Professional Arts Schools Engage California Students
Grants from the James Irvine Foundation to five California arts colleges through a joint effort of its youth and arts programs are funding arts training and mentoring programs to low-income students ages 14 to 20. The Art of Youth Engagement: Stepping Beyond Studio Walls (and Program Walls, Too) appears in the summer edition of the Irvine Quarterly. In one instance, a California College of the Arts instructor in San Francisco works with high school students to create performance videos, radio shows, billboard designs, and other art projects. In another, faculty and students from the California Institute of the Arts teach youth about computer animation, puppetry, and world music. The programs are less about grooming aspiring artists than about using art-making to engage students in learning and motivating them to consider postsecondary and career options in creative fields.
