2021-2022 VAPAE COMMUNITY ARTS PROGRAMS

MASA @ UCLA COMMUNITY SCHOOL

Since 2015, MASA has brought together youth and families in a welcoming, multigenerational space to make art and share cultural traditions while bonding as artists. Following the previous years’ pivot to remote art-making and Grab and Go Art Kits, MASA’s in-person sessions re-emerged in Fall 2021. As COVID-19 continued to impact families’ lives and learning throughout 2021-22, VAPAE and the UCLA Community School worked together to revive the in-person MASA sessions amid shifting safety guidelines and comfort levels. We look forward to continuing this process of re-imagination.

VAPAE Teaching Artists: Raymundo Baltazar, Jolene Fernandez, Alberto Lule

MÁS @ UCLA COMMUNITY SCHOOL

In the new Multidisciplinary Art Students (MÁS) program, students in grades 6-8 explored identity and imagination through weekly art-making sessions held during the school day. In MÁS, students created and learned alongside intragenerational peers in individual and collaborative art-making. MÁS grew out of VAPAE’s long-standing partnership with the UCLA Community School, and represents our shared values as we all imagine a return to in-person art making in the era of COVID-19.

VAPAE Teaching Artists: Raymundo Baltazar, Jolene Fernandez, Alberto Lule

STUDIO SESSIONS @ SAGE

Building on the success of Spring 2021, this program is designed to support students’ creative and political expression through artivism, empowering students by cultivating social consciousness. Collaborative art projects invited students to reflect on environmental justice and imagine an equitable, non-binary future through multiple art forms. VAPAE has been a wonderful partner to the SAGE Magnet in a variety of ways. Most importantly, VAPAE takes the time to attentively listen to the goals of our program, and then tailors and adjusts their curriculum to best support our needs. The students in SAGE are deeply inspired by social justice, and the importance of identity seeking. They are unafraid to try on the various hats that middle school students try on, while freely exploring issues of gender, sexuality, race, and religion. VAPAE supports this curiosity with projects that inspire critical thinking and open conversations, as well as the fun and engaging art projects that extend seamlessly from these talks.

VAPAE Teaching Artists: Raymundo Baltazar, Carrie Appel, Salix Hjerrild, Julie Wong

CREATIVE AGING @ PASADENA SENIOR CENTER

In Creative Aging, VAPAE teaching artists provided enriching arts lessons to a beloved population: seniors and elders. Launched in Spring 2021, the program brought arts experiences to a cohort of seniors ranging from emerging to expert artmakers, some of whom were reconnecting with a creative practice they had set aside for many years. The program also served as a community anchor to VAPAE’s newest undergraduate special topics course of the same name, first offered in Fall 2021.

VAPAE Teaching Artists: Raymundo Baltazar, Miel Lei Apostol, Jolene Fernandez, Alberto Lule