Art Matters for At-Risk Youth

Left: Art created by a student at the Youth Detention Center.

Below: Vashti Moss, program administrator

Right top: Teaching artists work with youth at risk. Bottom: A video art lesson during quarantine at YDC.

Art Matters

THE MUSEUM SCHOOL ART

CLASSROOM is a cozy space, perfect for small classes and personal attention. Students at the Museum School benefit from the excellent teaching staff and proximity to the galleries themselves.

Even before Covid-19 closed the doors, however, young people who could not visit were benefitting from a Museum School art education. Art Matters is an outreach program that takes place outside the museum setting. Currently it serves youth at two facilities, A New Day Youth and Family Services and the Youth Detention Center.

The program is funded in part by the Mayor’s Youth Initiative, launched in 2018. The initiative sought proposals that would expand current programs exposing youth to art. “Instead of offering more classes,” says Elizabeth Becker, curator of education, “we decided to consider an audience that doesn’t typically come to the Museum. Our focus would be out in the community.” They’d like to work with more organizations, especially now when there is limited access

“We have built a social justice, trauma-informed program that engages the youth and administration at each site.”

– VASHTI MOSS

to the Museum, but funding limits the size of the program and number of partners.

The Youth Detention Center houses incarcerated youth ages 14 to 17. New Day is a homeless teen residential center. Unlike Museum School classes which focus on skills, Art Matters programs concentrate on using art as a communication and therapeutic tool. While students do learn about color and composition and materials, “We have built a social justice, trauma-informed program that engages the youth and administration at each site,” says Program Administrator Vashti Moss. “Our teaching artists are a stellar group of compassionate, creative, engaged educators and creators. Our work grows and changes as the needs of our partners grow and change.”

Art Matters specifically hired teaching artists who have worked in various community settings and are attracted to working with youth at risk. Before the shutdown, they’d started implementing Museum tours for A New Day and Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico. “We had feedback from every visit that the youth love the tours and were