"Art has the power to transform, to illuminate, to educate, inspire and motivate"-- Harvey Fierstein
My students are creative, smart, and willing to step up to a challenge.
We are a high poverty school and live in one of the highest counties in the nation for food insecurity. We have big immigrant population from around the world. However, with the exception of our students who were born elsewhere, most of my students have never traveled outside of the state.
We are lucky to have 3 magnet programs at our school and a strong art program. My class is a welcome change of pace for most of the students, as they are able to utilize another part of their brain during art.
My Project
The Intermediate and Proficient art classes, grades 10-12, will be creating portraits of 3-5 year old children who live in urban slum areas of Columbia and attend feeding centers for meals. Most of the children don't have a single photo of their childhood and these portraits will therefore be invaluable, lifelong gifts as part of The Memory Project.
The Memory Project creates keepsakes for children who don’t have so much as a family photo.
The Memory Project recruits artists — mostly high school art students — to create portraits of orphans and impoverished children from around the world. The portraits are then given to the children, in many cases becoming one of their few possessions.
Each of my students will be given a photograph of a child and the student will then create a portrait from the photograph using a variety of mediums which will then be given to that child.
The project will teach my students basic facial proportion and how to measure to draw from a photo and creating realistic portraits within each artist’s own personal style. More importantly, the project will teach my students the impact an artwork can have on another person. The project will help my students to reach outside their own community and world to do something to help another child while at the same time, doing something they enjoy, ART!
My students will understand the “feel good” benefits of doing something for another person and become aware of children throughout the world, even within the United States, who do not have anything of their own, including any memory keepsakes. This is an opportunity for them to practice kindness and service to others, and to reach across international boundaries through their artwork.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Hudson and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
