ART 2018 ANNUAL REPORT FOR THE ELIOT SCHOOL ALL CLASSES IN CRAFTS & FINE ARTS FOR ALL AGES ART FOR ALL CONNECTING PEOPLE TO CRAFT & THE CREATIVE PROCESS We believe everyone deserves Our outstanding faculty, diverse access to art education and the community, welcoming atmosphere opportunity for self-expression. We and small class size help the Eliot strive to create a community based School serve as a hub of art activity on a passion for craftsmanship and a and gathering space for all students thirst for making and creating whether regardless of age, ethnicity or with hammer, thimble, camera or brush. socioeconomic status. The Eliot School inspires lifelong learning in craftsmanship and creativity for all. We build skills and celebrate imagination. We inspire our students to make, create, learn and grow to enrich the quality of life for our diverse communities. STUDENTS FACULTY Over 3,500 students 108 working artisans learned from us in 2018: shared their skills as 1,532 students of all part of the Eliot School’s ages in our schoolhouse teaching corps. Many and annex taught year-round, while others led a single Over 2,000 children in schools and community workshop or class. centers across Boston DONORS 11 young people in Teen Bridge 325 individuals, businesses and foundations support the Eliot School’s work. LIFELONG LEARNING IN OUR SCHOOLHOUSE & ANNEX CLASSES & WORKSHOPS SUMMER ADULT INTENSIVES People of all ages and all walks Week-long, full-day classes allow of life take classes throughout the students to practice in-depth year in studios at our Eliot Street specific techniques guided by local, schoolhouse, Jamaica Plain Annex regional and national artisans and satellite facilities. Our menu of with a wide reputation and high classes includes woodworking and level of expertise. “ The Eliot School furniture, fiber arts, sewing and is my therapy. fashion, visual arts, photography, COLLABORATIONS mixed media and other crafts. It’s the place We were honored to partner We held 260 different, unique with three of Boston’s great I go for relaxation, workshops and classes in 2018. museums (the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Fuller Craft Museum learning, laughter SUMMER PROGRAM and the Isabella Stewart Gardner FOR CHILDREN & TEENS and conversation. Museum) offering opportunities Seven sessions of week-long to create art reflecting current I look forward art enrichment classes include exhibitions. We also offered classes to each week.” hands-on learning in woodworking, in collaboration with The Makery, animation, robotics and Legos, Wee The People and the Arnold visual art, sewing and fiber arts, Arboretum of Harvard University, photography and inventions. and we hosted Boston Makers for the first half of 2018 while they sought a more permanent home. THROUGHOUT THE CITY SCHOOL & COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS IN THE COMMUNITY, OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL TIME We believe all young people have the right to great After school, on weekends and in the summer, our art education and opportunities. Through our School classes take place in libraries, community centers & Community Partnerships, we bring art instruction and after-school programs. As the needs of Boston to young people where they study, play and live. communities evolve, so do our partnerships. Sites are located throughout the city, including Partners include Boston Centers for Youth & Dorchester, East Boston, Jamaica Plain, Mattapan, Families, Boston Public Library branches, Boys & Roslindale, Roxbury and South Boston. Girls Clubs and community centers at low-income Our programs ignite creativity, enjoyment and housing developments. accomplishment as children make objects and Our students reflect the demographics of art by hand. our partners: WEEKLY ART CLASS IN BOSTON SCHOOLS 58% live in low-income households We provide classes at as many as 15 public and charter schools during the school day. Our curriculum 31% speak a first language other than English supports literacy and STEM and aligns with Common have special needs Core, serving a broad range of learners. Many of 20% our partnerships last for years. With continuity, we build high quality, sequential education for children in grades K–12. Boston has worked hard to increase art education for all public school students. We are proud to play a part in this effort. BUILDING COMMUNITY These programs bridge the worlds of our schoolhouse/annex and our citywide partnerships. They bring young people—and others— in from our schools and communities to our studios, and out from our classrooms into our communities. TEEN BRIDGE A select group of dedicated teens Arts and other city resources. They “ I like Teen Bridge from our School & Community learn about themselves as artists and Partnerships participate in a year- also learn to work together. During because when round program outside of school time, the summer, the teens work as Art with art instruction, mentorship, job Teachers’ Aides with our younger you first walk in, training and summer employment. students and as interns with our Artist you are shy and They develop their skills during in Residence. As teens continue Saturday classes, and explore art throughout high school, they help awkward but then opportunities, meet with professional recruit, lead and mentor each year’s you start growing artists, visit the MFA, Stonybrook Fine new participants. a bond with the others. It’s a fun and positive place to be. Everyone is really welcoming. It’s just—positive.” SCHOLARSHIP ARTIST IN FUND RESIDENCE Our Scholarship Fund allows students with Each year, a Boston-based artist create a sense of home and claim financial need to experi- engages across our programs to a place as home? The installation, ence the joys of craft and create public artwork on a resonant Home/Hogar, is now housed in the creativity without financial theme. Second-year Teen Bridge Teen Space at the Main Branch worry. This year, both participants support the artist as of the Boston Public Library at adults and young people interns during an intensive process Copley Square. enjoyed over 100 classes of collaborative design, art making In 2019, L’Merchie Frazier will work tuition-free. and community engagement. with our teens and in collaboration Many donations build In 2018, sculptor Nora Valdez worked with children’s social justice group our Scholarship Fund. with Teen Bridge youth around the Wee The People. New Urban Additionally, we are theme of Home. Through workshops Monuments: Stand Up Inside proud to host scholar- at local library branches, they invited Yourself! will combine fiber art and ship funds in honor and community members to explore what spoken word, rethinking public in memory of individuals. makes a place home. What makes monuments to embody values our A named scholarship home safe, comforting? How do we communities want to remember. can be created with a gift of $10,000 or more. Current named scholarship funds: Sonja Schubert Calabi Scholarship for Textile Arts Lorenzo Calabi Scholarship for Woodworking Charles Fox Scholarship Tim Ingles Scholarship Marilyn Mase Scholarship Nicole Murray Scholarship SKILLS & CREATIVITY DEVELOPMENT PROFESSIONAL Good teaching depends on skilled, Our 2018–19 workshops focused on well-supported faculty. We provide cultural competency and racial justice our partnership teachers with —or, in the language of Boston Public professional development workshops Schools, culturally and linguistically and support throughout the school sustaining practices: recognizing year. Our Art Teachers Alliance allows implicit bias, developing critical faculty to share curriculum and consciousness around race, and lesson plans, improve skills, and engaging in uncomfortable but important build relationships among art conversations in the classroom. teachers from the Eliot School, In 2019-20, we will focus on how Boston Public Schools, charter teachers can understand and support schools and community partners. students’ behavioral health. “ The workshop affirmed what I am doing and gave me additional resources. I’m excited about sharing what I learned.” EVENTS & EXHIBITIONS Free public events throughout the year extend our reach. ARTISANS’ TALKS Artisans present their work and engage in conversation as part of Boston Design Week. EXHIBITIONS AT GALATEA FINE ART We are pleased to present two exhibitions a year at Galatea Fine Art in the SoWa Art & Design District of Boston’s South End. Exhibitions feature our Artists in Residence and selected faculty. HANDS-ON HOLIDAYS Children and families gather for free hands-on workshops: creating holiday ornaments, decorating Easter eggs and making tissue-paper lanterns for Jamaica Plain’s annual Lantern Parade. WEE THE PEOPLE This social justice project inspires children to discover JAMAICA PLAIN OPEN STUDIOS the power of their own voices around difference, An annual celebration of the arts, JP Open Studios equity and justice. Wee The People leads occasional gives the public and artists an opportunity to family times and professional development with us. connect. Each year, Eliot School faculty, Teen Bridge and Artist in Residence show work at our schoolhouse in a celebration of our community. GOING FORWARD PLAN STRATEGIC FACILITIES In 2018, designLAB architects, working with G2 Collaborative Landscape The Eliot School’s future depends Architects, completed a feasibility on improved and expanded space. study outlining the space the We are committed to plan for facilities school needs. Their conceptual design that better meet the needs of our suggests what a renovated and programs, constituents and staff. We expanded schoolhouse might look like. are engaged in a multi-year process A new landscape design could open up to gather information that will help our space at the back of the yard, provide board make key decisions on building a drive for student and project drop-off, improvements and a capital campaign. and preserve a path between adjacent Our schoolhouse, built in 1831, streets. The process drew upon more contains a small office and four than two years of active input from classrooms: wood shop, upholstery students, faculty, neighbors and staff.