For the project, youth explored photos and participated in a lively discussion about the South End 100 years ago, learning about architecture, community resources, services, and even advertising. From there, students worked to create their vision of the South End 100 years from now, creating structures from futuristic gardens to polor bear rescue sites out of recycled materials. The students’ creations were compiled in a video that was submitted to UNCA’s Youth Visioning Project, a nationwide competition for programs serving youth ages 2-24 years old.
WATCH THE VIDEO HERE
Spotlight On: New CAC Staff Will Whelan
The Children’s Art Centre is thrilled to welcome our newest staff member! Will Whelan has joined our staff as the program’s Arts-In-Education Specialist. Will will be working to build curriculum and community partnerships with area schools and organizations, provide arts enrichment to the USES After School program, and lead our new Teen Art in the South End Program. He comes to the Children’s Art Centre with years of experience in the South End Community, and will play an integral role in growing and expanding CAC programming.
Will was born and raised here in Boston, grew up in Allston, and attended Commonwealth School. He went to college at the University of Chicago, majoring in Art History and Studio Art. While in school, Will traveled to South Africa, tutored in local schools, worked as a tile mosaic muralist, and played a lot of ultimate Frisbee. Back in Boston, he attended Lesley University, receiving his Masters Degree in Art Education. For the past three years Will has been teaching art primarily in South End, first with the BSAFE program at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, and most recently at the Boston Center for the Arts. Says Will, “This is one of my favorite neighborhoods and I’m pleased that I can continue teaching here.”
Q: Who was your favorite teacher and why?
My favorite teacher has to be Mr. Young, who taught Modern European History my senior year of high school. He was very unassuming, but from the first day we knew that he was totally passionate about helping us understand some very difficult subjects. I think I learned more about reading history, political theory and philosophy in his class than in most of college. He was also one of those teachers whose zany quotes you write down.
Q: Why did you decide to become an art educator?
I think the teaching instinct runs in my family, and art for me, the traditions and the kind of creative thought practiced by all artists, is an important lens through which to view the world. I want to bring that understanding to students.
Q: What is the way that you feel arts education most benefits kids?
I believe engaging in any creative pursuit is vital for growth and learning, and forms a counterpart to the more quantitative learning they do - which is equally important. In particular, the visual arts allow children to express aspects of their experience that are very direct which cannot be expressed any other way. Also, it’s really fun to get messy with paint and clay.
Q: How does teaching influence the art you make?
Well, for one thing it helps to improve my craft because I use many of the same materials. Also, more and more I realize that my own work really does not exist in a vacuum, that it has to do with the people and events around me, so listening to their ideas and seeing how they create gives me a lot to think about. I like to think that even young children are already beginning to shape the culture and ideas of the world they will inhabit when they grow up!
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