INTERSECTIONS: constellations of young artists seeking change through art
Opening Reception – Thursday February 7, 6:00-8:00p

Julianne Hughes, ECC-5 Teaching Artist

We hope you will join us at the All School Art Show opening on Thursday, February 7, 6:00-8:00p at the University Avenue Campus! Students, ECC-8th, have been working thoughtfully and creatively to put on a show that shares the art-making, process learning, art history study, innovation, inspiration, and civic engagement that happens every day in the art studio.

4th/5th grade students have been contemplating the question: “How does where we live influence how we live?” They are learning more and more about the history of the place where we live, Berkeley, and thinking about how the places that we define as special help us feel happiness, contentment, joy, and restoration. In the studio, students identified a place that was meaningful to them to depict on a plate in the style of printed china. First, they created “observation drawings” on paper plates to get the feeling of the amount of detail in the images, then they drew on ceramic plates with sharpie. The plates are meant to spark conversations about place and care for that place. 

Students learned about the “For Freedoms” Project, a national, decentralized art initiative connecting artmaking with civic engagement. Founded by artists Hank Willis Thomas and Eric Gottesman, and inspired by American artist Norman Rockwell’s paintings of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms (1941)—freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear— the mission of the initiative is to forge transparent and representative forms of political dialogue. Students identified and designed posters of issues and concerns that were important to them and then displayed them in front of the campus, joining in on the “For Freedoms” Movement.  

Both 4/5 classes will be exhibiting their work to inspire more people to make art that encourages and deepens public explorations of freedom in the 21st Century.

We hope to see you at the opening Thursday!

Looking forward,
Julianne Hughes
ECC-5 Teaching Artist