Art & Action
Through partnerships with community organizations, Evanston Township High School is providing students with multiple opportunities to get support and engage in mindfulness practices.
Open Studio Project provides a welcoming environment to create art for personal growth, social emotional learning (SEL), and community wellbeing. Their SEL Art Curriculum is available to ETHS students and staff throughout the school year in response to the COVID pandemic.
“Students learn to manage feelings of stress and impulse control, be more fully present, and be reflective problem solvers,” said Sarah Laing, executive director of Open Studio Project. “The pandemic has been overwhelming on many levels. This art space gives them a chance to address social justice issues, fear and anxiety, grief and sadness, among other complex feelings.”
The Open Studio Project program is available on campus during the lunch hour multiple days a week, as well as after school on Mondays and at Wildkit Academy. Teaching artists and art therapists are on hand to help students gain a sense of belonging and connection through creative expression.
“This program provides a good way to vent creative thoughts,” said freshman Connor Hill. “The school day can be stressful, especially for students who may not know a lot of others. And it’s nice to have a place to go with no pressure.”
Promotional Poster Used at ETHS:
Outreach Art Programming for Children and Teens
Over that last 20 years, Open Studio Project has proudly partnered with many local organizations that have allowed us to extend our reach to the youth of Evanston and beyond that we may not have been able to reach otherwise. We have enjoyed a 15 year partnership with Youth & Opportunity United (Y.O.U.), and have partnered with the James B. Moran Center for Youth Advocacy, Evanston Police Department, PEER Services, and many more, in order to provide outreach art programming for children and teens.
Our Goals:
To help young people find creative ways to help themselves:
Open Studio Project provides a safe space where young people who are faced with very real life challenges can learn how to use expressive art to access their own creative inner resources. Through collaboration, our organizations augment each other’s strengths and create a community environment, which serves the whole teen.
To provide outreach art programming for children and teens that is accessible and relevant:
We seek to make the deep benefits of art and writing available to youth whose circumstances or behaviors have caused them strife or to feel barred from other places and situations.
To work together to create a healthy community:
Through collaboration with our partners, we augment each other’s strengths and create a community environment, which serves the whole team. We provide safe, engaging encounters with creative art-making, and we tailor the program focus to the specific needs of each group we serve.
To advocate to make teen voices heard:
We create a show of teen participants’ art and writing show at the end of each workshop series end. These exhibitions educate the public by revealing the truths of youths’ experiences in a highly direct and powerful way: by sharing the teens’ own words and images. Our experience with young people has shown us that these exhibits also increase the self-esteem of the participants. It allows each of them to be individually seen and appreciated by their community (as well as their families) for who they authentically are and for what they truly feel (which is often transformed and contrary to their previous expressions).
Why the Open Studio Process is so effective with youth:
Adults Work Alongside Teens
No Comment or Criticism = Learning to Listen to Oneself
Voluntary Participation = Freedom & Responsibility
It Feels Great To Make Art
HOW
The Open Studio Process is very flexible and works to support and empower people in a wide range of circumstances. Within our after-school programs, we tailor our specific objectives to the common issues and needs of the participating youth.
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