About Us

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Now in its seventh year of operation, the Art Center runs a five-day-a-week after-school visual arts program; an in-school program in local schools; and an urban farm where kids and other community members come together to create beauty by landscaping, planting and growing. At least once a month kids explore the city in the Cultural Field Trips program. The Center started an internship program for teenagers in the neighborhood, and it has been truly gratifying to watch the teens inspire and teach the younger participants.

Street SmARTs After-School Program

Click here to see our fall schedule.

 

The Art Center's Street SmARTs after-school curriculum is based on two types of sessions: the structured class and the looser open studio. Classes are held after school and are mixed by age and race.

 

On any given day, students learn techniques such as bookmaking, printmaking, painting, drawing, fabric art, silkscreen and ceramics. We have also added technology classes, which include Adobe Illustrator, iMovie, iWeb, Photoshop and digital photography. These wide-ranging classes give the youths a chance to explore different media, broaden their artistic vocabulary and acquire tools to express themselves in new ways.

 

We have expanded into 3 additional blighted neighborhoods: Pullman, Bush, and Greater Grand Crossing.

Click here to see the fall schedule.

School SmARTs In-School Program

The South Chicago Art Center has formed partnerships with local schools. This in-school program, called School SmARTs, uses an innovative curriculum that integrates art-making with the subjects and issues students are learning about in reading, social studies and science.

 

Our program not only fills a vital curriculum gap for these students-most local public schools have no art curriculum-it also improves and enriches the conventional classroom teaching, opening new avenues of understanding for students who are struggling and new challenges for those who are considered successful. We believe that by engaging students in a different approach to learning, homeroom teachers will get to know their students better and in different ways.

Artists' Garden

In the spring of 2003, the Art Center created a community garden on four city lots just north of the Center. This garden furthers our mission by promoting friendship, cultural pride and civic engagement in the neighborhood.

 

The Artists' Garden has been a catalyst for building community participation in civic affairs. It lies on a block that has only one house on it. To say it is blighted would be an understatement. It is also sandwiched between an African American Section 8 housing facility and a block of mostly Mexican immigrants. Over the last summer the garden attracted more than twenty-five community members, who received plots to grow produce or flowers. This summer, the Artists' Garden received first place in Mayor Daley's Landscape Awards (we had received third place the last two years). Art Center classes visit the garden to watercolor, catch bugs, draw and sculpt. More important than the produce itself are the interactions and relationships forged between neighbors.

 

Cultural Field Trips

 

At least once a month the Art Center reinforces art classes by taking participants to visit Chicago's museums, institutions and galleries. These cultural field trips give students the opportunity to explore artists that inspire them and discover new avenues of inspiration in these institutions. The trips broaden kids' worldview and open them up to new experiences. More importantly, they advance one of the core goals of the Art Center: to introduce South Chicago kids to a world of possibilities outside of themselves and their isolated neighborhood.