Ways We Are Crafting and Collaborating...
September Newsletter
Guiding Art Teachers during COVID
For the past four weeks, with 80 teaching artists and art teachers from Boston and beyond, we have had the amazing privilege of processing, learning and tackling the question, “What do our students truly need during this time?” These valuable teachers understand the pressures, and the need to close students’ learning gap while fueling their development, and they recognize that their students need them as they navigate this challenging time.
Understanding the importance of art in processing emotions, EdVestors’s BPS Arts Expansion Fund, CF Adams Charitable Foundation and Wellington Management Foundation generously supported the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts in partnership with Open Door Arts and Wheelock Family Theatre for our summer intensive professional development series, Supporting the Processing of Experiences through the Arts during COVID (SPEAC). Thanks to our supporters and to all who participated!
Back-to-School Supplies: You Can Help!
Boston Public Schools will soon be back in session, and we’ll be right back in virtual art classes with our BPS students. While our art teachers have been working on crafting responsive curriculum, our students need supplies to get through the school year, whether learning from home or in their classrooms. We need your help as we prepare art supply kits for 1,300 elementary and middle school students. Help us send a kit to every student. Please donate here today..
9/16 • Eliot School Salon: A Conversation with Abigail Norman
Join us this Wednesday, September 16 at 4pm for a conversation with Eliot School Executive Director Abigail Norman. Pre-registration is required. RSVP here.
10/8 • Eliot School Salons: Whose Standards? Racial Equity in Craft & Design Part 1 of 2
We must pause and ask ourselves: Whose standards are we working within and towards? What do we need to embrace, give up, and change, in order to gain true anti-racist transformation within craft and design?
Join the conversation with speakers, Alison Croney Moses, Program Director at the Eliot School, Matthew Shenoda, Associate Provost for Social Equity & Inclusion (SEI), Namita Gupta Wiggers Director/co-founder of Critical Craft Forum. Moderators Michelle Millar Fisher, the Ronald C. and Anita L. Wornick Curator of Contemporary Decorative Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston will facilitate an authentic conversation with speakers as they respond to the questions at hand. Finally, respondent Paul Sacaridiz, Executive Director of Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, will set the scene for an open audience Q&A. RSVP Here.
10/14 • Eliot School Salons: Whose Standards? Racial Equity in Craft & Design Part 2 of 2
In the past six months, as the COVID-19 crisis has combined with a newly galvanized urgency to address racial equity, gaps and tensions have been exposed in these “pipeline” structures, showing places where pathways in the field simply fail to exist. As we rebuild post-pandemic, what new systems need to be put in place to support the contemporary craft field as a truly equitable space?
Join the Conversation with speakers, Anthony Romero Professor in the Practice at SMFA Tufts University, Jabari Peddie Director of Leadership Development at Build Excel Sustain (BES), and Polly Carpenter Director of Public Programs at Boston Society for Architecture. Alison Croney Moses Director of School & Community Partnership Programs at the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts, will moderate a lively conversation that will include quick-fire respondents: Steph Foster Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Photography at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA and Isaac Madeira-Cepeda, teen artist at Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts’ Teen Bridge Program. RSVP here.
The "Whose Standards? Racial Equity in Craft and Design" series is an Eliot School Salon. It is hosted by the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts, generously supported by Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and presented in collaboration with Boston Design Week.
Music in the Schoolyard: A Far Cry + Jazz
We are proud to partner with A Far Cry, our local musician-led, Grammy-nominated orchestra. Two August pop-ups are followed by ‘Treasure Hunt,’ Sept 12 & 13. Criers (left) will perform in our schoolyard and nearby Loring-Greenough House, exploring emotions to open the heart during this pandemic time. Eliot School teaching artist Zahirah Nur Truth (right) curated visual art to weave in with the music, inviting audience members to contribute to a community art piece responding to the music and their surroundings. ‘Treasure Hunt’ is sold out.
Stay tuned for jazz duos and trios in the yard Sunday afternoons this fall. Attendance is limited; pre-registration will be required. We’re waiting for City permits to come through, and then we’ll post links and details here.
9/27, 4pm – New England Jazz Connections presents Man on Land
9/20, 10/11, 18 & 25, 4pm – Brian Friedland & Friends
9/18 • Student Project Pick-up
Need to pick up your projects and materials? We're scheduling half-hour time-slots for Friday, Sept 18, 9am-5pm. Advance registration required. Email Abigail to arrange a time.
Researching Schoolhouse Reopening
Safety continues to be our top priority. While our doors are closed, we’re busy researching protocols and possible modifications to our facilities. Our small 19thcentury space offers complicated challenges. We care deeply about the wellbeing of all who call the Eliot School home and will proceed with classes when we are sure that we can safely protect all students and staff. We miss you and can't wait for our doors to reopen.
Thank you, JP Arts Council
Many thanks to JP Arts Council, which donated funds to our Teen Bridge program as part of a commitment to assist young people of color who are pursuing artistic paths. JPAC's generous gift was inspired by the momentum and opportunity for change of the Black Lives Matter movement. This donation will help us fulfill their wish to ‘build upon the upcoming generations’ artistic skills and foster love for the arts.”
Yoga & Taekwando Classes in the Schoolyard
While the weather is warm, our schoolyard is hosting yoga classes with JP Centre Yoga and Tai Chi with JP@Home, our neighborhood's aging-in-place organization. You can sign up for yoga here and Tai Chi here. Advance registration is required.
No JP Open Studios this Year
One of our favorite annual events takes a Covid-break this year. JP Open Studios fills our schoolhouse and yard with crowds each September as we host our annual Faculty Showcase and sale. This year the event is closed during the pandemic. We'll look forward to JPOS 2021.