Open Doors
Home of the Innocents: Exhibition Celebration
LVA instructor Liz has been working with students at Home of the Innocents on several projects, including various crafts, painting, dreamcatchers and an interpretation of HOTI's iconic mural. We recently joined the students, faculty and employees to celebrate the end of a very successful summer!
Bellewood: Exhibition Celebration
We have been working with Kosair Kids® through Kosair Charities and Fund for the Arts to bring an art therapy program with Bellewood Home for Children, who "have worked to nurture Kentucky's most vulnerable children."
We celebrated this art program's conclusion as proud students shared what they made this summer with instructor and ceramic artist Lisa Simon - they are some of the sweetest kids we've gotten to work with yet!
Christ Way Missionary Baptist Church mural - progress!
Christ Way Missionary Baptist Church:
Berrytown: Cyanotypes
Our Picture Love students at the Berrytown Recreation Center in Anchorage, led by Ms. Shawna, enjoyed a sunny morning creating cyanotypes, using chemicals to produce cyan-blue photo prints!
Bellewood: Art Therapy
We have been working with Kosair Kids® through Kosair Charities and Fund for the Arts to bring an art therapy program with Bellewood Home for Children, who "have worked to nurture Kentucky's most vulnerable children."
This summer, students have been working with ceramic artist Lisa Simon on sensory elements for their outdoor classroom.
Dreamcatchers at Home of the Innocents
LVA instructor Liz has been working with students at Home of the Innocents on several projects, including a mural to be unveiled soon and these dreamcatchers. A fellow institution that has worked for more than 100 years to benefit Louisville, HOTI shares LVA's mission to give children and young adults "the opportunity to access services that may be hard to find elsewhere."
Elementary Art Camp
Students from Byck Elementary enjoyed exploring the avant-garde innovations of Japanese painter Yayoi Kusama in an LVA art class with teacher Alyson Thiel this week at the Western Branch Library!
Open Doors Feature: Eisenhower Elementary "Water Tower - Form & Function"
We are having a wonderful time bringing "Water Tower - Form & Function" to Eisenhower Elementary, through a partnership between LVA and the Louisville Water Company made possible through Louisville Water Foundation. During this class, students broke into small groups to create their very own water tower design — taking what they've learned about the form and function of a water tower and making it their own. Next class, they will begin to build their water towers in small groups and will go on to paint and embellish them soon after! By the end of the residency, students will strengthen their critical thinking skills, learn new creative problem-solving techniques, and will work collaboratively towards a common goal. We can't wait to see what they create!
Open Doors Feature: Roosevelt Perry Mask Making Residency
During our visit to Roosevelt Perry's mask making residency, students were beginning to form their masks from papier mache! In the previous class, students sketched ideas inspired from two different folktales they read, including the Chinese Zodiac and a Native American folktales! Next class, students will add paint and will begin embellishing with a variety of materials to make their ideas come to life!
Open Doors Feature: Bellewood Art Program
We are off to a great start working with Kosair Kids® through Kosair Charities and Fund for the Arts to bring a 28-week art therapy program as part of a full school year initiative with Bellewood! During this visit, students worked with instructor Ehren Reed to create abstract, colorful paintings to be used as collage materials for our Eric Carle inspired project! We can't wait to see the finished artwork! This summer, students will be working with ceramic artist Lisa Simon on sensory elements for their outdoor classroom as well. Check back in for more behind the scenes images.
Open Doors Feature: Home of The Innocents
We've had a great time working with Kosair Kids® through Kosair Charities and Fund for the Arts to bring a 28-week art therapy program as part of a full school year initiative with Home of the Innocents! During this visit, students showed off the comic books and comic book characters they created with Annette Cable. We love how much creativity they put into the project!
Open Doors Feature: Student Collaboration for Human Abstract
While LVA and Louisville Ballet have been collaborating to bring Human Abstract to the Kentucky Center, their education teams have been working with the students at Newcomer Academy and The Academy @ Shawnee on a student-led version of the project! Louisville Ballet led students at Newcomer through the process of planning the choreography for their own performance interpreting William Blake's Human Abstract while LVA helped Shawnee visual art students conceptualize and build sets to go along with the piece. The result is breathtaking— performances were held at The Academy @ Shawnee as well as at The Kentucky Center!
Open Doors Feature: Klondike Elementary Visual History Project
We're so excited to be bringing the Visual History Program to Klondike Elementary this spring! Students have begun creating their quilt pieces based on Judy Chicago's International Honor Quilt. Each student has researched a female figure that played an important role during World War II to base their quilt piece on. Students are learning the importance of feminism while also learning how to turn the knowledge they gain into a creative work of art. This program, taught by Ehren Reed, is a perfect complement to social studies, literature lessons, and art lessons.
Images provided by LVA's media intern Zoie Richey
Open Doors Feature: Western Middle School & Broadway Across America
With support from Broadway Across America and the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts, Louisville Visual Art's Ehren Reed worked with eighth grade students at Western Middle School to create this immersive installation in anticipation of the upcoming performance of "The Little Mermaid". The students explored a variety of textile techniques including traditional Japanese indigo dyeing and silk painting to create this work. Thanks to Western Middle School teachers Amanda Thompson and Becky Kelm for their participation and support! You can see the installation in person from now until February 19th.
Images by Sarah Katherine Davis and Zoie Richey
Open Doors Feature: Water Tower - Form & Function
We had a wonderful time bringing "Water Tower - Form & Function" to Brandeis Elementary this fall through a partnership between LVA and the Louisville Water Company made possible through Louisville Water Foundation. By breaking into small groups to create their very own water tower design, students increased their awareness of the form and function of a water tower and learned all about the different architectural elements involved in the facade. Even more importantly, students strengthened their critical thinking skills, learned new creative problem-solving techniques and worked collaboratively towards a common goal! We were incredibly impressed with the work they created, and were even more impressed with their ability to discuss their artwork and process!
Open Doors Feature: Western Middle School Shibori Dyeing
Eighth-grade visual art students at Western Middle School are hard at work doing traditional shibori dyeing— just one component of their upcoming immersive art installation at the Kentucky Center for Broadway Across America's production of "The Little Mermaid"!
Open Doors Feature: Adventures In Water Festival
Open Doors Feature: Home of the Innocents Inside Out Boxes
We've had a great time working with Kosair Kids® through Kosair Charities and Fund for the Arts to bring a 28-week art therapy program as part of a full school year initiative with Home of the Innocents! During this class visit, students were finishing up their Inside Out Boxes with Lori Kelley. They decorated the outside of the boxes as a representation of the self they show to the world and the inside of the boxes as their inner self. Students made the boxes very personal— illustrating their hopes, dreams, and fears. A couple students wanted to share their work with the camera, others chose to keep it private.
Students who finished their boxes worked on creating "quote trees" with their own quotes and tree designs.
Open Doors Feature: Printmaking at St. Joe's
We had a great time visiting students at St. Joe's as they worked with Lori Kelley, an art therapist from LVA, to create their very own prints! Students began by sketching a few options on paper. From there, they selected their favorite to draw onto linoleum!
Once they drew their sketch on linoleum, students worked carefully to carve their blocks— making sure not to carve too deep or too shallow and to always cut away from their hands!
The next step might have been the student's favorites— getting to mix and blend colors on plexiglass to use to ink their blocks! We got pretty messy, but it was well worth it!
From there, students were able to make print after print— experimenting with different colors and techniques. Their work was so lovely! We can't wait to visit again and see what else they've been up to!