OUR IMPACT, BY THE NUMBERS

In fiscal year 2022, we provided...

265 Youth Apprenticeships in the digital arts and through the creation of large-scale public art

Creative Art Works returned to in-person implementation of all of its Public Art Youth Employment programs in FY22. This past year, we provided 265 full-time and part-time jobs to young NYC residents, through the creation of five works of large-scale public art; digital photography, graphic design, and branding; and character design.

600 participants and 10 partners with 15 out-of-school time programs

Semester-long after-school and Saturday art programs offer K-12 students the opportunity to develop their artistic, technical, and social skills, with a positive impact on academic behaviors. All programs returned to in-person instruction in FY22.

278

1,650 students with 9 in-school arts integration programs

Arts-based, integrated units of study help to meet mandated arts education requirements and mitigate the lack of ample arts education in public schools. Curricula, including anatomy and physiology, digital design, social justice, and the humanities, were designed in keeping with the NY State Learning Standards for the Arts and the NY City Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in the Arts as well as the guidelines of Creative Youth Development.

...and served 275 participants through community art-making events

These projects engage youth with their families as part of larger public events with community partners. Art-making aligns with and enhances our partners’ goals for youth and community engagement. In FY22, CAW saw the return of four in-person community art-making events.

“Storytelling, without fail, is something that intrigues and excites everyone. It’s how we learn to communicate, process our emotions, imagine, and create. Learning to express these stories, and being given access to the space to do so, is so important, especially for students. It’s a way to show them that they are seen and heard, that their words matter, and that their stories matter.”

Creative Art Works’ Visual Storytelling and Puppetry program at The William Lynch School in Hamilton Heights has got a lot of people talking. This program, which is part of the New York City Council’s Cultural AfterSchool Adventures (CASA) initiative, introduces primary-school students to the surprisingly sophisticated art of puppetry. Young creators try their hands at making increasingly complex forms of puppets, including stick puppets, paper plate puppets, paper bag puppets, sock puppets, and marionettes. Along the way they learn the basic building blocks of stories, such as character, conflict, setting, plot, and, of course, dialogue. The program will culminate with a grand puppet show with performances by all students on stages built by each grade expressly for the final event.

Students naturally enjoy talking to their own puppets, or staging conversation between their puppets and those of their classmates. It’s fun, but it’s also a vehicle for tremendous growth. To find out more, we talked to CAW Teaching Artist Maham Khwaja about this program and the enduring appeal of telling stories with puppets.

What skills or competencies are your students learning by making puppets to tell their own stories? The students have been learning so much! They’re learning to physically create puppets, as well as learning to think about their characters, in terms of personality, likes and dislikes. From there, they’ll be learning to give their characters words, scenarios and stories. We’re building stories from the ground up and the students, beyond being able to express themselves artistically, are learning to imagine and create using characters that they’ve made themselves.

Tell us about the process of creating characters and putting them into narratives? We begin by naming our puppet characters. Then, we give them personalities and think about how they respond to things in their world. At this point, we’re beginning to give our characters scenarios in which they can express themselves and engage with one another. Soon, the dialogue and conversations will be part of greater stories created by the students themselves. Dialogue and conversation can, often times, be an extension of what a particular student may be feeling or thinking at any given moment.

Why do young kids respond so strongly to puppets? I think it’s because puppets are so tactile, interactive, and expressive – young kids are instantly drawn to them. Not only can they watch puppets tell engaging stories, but they can also be a part of those stories, and even create their own stories using their own puppets.

School’s out and sixth-grade students are arriving at Creative Art Works’ after-school Bookmaking program at IS 254 in The Bronx. As they finish their afternoon snacks, CAW Teaching Artist Ryan Davis starts a warm-up by asking his students to make blind contour drawings in their sketchbook. The three rules include no looking at your paper, no lifting your pencil off the paper, and no stopping until time is up.

They then create several quick drawings of their classmates and share a laugh at the results. This exercise teaches the students to develop observation techniques, eye-hand coordination, and to focus on the process rather than the final results. These skills are then used when the students create accordion books with panels of drawings that depict a story.

Starting with sketchbook drawings, students come up with character, plot, and setting ideas for their book. Once they create a story, they experiment with pencils, pens, and paints on their final project.

Ryan says his students are responding well to the projects in the class. They like the hands-on nature and are comfortable with tools and materials they’ve been using all their lives – paper and pencils, paint and brushes. But each project is designed with a thought-provoking question at its core.

Ryan explains, “I challenged my students to make a book in which they express to the reader who and what they are. Once they made their books, I told them, ‘I’m going to hold you to your own words. You are responsible for being true to yourself.’”

Teaching Artist Ryan Davis and student

This Creative Art Works program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs through the Cultural After School Adventures (CASA) initiative, in partnership with the City Council and Council Member Oswald Feliz.