NOTE: Our SUMMER PROGRAM for CHILDREN is canceled, along with all SUMMER and FALL In-House classes.
Find a Class
Join us throughout the year for artisans’ talks, hands-on family workshops, faculty exhibitions and more.
Jazz LIVE in the Schoolyard
Friedland & Friends Jazz Series
Sundays, 4pm, September 20 - October 25, 2020
Jazz pianist Brian Friedland misses making music with his friends and playing for audiences, so he has created a series that will address both those holes in his life. He hopes you will enjoy the beautiful composed and improvised music he will make with some of the musicians he greatly admires and is excited to play with again. Tickets are free, but Friedland encourages you to make a donation to the Eliot School and support a cherished neighborhood arts center in these most difficult times.
It probably goes without saying, but please bring and wear your mask and keep your distance from other concert goers. Bring chairs if you don't want to sit on the ground.
Sept 20: Brian Friedland & Catherine Bent
Friedland and cellist Catherine Bent met as classmates in graduate school at New England Conservatory and have collaborated on numerous past projects. Most relevant to this concert, they are excited to reunite in a duo performance of original music. Visit Catherine's website to learn about the wonderful music she makes, much of it influenced by her deep study of Brazilian music.
Sept 27: Man On Land
Man On Land is a collaboratively led trio between Friedland, bassist Greg Loughman, and drummer Austin McMahon. The three have been playing regularly together for 11 years and enjoy playing together enough that they plan to keep going. This concert is part of a new project of Loughman's to use music to raise money for charitable causes, and this concert will benefit The Innocence Project. For this performance only, you may reserve tickets either here or on Facebook or GoFundMe.
Oct 11: Brian Friedland, Shaw Pong Liu & Dave Cordes
Friedland, violinist Shaw Pong Liu, and bassist Dave Cordes had a blast playing a set of original music and Jazz standards for a house concert this past fall, and look forward to the joy of making music together again. Shaw Pong creates innovative music for a huge variety of situations and utilizes music as a force for social progress. Dave is a renowned music educator. Together they run their own online music school.
Oct 18: Brian Friedland & Steve Fell
Fell and Friedland has a nice ring to it and they think the music will too. The two always enjoy playing together in trumpeter Alex Lee Clark's 8tet, and most recently appeared at Roslindale's Square Root together, back when people could make music together indoors. Guitarist Steve Fell plays in many amazing local creative music groups.
Oct 25: Brian Friedland & Rob Flax
Friedland, probably like most who hear multi-instrumentalist Rob Flax play, doesn't understand how its possible for one person to be so good at so many instruments and is further in awe of his ability to seamlessly loop himself as he hops from one to the other. It's always a good time when they play together. In the before-times, Flax was constantly performing, whether locally or on the road. But the pandemic hasn't slowed him down. Follow him to hear all the wonderful music he churns out.
Exhibitions & Talks
ARTISTS’ TALK:
Whose Standards? Racial Equity In Craft & Design, Part 1
Alison Croney Moses • Matthew Shenoda
Namita Gupta Wiggers • Michelle Millar Fisher • Paul Sacaridiz
Thursday, October 8, 7pm
RSVP HERE FOR PART 1 OF THE VIRTUAL TALK
Are our foundations our own biggest roadblocks on the path to achieving racial equity in craft and design? Institutions in the field of craft and design engender cultures of elitism through gate keeping and hierarchies of knowledge and aesthetics, which have resulted in suffocatingly white-dominated canons and histories. There is a growing awareness that representation must be racially diverse – from artists whose works enter collections or hang on walls, to staff and faculty hired as decision-makers and thought leaders. Yet, when racial equity is discussed in these overlapping fields, tokenism abounds, and community and education are devalued in favor of established (and exclusionary) academic and curatorial benchmarks. The structures that underpin them -- themselves built on entrenched modes of white supremacy -- are rarely, if ever, interrogated.
As white society wakes up to racial injustice, leaders in craft and design struggle with their own racial reckoning. We must pause and ask ourselves: Whose standards are we working within and towards? How must they be disrupted and dismantled to truly move forward racial equity? How can we be honest about the historic exclusion of people of color, and specifically black people, from all aspects of the field? 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!
Speakers:
Alison Croney Moses, artist, craftsperson, and Program Director at the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts
Matthew Shenoda, writer, Associate Provost for Social Equity & Inclusion (SEI), Professor of Literary Arts & Studies at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), and SEI Advisor to the President at RISD
Namita Gupta Wiggers, artist, curator, writer, Founding Director of the MA in Critical Craft Studies at Warren Wilson College and Director/co-founder, Critical Craft Forum
Moderator 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.
Respondent Paul Sacaridiz, artist and Executive Director of Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, will set the scene for an open audience Q&A about how racial equity has traditionally been (mis)understood in institutions of craft and design, and what a more effective and truly equitable future roadmap looks like.
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.
ARTISTS’ TALK:
Whose Standards? Racial Equity In Craft & Design, Part 2
Anthony Romero • Jabari Peddie • Polly Carpenter • Alison Croney Moses • Steph Foster • Isaac Madera-Cepeda
Wednesday, October 14, 7pm
RSVP HERE FOR PART 2 OF THE VIRTUAL TALK
Many arts and culture institutions have begun to invest in creating “pipelines” for people of underrepresented identities to access employment and exposure in the fields of craft and design. 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.
Leaders of historically white-led institutions are currently turning for advice to people of color, seeking “diversity of representation.” These same people of color have surmounted institutionalized racism to make their way as artists, administrators, and teachers in art ecosystems. Elevating their voices for a moment is not the same as dismantling racist structures to create racially equitable spaces, empower new generations into ownership of public institutions, or build lasting platforms to sustain equitable education, community engagement and expression.
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? What effective models can we amplify and envision to build access and success for those who have been historically excluded from institutions of craft and design?
This panel brings together four practitioners actively grounded in racial justice who work daily to enact institutional structural change and empower black and brown young people to flourish over long careers as artists, makers, designers, teachers, and arts administrators.
Join the Conversation!
Speakers:
Anthony Romero -- artist, writer, and organizer committed to documenting and supporting artists and communities of color, as well as Professor in the Practice at SMFA Tufts University and co-author of Boston Arts for Black Lives Letter
Jabari Peddie – Director of Leadership Development at Build Excel Sustain (BES) and Co-founder of The Teachers’ Lounge
Polly Carpenter – Director of Public Programs, Boston Society for Architecture and Fellow of The American Institute of Architects.
Alison Croney Moses, artist, craftsperson, and 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, Interdisciplinary Artist & Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Photography at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA
Isaac Madera-Cepeda, teen artist at Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts’ Teen Bridge Program, and a senior at Boston Collegiate Charter School.
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.
CELEBRATION:
Teen Bridge Artist-In-Residence SHOWCASE
Stay tuned for more information on the November Celebration.
Learn what Teen Bridge has been up to as our teen artists present work they have created this summer and speak about their experience.
Meanwhile, if you missed Teen Bridge's end-of-year celebration in June, you can watch the recording here.
Hands-on Events
Yoga & Taekwando in the Schoolyard
At Eliot Schoolyard, 24 Eliot Street, Jamaica Plain
While the weather is warm, our schoolyard is hosting yoga classes with JP Centre Yoga and Tai Chi with [email protected], our neighborhood's aging-in-place organization. You can sign up for yoga here and Tai Chi here. Advance registration is required.