With just a few days left of my trip, I started to pay careful attention to how much sunshine I was getting, becoming accutely aware of my limited time to soak up some much needed vitamin D. Walking through the expanse of the West Hollywood neighborhood, I was amazed at the variety of plant and flower life. Seeming humble among the many, flowers, tree trunks, jade plants, and leaves displayed themselves in brilliant splashes of color and texture. It occurred to me I could spend years walking these streets and still find hidden surprises of flora on walls, in parking lots, amidst construction sites, and along sidewalks. To match this kaleidoscope of natural wonder, were people just as dashing in their variety of glamorous display. Walking to a coffee shop or to the grocery store, it was hard not to be distracted by the two in combination, and found my mouth slightly agape most of the time. I pulled some of my senses together though for my final meeting with Glenna Avila at the California Institute for the Arts, unfortunately done over the phone as there were limited public transport options to get to the college.
Glenna is the Program Director of the Community Arts Partnership program at the California Institute for the Arts. The program was started by the president of the college who was looking for ways to connect the college students in Valencia, CA right outside of L.A., with diverse communities in the city of L.A. He felt this connection would provide rich opportunities for college students to learn from and gain teaching experience working with communities and youth, as well as providing a great resource to the community for youth to engage in and learn from the arts. The program was set up to develop collaborative partnerships with community organizations, probation programs, neighborhood centers, housing projects, and schools working with primarily low-income youth and youth of color. These partnerships are the backbone of the program and are developed with a great deal of care and thought. Glenna explained that they both seek out partnerships and are sought out for the work they do, and make sure that collaborations are based on shared values of commitment to youth, high quality service, a student centered approach, respect, flexibility, and a spirit of innovation. Starting with three partnerships, the program now works with 45 partners to do 55 projects a year. Once these partnerships are established the CAP program is committed to continue working with them regardless of funding, in this way it they are a consistent resource to the community in hard times as well as good.
Projects are year long collaborations between a team of college faculty and students, and youth from partnering organizations. As college students will be working primarily with teens in high school, and occasionally middle and elementary school youth, they receive training in youth work before they begin each project. Faculty and college students meet weekly to do project planning and develop a theme for the project, dividing teaching responsibilities and developing curriculum. Over 300 college students have signed up to work for the program, and some of these students have done such excellent teaching work that after graduation they have been hired on as faculty at the college. In addition to this, Glenna said one of the most incredible things is that some of the students originally served through community partnerships then went on to attend college at Cal Arts, eventually becoming faculty themselves. During the project, the college team and youth work from a chosen theme generally related to teen or community topics and issues, and express that theme through a variety of art disciplines. The CAP program works to reflect all the artistic forms taught and practiced at the college from the four major disciplines of visual arts, performance arts, media arts, and literary arts. Starting with just two of these art forms, the program has worked to continue expanding the arts training that they offer to the community, presenting more options and ways for youth to connect with the arts and different forms of expression. Glenna said now they are trying to find more ways to do interdisciplinary artwork, and ways for themes and art forms to respond to each other. Overall, the program continues to push for a high quality engagement with the arts, and a strong and lasting connection between the college and youth in L.A.'s numerous diverse communities.
I was fascinated with the strength and commitment of the program's partnerships and collaborations, particularly with the probation department. I described to Glenna that this is a partnership I am really interested in developing in my own community, and asked for any advice she may have in starting that conversation in Madison. She explained that in their case, she had previous experience working with incarcerated youth and knew somebody in the department. A lot of building partnerships, especially more challenging ones, can come down to finding the right person to talk to. She encouraged me to find people who are genuinely interested in supporting and furthering the work I want to do, and developing relationships with those individuals. Furthermore, it is extremely important to identify what I my program's values are, and finding partners who have those shared values. Glenna also said that when entering partnerships, it is important to have humility and patience, as she views it as being like a guest in the the other organizations house. Once the firm base of shared values is established, this humility, patience, and open communication when challenges arise can greatly determine the level to which the collaboration is successful. In addition to this, it helps to generate by-in to the program through showing clear results. When I asked her how she might demonstrate these results, for example if I wanted to work with youth in the Juvenile Detention Center, she suggested self portraits. No joke I had just been puzzling the past two days how to make a meaningful projects out of self portraits with court involved youth. Glenna described a project they did with youth where they were encouraged to draw a picture of a dragonfly from memory, then a second time using guidance from the teacher about how to draw from pictures. The improvement was astounding, and provided a clear measurable result of their progress. I could do this with self portraits, VOILA!
Wheels in full gear, I was ready to jump on my plane scheduled for the next day and go knock on the door of the art department at UW Madison. Something like this should totally take place in Madison, we have a great university, and as Glenna described their program, it is really a win-win situation for both the university students and the community. In addition to this I had gained an even more solid guideline for developing future partnerships, as well as ideas for themes and projects with kids. This was my last meeting, and I couldn't have asked for it to be any more fantastic. Out with a bang! Walking Melrose Ave for the last time, I got my belongings together and packed for the last time in what I hopped would be a while. The novelty of things like unwrinkled clothes, a familiar shower, a full length bed without springs you could feel, came rushing into my mind as I neared the finish line. I scheduled my shuttle to the airport early the next morning, and tried to fall asleep against my eagerness and anticipation of being home. The next morning came soon enough, four hours after falling asleep, and I headed in the super shuttle towards LAX. All in all the day's travels were easy and uncomplicated, and I watched the rivers turning gold under falling sunshine, and mountains just starting to hold their snow glide far below. I mused at what a different vantage this was from the train, and was thankful on this day to have opted for the five hours of plane travel over the forty five on the train. Landing in Milwaukee, WI I was sure there would be many more ideas and puzzling to unravel from the trip, but for now I am just happy to be home.
I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving, and want to thank everybody for their tremendous support, time, knowledge, homes, well wishes, and love that made this trip so successful. With all my gratitude I wish you the best, and will keep you updated as things build and unfold. Until then, be well!
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