Tag: art

SMART Camp

Over the summer, St. Mary’s Academy hosted two sessions of enrichment camps for middle school students we dubbed SMART Camp.  These two-week sessions were comprised of morning and afternoon workshops that incorporated science, math, art and engineering/ technology also known in the education world as STEAM.

The morning portion of the first session of SMART Camp focused on Recycled Science and utilized recycled materials from  Trash for Teaching.  Our students learned about various types of energy sources and the importance of finding renewable alternatives to fossil fuels. Students used iPads to do research on energy sources, created comic strips about their selected topics, and built functioning windmills that could raise an object.

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Arts Field Trips to LACMA & The Broad

We’re gearing up for Arts Week right after spring break so we thought we’d recap on the two museums our visual arts students recently visited –  Los Angeles County Museum of Art and The Broad.

“Since its inception in 1965, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has been devoted to collecting works of art that span both history and geography, in addition to representing Los Angeles’s uniquely diverse population. Today LACMA is the largest art museum in the western United States, with a collection that includes nearly 130,000 objects dating from antiquity to the present, encompassing the geographic world and nearly the entire history of art. Among the museum’s strengths are its holdings of Asian art, Latin American art, ranging from pre-Columbian masterpieces to works by leading modern and contemporary artists; and Islamic art, of which LACMA hosts one of the most significant collections in the world. A museum of international stature as well as a vital part of Southern California, LACMA shares its vast collections through exhibitions, public programs, and research facilities that attract over a million visitors annually, in addition to serving millions through digital initiatives, such as online collections, scholarly catalogues, and interactive engagement at lacma.org.” – lacma.org

One of LACMA’s public programs are school tours.  The tour we went on was about the Art of Many Cultures. On this tour, students discovered and compared art from many different cultures (Western and non-Western), identifying the unique qualities that relate a work of art to the historical time period and place of its origin.  Students also learned how culture and art influences each other.  We saw examples of Hindu, African, Pre-Colombian,  Egyptian, Assyrian, Dutch, and Roman art along with some contemporary American art.

Chris Burden Urban Light. 2008

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Annenberg Space for Photography Field Trip

The Media Arts career path recently went on a field trip to the Annenberg Space for Photography in order to view two exhibits, Identity by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders and #girlgaze. Identity showcases people who have dominated their field  of work despite demographic prejudice.  This showcase empowered our girls to not give on their dreams despite what people around them might say.  They enjoyed the simplistic nature of the pictures that further enhances powerfulness of the picture.

#girlgaze is social movement that empowers female photographers and gives them a platform to showcase their work. This work allowed the girls to see what could be done by people similar to them.  They were also able to post some of their own #girlgaze pictures and contribute to the movement.


Girls get a hands-on view of #girlsgaze photos

The 2016-17 school year marks the second year that The Arts was designated an official career path program at SMA.  This year though, is the first year we accepted new freshman into the program into all three tracks .  The Arts Program contains three different tracks- students may choose to join the Media Arts, Visual Arts, or Performing Arts path.  Students who complete the program will know how to effectively create messages and works of art, a valuable life skill which will prepare them for any college portfolio, major, or career.

We’ve had a busy semester so far as you can see below and the hard work has just begun!  Second semester is chock full of arts activities including arts appreciation week, an arts showcase, a juried art show, and field trips for all three tracks.

This year we are happy to continue our partnership with The Colburn School, which provides us with a choir director for our student choir, The Humming Belles.  We are also very excited to have a NEW partner, Harmony Project, that brings instrumental music back on campus after a long absence.    Keep reading to find out more details on what’s been happening!

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