Student Art Exhibits Around Austin: Connecting Communities

This year I have placed even more emphasis on helping build up our Arts program by utilizing some of my connections to our local cultural arts community to display student artwork. Many community arts programs do not serve Del Valle ISD and I love being able to advocate for our students who are underserved and underrepresented in so many ways as it is. I believe connecting communities through art can be a used as a method of social change and all exhibits have been free and open and accessible to the public.

Thank you to the support of the City of Austin and my former co-workers at the Austin Public Library and Mexican American Cultural Center! I am so grateful for these opportunities to showcase my students' hard work, creativity, and talent and be able to provide them with real world experiences in working towards becoming professional artists. My middle school students are already beginning to develop a portfolio if they choose to continue to pursue AP Studio Art in high school and college, I feel confident that these experiences professionally displaying their artwork will help give them an edge in competitive job and college markets.

Stay tuned for a post about student work on display at the George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center 100% Exhibit. Student work is already currently on display at the Carver Museum as part of Black History Month. Featured are several civil rights leaders portraits.

In November, students displayed their work as part of the East Austin Studio Tour for the 2nd year in a row. We were the only students in Del Valle ISD to display artwork as part of EAST and some of the youngest artists on the tour. Work was on display at the Willie Mae Kirk Branch of the Austin Public Library for the entire month of November.

For the 2nd year in a row as well, students from my Pre AP Art I class displayed their work at the Mexican American Cultural Center during the month of December. After learning about various types of Mexican artwork and culture, students created work that included Amate bark paintings, papier mache alebrijes, and silkscreened t-shirts created with outreach programming from the Mexi-Carte Museum's Screen-It! program.

Artist extraordinaire and young fashion designer, Vanessa Gonzalez, won a Gold Key Award as part of the Scholastic Art and Writing competition. She was the only student in DVISD to place and one of only four middle schoolers to win a Gold Key Award. Here she is proudly displaying her certificate at the Nancy Scanlan Gallery at St. Stephen's Episcopal School-my alma mater! It was a very moving experience for me to return to my own high school with my student as my experiences there helped inspire me to become a teacher myself!

This same dress also placed First Place in our 2nd Annual Del Valle ISD Fine Arts Event. Vanessa beat out high school students-including even the Advanced Placement student work! This amazing fashion creation is on view currently at the Austin Bergstrom International Airport through the month of April.