The Gallery at 180 Maiden Lane

The artwork that was on display in Where We Are & Where We’re Going was created by high school students from New York City’s public schools whose passion for the arts is leading them to pursue their dream careers. The Center for Arts Education’s Career Development Program (CDP) was created to provide access to New York’s 13 billion dollar arts industry for city youth. As alumni of the CDP, these students have been preparing to enter tomorrow’s workforce as innovators, inventors and designers. Through their participation in the CDP, they have learned interviewing skills, time management, and on-the-job negotiation. They have then put those skills into practice at internships with some of the Ccty’s most innovative and trendsetting employers. Recent graduates plan to be architects, magazine editors, music engineers and producers, among other careers. No matter where their career paths lead, however, their artwork—including paintings, collage, graphic design, an architectural model, musical compositions, and poetry—demonstrates an abiding commitment to making their creative voices heard.

The Career Development Program gives special thanks to The Pinkerton, E.H.A., and the Jean and Louis Dreyfus Foundations as well as American Express and Con Ed for their support.

"Give me your sculptors, designers, and painters.
Your budding artists yearning to create."*

- with apologies to Emma Lazarus

The Center for Arts Education presented an exhibition of artwork created by parents and children as part of the Center’s Parents As Arts Partners grant program. The exhibit, the first of its kind in the history of these grants, showcased the activities taking place at New York City public schools engaging parents in their children’s arts education. The artwork on display, represented partnerships between 14 schools and 21 cultural organizations, including sculpture, quilts, and paintings.

Parents As Arts Partners grants are awarded to schools to create programs that engage parents and families in hands-on, interactive arts education activities in collaboration with partnering cultural organizations. CAE's goal for the program is to encourage parents to become supporters of arts education in New York City public schools.

 Artwork created by families at PS 48, William G. Wilcox School, Staten Island

Research has demonstrated overwhelmingly that parental involvement has a positive impact on children’s success in school. In addition, it has shown that the arts are an effective means of cultivating that involvement. Since 1998, when the program began, CAE has awarded 619 PAAP grants representing more than $3,000,000 to schools and their arts partners.

Schools featured in the “Parents As Arts Partners Exhibit” included:
PS 7 The Kingsbridge School
PS 41 The Gun Hill Road School
PS 154 Jonathan D. Hyatt School
PS 279 Herman Schreiber School
PS 163 Alfred E. Smith School
Seward Park High School
PS 95 The Eastwood School
Our World Neighborhood Charter School
Academy of American Studies 575
P 721 Occupational Training Center
PS 4 Maurice Wollin School
PS 13 Margaret L. Lindemeyer
PS 48 William G. Wilcox

Major funding for the Parents As Arts Partners grant program is provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York City Department of Education. Additional support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and Citigroup Foundation.

*"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."

- Emma Lazarus, from her celebrated 1883 poem, "The New Colossus," engraved on a plaque on the statue of liberty.

Time Travelers featured artwork created by students at IS 259, as part of the Brooklyn school’s CAE-funded partnership with Symphony Space and the Creative Arts Team. The school used its Partnership grant to introduce students to the cultures of Egypt and the Middle East, Africa, ancient Rome and Greece, India and Asia, and Western Europe. (See Leadership in Practice.)

The teachers and teaching artists used the arts to build connections among the language arts and social studies curricula within the school. The result is an exhibit of student work inspired by the art of different cultures and historical periods: Mesopotamia, Greece, China, Japan, Africa, and 19th-century America. Visitors will encounted masks created in the style of African art as well as Japanese kabuki theatre. Also featured were creations of East Asian ink paintings and ceramic sculptures depicting scenes from Greek myths. 

Teachers of both social science and language arts classes used the same themes and content to introduce students to the history, geography, and literature of each culture they were studying. Simultaneously, classroom art teachers developed hands-on visual arts projects that corresponded to these studies. Teaching artists from Symphony Space and Creative Arts Team used classroom visits to museums and concerts to provide students with a comprehensive arts experience.

 In addition to creating the work on display at 180 Maiden Lane, students studied the performing arts, developed research reports and wrote reflection pieces based on their studies.

When CAE and Brooklyn’s PS 156 began working together in 1998, the school was on the SURR (Schools Under Registration Review) List of academically failing schools. The school’s leadership decided to use the arts to revitalize their academic program and, today, PS 156 is considered a national model for excellence in education. The school has been featured in the Annenberg/CPB series The Arts in Every Classroom, broadcast nationally on PBS stations.

PS 156 administrators and teachers credit the arts for this renaissance. Supported by funding from CAE and others, they designed a new curriculum with partnering organizations Lotus Music & Dance and the Teachers & Writers Collaborative. The result is an academic program that comprehensively integrates the arts with all core curricula, including math and science. In 2001, the school received a Leadership in Practice grant from CAE to provide professional development for classroom teachers. This additional funding helped the school sustain its interdisciplinary approach to teaching. The work on display in this exhibit was created as a result of the unique academic curricula developed by the school and its partners.

 Students are taught dances and music from different countries by teaching artists and staff arts teachers. Simultaneously, they study the visual art of different historical periods and world cultures, learning the vital role that that the arts played in all of these civilizations. Visitors to World As Inspiration will see artwork inspired by ancient Greek pottery, Native American textiles, and Chinese kites. They encounter self-portraits in the style of Frida Kahlo, whose art was deeply influenced by her own cultural heritage.

Click HERE to see what the school has to say about the exhibit!