Press
The Riverdale Press, 08/16/24
Bronx River Art Center launches free after-school arts program with $100K grant
By Izania Gonzalez | web link
Art centers across the Bronx want more arts education access for students.
Bronx River Art Center was recently awarded a $100,000 grant from the New York Life Foundation it will use to fund an entirely free after-school arts program focused on middle-schoolers.
The Bronx River Art Center, located on East Tremont near West Farms, has been around since 1987, growing out of early efforts to restore the Bronx River. The center has always been focused on connecting people to the river and the environmental issues facing the Bronx, using art as a medium.
“It’s providing a place for artists and community members to come together to practice arts and learn about arts in a safe and affordable place,” Maggie Greenfield, the center’s interim executive director, said.
The new program will use MSCreate Studio, designed to not only serve as an after-school classroom for arts but also help boost the students’ social-emotional development as they head into high school. Students will get the opportunity to work on their arts portfolios, which will be necessary if they intend to go into arts high schools that often include intense, competitive applications.
The center currently offers a similar free program for teenagers in which they enroll in a course led by professional artists to learn about the applications of art and how it could build into a creative career. Greenfield said this summer’s teen class studied sustainable fashion, culminating in a fashion show.
“It’s really central to our mission to give our constituency of all ages opportunities to come and express themselves via the arts but also … pick up a skill that they’ve been interested in,” Greenfield said.
As far as portfolio development, Greenfield knows the transition from middle school to high school is a difficult one and helping students build confidence in not only their work but themselves is part of the process before designing their portfolios. Part of the after-school program will require the students to present their work to each other and receive critiques from their peers.
“They can come and get support and create winning applications to these high schools,” Greenfield said.
While the center has served middle-school and high-school students for many years with other programming, this new grant money will give it the chance to begin a middle-school-specific program.
The grant from the New York Life Foundation comes from the Aim High program, which specifically focuses on helping to prepare middle-school students for the transition to high school. As the recipient of one of the only 10 two-year grants, Greenfield said the center is pleased to be able to receive the funding it has been waiting for to create this program.
Among other arts programs, the center offers an exhibition program in which it showcases work from local artists as well as other fee-based workshops and classes for all ages.
Greenfield said the center serves everyone from ages 8 to 108.
Local arts center Bronx Arts Ensemble is dedicated to providing arts education to children, whether that means bringing the arts to their schools or providing extracurricular opportunities.
Judith Insell, executive director at Bronx Arts Ensemble, agrees arts education is so much more than teaching a child to play an instrument or paint.
“It’s far more than an enrichment,” Insell said. “These are classes that engage students in making decisions. They are learning transferable skills.”
Insell argues the arts help students to develop better critical thinking skills. She uses perspective as an example.
In the visual arts, perspective is needed to look at artwork from multiple angles in order to both understand the artist’s intention and, in the case of students creating their own art, to understand the direction they want to take with their creation.
Insell said she believes this art technique helps students to look at things from different viewpoints and aids in decision making.
“I think the arts help students to understand the world in general to make better life decisions, to think more creatively and to actually question things,” Insell said.
A 2022 study conducted on elementary and middle school students in Houston, Texas, found arts education helps to build up multiple facets in the lives of children, including their writing, social and emotional skills, and it saw an increase in their overall school engagement.
With continuous cuts to art department budgets and school programs, Greenfield said offering programs like the one at the Bronx River Art Center is important for ensuring they serve “some of the most underserved communities.”
The process is still being negotiated at the Bronx River Art Center but Greenfield said applications will be open for the fall and the program will take in a maximum of 15 students.