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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, Susans
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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