WomensArt.com Partners with the Junior League of San Francisco

The following is an article in the Junior League Fall 2002 Magazine

BRINGING ART INTO THE CLASSROOM
JLSF and WomensArt.com's Successful Partnership

In the spring of 2002, leaders from two local women's organizations met to develop a partnership, based solely on their mutual appreciation of visual art. Their goal focused on exposing K-l2 children to onsite art education by bringing local women artists into teaching roles within the community. What transpired out of that brainstorming session between WomensArt.com CEO Claire Lachance, 2001-2002 Previews and Arts Outreach Co-Chair Ali Morr and 2002-2003 Previews and Arts Outreach Co-Chairs Patricia Richardson and Joan Dickson was a joint summer art program at four JLSF community programs. WomensArt.com selected artists who generously provided their time and skills to teach art classes on location at East Bay Agency for Children, Booker T. Washington Community Service Center, South of Market Child Care and Family Connections. The resulting summer art classes provided art instruction to over 150 children and allowed WomensArt.com participating artists and JLSF volunteers the opportunity to share in

WomensArt.com, LLC, a San Francisco based company founded in 2000, offers the premier selection of fine arts and crafts created by women artists. The company not only provides online gallery space for women artists to affordably access consumers and art enthusiasts, but also fulfills its founders' mission of educating the general public about art and the often under-recognized contribution of women artists. WomensArt.com's artist resources and business philosophy made the company a perfect partner for the Previews and Arts Outreach Committee, which has been dedicated to providing public access to the arts and art education since the committee's creation in 1948. According to WomensArt.com CEO Claire Lachance, "The natural synergy between WomensArt.com and the JLSF Previews and Arts Outreach Committee enabled the summer partnership to be successful from planning through implementation. Together, we made the arts come alive for children throughout our community.

The Previews and Arts Outreach Committee was honored to have WomensArt.com's Co-Founder & Vice President of Creative Development Susan Liroff teach classes at both East Bay Agency for Children and Booker T. Washington Community Service Center. Not only is Susan an accomplished graphic designer with a fine arts background, but she also serves on the Board of Directors for the Women's Cancer Resource Center in Berkeley, a center that she cofounded and previously served as Executive Director for five years. During Susan's two art classes, children learned how to sketch as well as how to identify appropriate subjects from their daily lives to sketch. While leading these sketching sessions, Susan’s passion for viewing beauty and art within everyday life captured the children's attention and opened up their imagination and creativity. Each child was able to take their own sketch book home to continue practicing their new art skills.

Artist lris Sandkühler creates sculptures, jewelry and other art pieces using commonplace objects such as glass, beads, shells, wood and plastic. As an art instructor teaching fine arts and crafts such as drawing, origami and various decorating techniques, lris also offers iewelry making workshops. lris worked one-on-one with students at Family Connections to create individual picture books using just one sheet of colorful construction paper and magazine clippings. After lris taught the students how to fold paper into an eight page booklet, children scoured magazines generously donated by the Next-To-New Shop, bookstores and the San Francisco Public Library to select and cut out their favorite pictures to paste into their own picture book. Each student selected the entire content for their picture book and proudly shared their creations with lris and JLSF volunteers.

Drawing upon her own childhood fascinations with color, forms and space, artist Maggie Kornman now creates her own art using recognizable forms from daily life. At South of Market Child Care, Maggie led preschoolers in creating a sampler of six different patterns. Maggie prepared personalized pattern grids on sheets of paper for each child and taught the group to create different patterns such as checkerboard, triangles and spirals. The children then painted each pattern to produce a brilliant mix of colors and designs and eagerly approached their assignment, which Maggie specifically planned to appeal to the age group's attraction to bright colors and tangible forms.

The Previews and Arts Outreach Committee is pleased to have partnered with WomensArt.com in providing summer art classes for our community programs and invites JLSF members and friends to visit WomensArt.com and support our Bay Area women artist partners.

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