Archive: Newsletters 2008

ArtSeed Annual Report 2008

Dear ArtSeed Friend,

Almost nine years ago, a few teaching artists realized something important. When a troubled child experiences a
sustained commitment from someone outside the family, a profound change can occur that is unlikely to happen in
a classroom setting. The change spreads to their friends, affecting increasingly larger numbers of young people
over time. So we founded ArtSeed to connect kids – many of whom came from distressed communities – with
professional artists. Through classes and exhibitions of the resulting artwork, these youngsters have been offered
collegiality and long-term mentorships. As we approach our ten year anniversary, it is exciting to see that more
people have realized the value of these lasting and productive connections.

In the January issue of Youth Today, Gary Walker, former President of Public/Private Ventures, lists some major
appeals of mentoring from the standpoint of investors: it makes sense to most people despite their politics, it fits
with American cultural values of volunteerism and self-determination and it’s thrifty! In this time of economic
insecurity, it’s gratifying to consider how ArtSeed has stretched your charitable dollars. Our 2007-08 expenses of
$65,000 have supported one staff person, one full-time teaching artist, a handful of mentoring artists and an army
of volunteers. Students use professional art supplies, often drawing in the park after interning at our Presidio office.

This coming year, ArtSeed has an incredible opportunity to hire much needed new office staff and to expand our
Apprenticeship Program from two to ten qualified artists who are anxious to mentor a student. With our mailing list
having expanded to 1,000 people, just a $50 donation from you will allow us to reach our goal of $50,000.

ArtSeed Board of Directors: Georg Gottschalk, James
Joves, Donna Logan (advisor); Marissa Kunz, Kevin
Quan, Matt Boris (left to right), Josefa Vaughan

Your ideas matter to us and your gift of any size will make a huge difference. With this in mind, we strongly
encourage your feedback in the form of comments and the completed questionnaire, returned in the enclosed self
addressed envelope. Hundreds attend ArtSeed’s Open Studios in Bayview Hunter’s Point, mostly in response to
email invitations. Please consider this a personal invitation to come and see the work without the crowds. I want to
take you on a tour of ArtSeed’s ’07-’08 highlights, first with the stories and images on the next page, and then by
showing you some of the art that has opened doors, enlightened hearts and sometimes even changed lives.
I’d love to hear from you.

Have a joyous holiday season!

-Josefa Vaughan, Executive Director

Treasurer’s Report:

As a community supported non-profit, ArtSeed relies heavily on individual donations. Grants and earned income (teaching fees, art sales) also help fund our various programs. Our donors are very generous and effective in helping ArtSeed match, augment and leverage our grant funding to create a stable financial base. ArtSeed’s Board of Directors actively donates time and money to fundraising. This is the first year that Summer Intensive students paid dues to participate in this valuable program. With the help of grant funding and minimal ArtSeed General Fund subsidy, this program is one step closer to being fully self-sufficient.

ArtSeed is operating efficiently and effectively with 80% of income going towards programs vs. 20% to operations. Having our offices in the Thoreau Center puts us near a great a place for exhibitions and mentorships. We hope to expand our donor contributions through this letter of appeal. ArtSeed needs to expand its administrative staff in order to write more grants to fund our growing Apprenticeship Program. With upcoming completion of our listing with the online California Cultural Data Project, we will be more visible to funding agenciesand we will be able to expedite the grant writing process. New grant funding and your contributions will help us to expand ArtSeed’s programs and continue to fulfill our mission.

-Kevin Quan

Shariff Hasan’s hospital view, Patricia Diart’s Burnett art, Donna Logan leading ArtSeed Board of Directors Retreat, Christaupher Peacock painting

Yes! I want to help ArtSeed to support the young or disadvantaged to reach their full potential through innovative fine arts exhibitions and events that involve classroom arts integration and long-term artist/youth apprenticeships. Click here to donate using our secure donation website, or visit ArtSeed.org.

ArtSeed is the best place!

-Sydney Van Bueren, Apprentice

Sydney was so excited the first day
when she came home. The variety
nd depth of the art she produced
just kept expanding.

-Keith Van Bueren, Dad, Volunteer

ArtSeed Highlights ’07-’08

Fine Arts Summer Intensive

ArtSeed’s programming year culminated this summer in a characteristically rigorous and rewarding weeklong Summer Intensive. As always, part of the magic was created by the diverse group of professional artists and young people, age
six to teens, who came together to make art and discuss big ideas. The Presidio-based Bay School of San Francisco
generously let us convert their large and bright chemistry lab into a full functioning art studio. Some highlights this year included working for the first time with oil painting and filmmaking. Each young
participant took home a DVD with their video experiments as well as a completed oil painting on canvas, one that was started outdoors and then finished in the studio with individualized
instruction.
Other artwork, which explored media like printmaking and charcoal, were gathered
in personal portfolios that were constructed from scratch and decorated by the participants
themselves. We took field trips to downtown art galleries and museums and explored the
Presidio itself. We visited the Historic Pet Cemetery and had a memorable lunch invitation after
a morning of drawing and getting to know the seniors at the Adult Day Health Center. Many
unlikely friendships were forged while the elders’ stories were given form in charcoal portraits.

The Presidio Trust invited students at
Sherman Elementary School to create
paintings depicting Presidio cultural and
natural resources that highlight the
unique characteristics of this National
Park.
The paintings were exhibited twice
at the Thoreau Center. These acrylic
paintings were created by third graders under the direction of ArtSeed’s co-founder
Marissa Kunz who is also ArtSeed’s Artist-in-Residence at Sherman.

We are extremely fortunate to have Marissa as the Drawing and Painting instructor. Even
with the budget cuts, the PTA is fully funding her to teach all classes once a week. Our
students enjoy coming to school and look forward to the days when they have the
opportunity to be in her class -when children enjoy coming to school, their attendance is
high and they learn more…
-Phyllis Matsuno, Former Principal, Sherman Elementary

I must tell you what Randy said to me about last Thursday’s event at Thoreau Center. He
said that on the following day he and Marquis were talking and they said they both thought it
was a dream what they did…..but it was real! The show, walkingthrough the Presidio, running
and playing, then eating at a restaurant (and then falling asleep in the car on the way home)
was a highly memorable occasion in their lives.
-Marc Ellen Hamel, Mentoring Artist

Youth Funding Youth Ideas/CHALK and the Department of Children, Youth and their Families
made this Spring and Summer exciting by funding our new photography and community outreach project, Urban Art:
11th Hour Documentation of the Public Services Hospital in the Presidio. Young artists lead by Erin Wallace
documented diverse forms of graffiti that have accumulated inside the historic building, vacant since the early 1980s. Professional artists and teen-aged photographers have had the last word on the work of their peers: graffiti that was often masterful, sometimes whimsical, political or especially troubling. Kudos to Erin for writing the grant. We are also very grateful to Christina Wallace and the Presidio Trust for giving us access to the site before it is rehabilitated.

Burnett student drawing for Power in a Global Society, our collaboration with World Savvy.

ArtSeed apprentices Zoriyah Carter,
Marquis White and Jeru Mabrey were
among the winners of the “Gimme
Shelter” Art Program competition.
Their compositions, featured on bus
shelters throughout Oakland,
addressed the question: “How I See
the World/How I Would Like to See
the World.”

Guest Presenting Artist
Jesse Balmer and doodle

What do people say about ArtSeed?

ArtSeed has been an invaluable form of arts education for the children at Burnett.
Children are exposed to a lot of different forms of art including photography, drawing,
painting and sculpture. They are also exposed to the historical significance of art
through concepts and vocabulary – from Gee’s Bend quilts to Jim Grant for instance.
Also they are able to work on large projects and have a sense of pride in their
achievements.
– Betty Robinson-Harris, teacher, Burnett Child Development Center

I decided to major in Art at UC Santa Cruz, so I will be pursuing the arts. Thank you for
teaching me how to paint in oils – and the whole class in general – it has helped me
mature as an artist.
– Mauricio Ramirez, ’07 YBCA Young Artist at Work Program

My heartfelt thanks and deep gratitude for the experience I had as your teaching
assistant. I am equally grateful for the rough times as I am with the fun ones, and will
look back on the intense learning I participated in for years to come.
— Jamie Peterson

I’ve been richly rewarded by working
with you at ArtSeed, and I feel a debt of
gratitude for the experience. I look
forward to continuing down this path of
friendship and purpose in the coming
year!
– Joan Nelson, Volunteer

A small donation is enclosed, plus a
print showing a young artist enjoying
your class at the SFAEP summer art
program about ten years ago. This is
Willis, who will be entering the School
of Art at Cooper Union this fall. Thanks
for helping him to find his way in the
world of art.
– Chris Bigelow, Dad

Friendly art critique sessions:

Founding ArtSeed artist teacher
and board secretary Marissa Kunz has begun
what looks to be a great new tradition for interested
ArtSeed artists and friends: monthly art critique sessions
that are now being hosted by others. What better
motivation to finish that art work you’ve started than to
have a date where undivided attention and thoughtful
comments will be gladly given to you while you sip some
wine and munch on finger foods among friends. Please
contact ArtSeed if you are interested in joining us!

Betty Skwarek with the Franklin Street Unitarian Universalist
Society collaborated with ArtSeed on a Mandala Project spanning
eight weeks thanks to the Hinkley Fund. These intergenerational
Sunday morning classes taught by Patricia Diart began with a
walk from the church to the Tenderloin’s Faithful Fools
Community Center. We reflected on our walk, painted our ideas
and then assembled them together in a huge composition (shown to the left).

Macy’s Community Shopping Day was an event that offered an opportunity for local nonprofit
organizations to raise funds in their communities, giving families we serve a chance
to contribute by selling tickets and not spending their own limited funds. 100% of each
$10 ticket sale supported ArtSeed programs while the purchaser got $10 off Macy’s
merchandise. Macy’s ticket donation totaled $4,700: now that’s shopping for a cause!

New office: Thanks in part to Bruce DeMartini’s advocacy, we’ve upgraded from a cubicle
subleased from the Tides Foundation to a bona fide office with four walls, a door and a
view to a lawn that is regularly visited by a handsome blue heron. Thanks to Greg Paxton
we have a handsome office interior. Our new physical location within the Thoreau Center
is 1007 General Kennedy Ave., Suite # 206, but our mailing address is still the same.

New office photo by Laurie H. Brown

ArtSeed’s programs are made possible by Youth Funding Youth Ideas/CHALK and
Department of Children, Youth and their Families, California Arts Council Artists in
Schools Program 2007-2008, Sherman Elementary PTA, Macy’s West, Philanthropic Ventures Foundation, the Hinkley Fund, Perforce Foundation, The Rothwell Group, L.P., Claude & Louise Rosenberg Jr. Family Foundation, Savoir Faire Artist Supplies, Artisans of San Francisco, The Photograph Store, Cheap Pete’s, Framed & Cornered, Center for Citizen Initiatives, gifts of art and funding from Tony and Caroline Grant, ArtSeed’s Board of Directors and other generous individual
donors. For an extended list of 2008 donors, volunteers, partnerships, and program participants please visit ArtSeed.org. Big hugs to new mentoring artist Jenny Sultan, and to new volunteers, including Luned Palmer, Allison Kraus, Trey Houston, and Brett Goodroad. Thank you all very much!! Also, congrats to Jiana Watson for her SF Art Institute scholarship and to William Scott for his current Paris exhibition.

Hunters Point Shipyard Studio #2513

The desire to preserve and explore the meaning of that which is passing or has passed is not new to artists or scholars. The impulse is as old as hope, a related inclination. But we live in an age when families celebrate their pre-schoolers’ graduation as if it might be their last significant living passage. To some people the future, like modern art, seems an illegible abstraction. Hence, this groundbreaking attempt to use art making – both at its highest level and its most vernacular – as a tool for kids to create dialog around sustainability, mortality and justice. This year, ArtSeed’s education and exhibition projects explore and respond to difficult subject matter related to philosophy, psychology and theology as basic age-appropriate contemplative tools. All related exhibition events described below are free to the public.

• James Grant and Company – Just as the famed modern artist Mark Rothko showed works by his young students in his first museum show, ArtSeed features highly refined original works by a late Bay Area abstract painter alongside responses by very young children who have come to know it. Art from the James Grant estate is available for purchase during the exhibition and at www.jamesgrant.org. 100% of the proceeds will benefit ArtSeed’s Apprenticeship Program and classes at the Burnett Child Development Center in Bayview Hunters Point. This project was made possible by gifts of art and major funding from Tony and Caroline Grant that helped to match funding we received from the California Arts Council Artists in Schools Program 2007-2008. Also on display will be works by ArtSeed Mentoring Artist Marc Ellen Hamel, paper quilts assembled by Teaching Artist Patricia Diart, and a special project called Paintings of the Presidio. Sherman Elementary School was invited to create paintings depicting Presidio cultural and natural resources that highlight the unique characteristics of this National Park. These acrylic paintings were created by third graders under the direction of ArtSeed’s Co-founder Marissa Kunz who is also ArtSeed’s Artist in Residence at Sherman Elementary School. This special project is a partnership of ArtSeed and the Presidio Trust. The exhibition was curated by Josefa Vaughan and Tony Grant.Gallery Thoreau Exhibition, May 23 – June 5, 2008, Closing Reception: 5-7 pm, Thursday, June 5

• Urban Art: 11th Hour– Young ArtSeed artists are documenting diverse forms of graffiti that have accumulated inside the Public Health Services Hospital in the Presidio. The hospital has been vacant since the early 1980s and has been used by teens and adults as a forum for urban mark-making. Two large wings of the hospital will be demolished next winter so that the historic hospital building can be rehabilitated for housing. Under the mentorship of professional artists, young people, from their perspectives as beginners in the field, will have the last word on graffiti that is sometimes political or especially troubling. Parts of this documentary material – photos, film, videos, texts, etc…– will be used in schools and in ArtSeed’s Fine Arts Summer Intensive to stimulate discussions around why under-appreciated structures attract entry and youthful self expression. It is hoped that this inquiry will seed a community needs assessment for a Creative Work Space attracting youth (and the young at heart) to a safe and lawful outlet for self-discovery and community.Seed Gallery Exhibition: August 22- September 26, 2008

Location: Gallery Thoreau and The Seed Gallery are in the Thoreau Center for Sustainability