Tag Archives: outreach

Arts Education, garden of fire festival

Rain Sticks: Music & Metaphor

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In culture and literature from around the world, water represents emotions and obstacles that we need to overcome.

Water comes in all forms.  It can be intense and powerful like with hurricanes, floods and tsunamis; or it can soft and calming like a gentle rain or a babbling brook.

Our emotions work exactly the same way. Difficult life events can be destructive and leave us feeling overwhelmed. Positive life events can leave us feeling at peace. In order to learn how to cope with these emotions, we have to first be able to understand them. Using water as a metaphor can help us do that effectively.

This year for the CareFirst Garden of Fire program, youth participants will be making their very own rain stick as we talk about their emotions and how to cope with them.

Each group will engage in discussion about the history of rain sticks and the cycle of how emotion connects to their personal lives, the community we share and the cycle of re-shaping the earth and regrowth that occur in nature. The cycle of emotion will be connected by demonstrating the relationship between rain and emotions.

Each child will construct and decorate individual rain sticks using animals in nature that they feel best relate to their emotions. A bear could signify anger that they feel or strength and courage within oneself; a chameleon could be interpreted as smart and resourceful to blend into its current surroundings in basic survival.

The sounds made by the rain sticks can also be used to symbolize ones emotions for that time. For example, water can create a gentle or intense sound, which can be used to symbolize ones emotions.

We look forward to The Garden of Fire festival, when all of the children will be together, and will have the opportunity to use their rain sticks to create music as a group.

Tara Chapman
Grief Services Coordinator, CareFirst

Arts Education, news, press

Summer Changes Everything: Garden of Fire to Present at Baltimore Conference

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2015 Conf badge-presenterI am very pleased to be presenting at the 12th Annual National Summer Learning Association Conference. This year’s conference theme, Renewing the Promise and Purpose of Learning, celebrates the joy of learning, the perfect tie-in with our own Garden of Fire Summer Program.

I, Gigi Alvaré , Director of Education at The Rockwell Museum, will travel to Baltimore to present with my colleagues Emily Hofelich-Bowler and Alli Lidie; we’ll present on how networking and collaboration can spark innovation in summer programming.

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Gigi Alvaré, Director of Education at The Rockwell Museum, reads the Garden of Fire story during the first summer session

Our presentation, entitled Garden of Fire: Reaping the Rewards of Community Networking Through a Joint Summer Program, will highlight how several organizations and programs came together in a rural community to create a rich summer program for youth. The Garden of Fire was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Challenge America Grant after the first summer of programming.

The session will give context to the Garden of Fire collaboration with an opening discussion, led by Alli Lidie, Deputy Director and White-Riley-Peterson Policy Fellow of AfterSchool Works! NY: the New York State Afterschool Network (ASW:NYSAN). Alli will speak about the structure for regional after-school networks in New York State that bring together both after-school and summer providers in their communities. The Garden of Fire program grew out of the relationships formed through network participation, and through work with The Triangle Fund, a funder and member of the network. The session will also touch on work done by other regional networks in New York.

Emily Hofelich-Bowler, Executive Director of the Addison Youth Center
Emily Hofelich-Bowler, Executive Director of the Addison Youth Center, presents her owl friend to students

The Garden of Fire is a project conceived collaboratively by local organizations whose purpose is to build capacity, depth and the integration of art and science for programs serving at-risk youth in Steuben County, New York. Emily Hofelich-Bowler, Executive Director of the Addison Youth Center, will speak about networking with the local school districts to optimize resources, and how incorporating state-wide learning initiatives (STEM) as part of the program gave the summer program more leverage and legitimacy in asking for school support.

By providing programming led by professional artists and educators held in museums, gardens, and fields, the local community and region opens up to students who otherwise might have very limited opportunities. It is our hope that the model program we have collectively created will spark the imagination and action of other communities to build their own Gardens of Fire.

Together we can care for our most precious gifts: the earth itself and the children who live on it. 

Gigi1Gigi Alvaré
Director of Education
The Rockwell Museum

news

Synergy Through Artistic Collaboration

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Under the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Challenge America grant, a new public art piece is under way.

I (Amy Ruza, Education Programs Coordinator at The Rockwell) am collaborating with metal artists Tony Moretti and Gwen Quigley from Hammondsport, NY to create a sculpture made from glass, metal and natural materials. We’ll celebrate the unveiling of the artwork at the Garden of Fire Festival, held at CareFirst this coming August 2015. We are combining our glass-blowing and metal-working skills to fabricate a mixed-media sculpture that connects to the themes of the summer youth program.

Amu Ruza gathers glass to create a glass squash.
Artist and educator Amy Ruza gathers glass to create a glass squash.

The carefully-planned design puts a twist on the traditional Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) “Three Sisters” crops: corns, beans and squash. The sculpture will also invoke the importance of wind in gardening, related to pollination, and the use of wind energy to help sustain plant growth.

The sculpture is still in its early stages, but imagine this:
A tall sunflower with a glass center,  surrounded by spinning metal petals. Below, spherical glass peas in metal pods, along with a glass squash plant with large, twisty metal leaves and vines.

These colorful glass mandalas will represent the centers of the sunflowers.
These colorful glass mandalas will represent the centers of the sunflowers.

The blown-glass parts were made at The Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning. Tony and Gwen will fabricate the metal parts at their home studio. The completed sculpture will be relatively easy to install and de-install, making it a non-permanent sculpture with the goal of being re-exhibited at multiple locations around the region.

While it is certainly necessary for youth to create art themselves, it is equally as important to expose them to professional-quality, contemporary, artistic creations.   Art inspires us by provoking creativity, an awareness of new ideas, and giving us an experience that engages all of our senses, enlightening our spirits and connecting us as people. 

Participants will recognize artists Tony Moretti and Gwen Quigley from their participation in last year's Garden of Fire program.
Participants will recognize artists Tony Moretti and Gwen Quigley from their participation in last year’s Garden of Fire program.

The sculpture will show how artists from different backgrounds can work together to create something harmonious to share with the world.

We are grateful for this artistic opportunity to stay involved in the community as artists and to have this chance to work together to experiment with new ideas.  Receiving the NEA grant has opened up a creative doorway into a new collaboration with exciting, technically challenging and inspiring ideas to interweave blown glass, metal and other natural materials.

Stay tuned for the completion and unveiling of this sculpture at the Garden of Fire celebration on August 14, 2015!

Amy Ruza
Education Programs Coordinator
The Rockwell Museum

Arts Education

Cultivating Creativity

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Together we can care for our most precious gifts: the earth itself and the children who live on it. 

The word ‘culture’ comes from the  Latin word cultura – with literal meanings tied to agriculture, and figurative connotations of care and honoring. And, from past participle stem colere which means “tend, guard, cultivate, till”.

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The development of culture takes constant tilling, constant caring – it is the “garden” that we can grow especially through teaching and caring for younger generations. Each seed that we plant through the art and science projects provided through the Garden of Fire program has the potential of blossoming into a deeper understanding of life in a young person’s mind and heart. As “gardeners” leading the project forward, staff from the nine partnering agencies are working together to create a model for a collaborative and creative culture.

It is crucial for young people to understand that they are not alone in their experience of daily life and it is only with this awareness that the healing of individuals and society can take place. Collaborative art and gardening activities can lift spirits, promote communication, improve common understanding and boost social skills. Through collaborative projects, a structure for building community emerges.

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The Rockwell Museum, which serves as the lead agency for the Garden of Fire program, is embedded in local history and connected through its images and objects to many cultures of the United States.  Through the Museum collection, the American experience in all its complexities comes alive. With education at the heart of our mission, The Rockwell is dedicated to serving youth that may not have other alternatives for arts education by opening boundaries between museum, school and community.

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Our work with schools and non-profits is designed to help ensure that all children have successful experiences as they grow up in our community.   In the face of a rapidly changing world and ever more prevalent societal crises we are committed to creating opportunities for people of all ages to delight in, and find solace in, the truth, beauty, and joy of art and art making. It is so energizing to have partners in these endeavors through the Garden of Fire program!

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It is my hope that the model program we have collectively created will spark the imagination and action of other communities to build their own Garden of Fire. Together we can care for our most precious gifts: the earth itself and the children who live on it.

Gigi Alvaré
Director of Education
The Rockwell Museum