked with students from the four New Orleans public and charter schools to make artistic tiles using Model Magic air-dry modeling compound to create a collaborative mural. The complete mural was put together using the tiles from the four schools during the Crayola opening night event at the 2008 NAEA Conference in New Orleans and was officially unveiled the following day. It was accompanied by narratives that expressed what the students felt New Orleans meant to them—the symbols, places, and people who have had a positive impact on their lives.

After the mural was unveiled, it went on tour to each of the four participating schools, allowing fellow

students and faculty to appreciate the artistic creativity and hard work that went into this collaborative project.

The murals were created as follows: 1. Students worked with teaching artists at their schools to design the artwork that would be painted on the blank mural space. 2. Teaching artists helped students paint the artwork with multiple colors. 3. The four painted murals were transported to Crayola’s Opening Night event for NAEA 2008, where art educators from across the country helped to make and attach Model Magic mosaic tiles that matched the mural artwork. 4. The murals were shown at NAEA.