There are three formal ways students at Community Learning for Life Program (CLLP) can get involved in art making. Art class runs two days a week, Geometry through Art, three days a week, and the Mural project. I have been trying to expose the students to as many mediums as possible in Art class. We started the year out with studies of color, shape, and pattern to explore the less daunting side of art making and help students create personal artwork. The students where engaged in the free-form process without the fears that can accompany more realistic styles of art making. Abstract art was used as the vehicle for this exploration. For each project the students where introduced to various artist and asked to “push” their pieces further by using a technique from a favorite painting.

The most popular project in the abstract art series was “Music as Inspiration.” The project goals where to listen to a specific type of music, think about how the music makes you feel, and begin picking out colors, shapes, patterns, designs, or themes to represent the feeling of the genre. Through out the project we listened to four different types of music, Cuban, African, Rap, and Bluegrass. Tavis is a member of the Art class and is seen below working on his piece inspired by the Cuban group, Buena Vista Social Club. He explained how he choose bright colors to represent the man instruments. He also felt that shapes like triangles and rectangles could represent the quick patterns in the songs. Each student came up with different ways to represent the various genres providing, us with a display of artwork to tell the story of the music with personal style.