Creativity is our superpower.
Hello Kindling Community!
Reporting here after surviving the 100yrs of January!
What’s ahead?
I’m teaching a couple sessions at Art + Lit Lab and would love to see your wonderful kiddos. Tell your friends please!
No School Day Art Camp
They offer four more day-off camps this school year. I will teach the morning of February 20th.
Youth Arts Classes & Workshops | Arts + Literature Laboratory | Madison Contemporary Arts Center
Summer Camps
They have an incredible summer planned with arts opportunities for youth ages 7-16. I’ll teach the mornings of weeks 3 and 7!
SUMMER CAMPS | Arts + Literature Laboratory | Madison Contemporary Arts Center
Kindled Community Sauna + Art Ladies and Femmes Mini-Retreat!
I’m teaming up with local small biz Kindled Community Sauna (I know, so cute huh?) to offer a special pop-up gathering right here in our beloved Eastmorland Neighborhood. It’s going to be a dream. A few spots are still available, snag one really quick!
What I’ve been up to:
I’ve been busy dreaming and planning behind the scenes, still intending to open in the new Eastmorland Community Center when the building is complete. Development is on-track! The old building has been removed and the foundations are set for the two new buildings, a community center and an apartment building. The new center will be such a gift to the community. If you’d like to support, visit their website here!
Over the last year, I’ve had the sweet privilege to get involved with Monona Grove Liberal Arts Charter School for the 21st Century (MG21). I’ve been teaching weekly art classes for middle and high school youth and even got to spend some time with their staff. I also got to return to my old stomping grounds at the Goodman Community Center and complete a mural in the Fritz Food pantry.
I’m (basically always) thinking about the role of creativity in taking care of each other and imagining new possibilities. I’m thinking about how we can all help remind each other of our own agency to make change and wanted to share a couple inspirations on that theme below as well!
I hope you are finding ways to stay warm, both literally and metaphorically.
❤️🔥Sending lots of love,
Carrie
I got to bring arty play and connection to a staff retreat for MG21.
We did blind contour partner drawings which are so fun. The person being drawn feels a bit vulnerable while the artist has to be really mindful and focused. Then they switch roles. A lot of laughter and easy relationship building comes out of this process. I’d love to do more of these! Reach out to explore if interested!
“The partner portraits were a fantastic way for us to end our staff retreat with connection and joy!“
-Rebecca Fox-Blair, MG21 School Director
Fritz Food Pantry Mural Project
It was a treat to brighten up the Goodman Community Center Fritz Food Pantry with a landscape mural. The amazing folks at GCC put a lot of thoughtful intention into making the food pantry a welcoming community space, and this is just one of many efforts to do so. (Pictured partially complete and a bit distorted below. I’m still figuring out how to properly photograph its awkward size of 4’ x 20’. Any photographers out there have ideas?)
I asked GCC staff, volunteers, pantry shoppers, and youth to write down a favorite food memory, describing what they ate, who they were with, or who cooked it. I incorporated their memories as part of the texture in the landscape.
GCC received a PPG Colorful Communities grant to cover the mural and also fund some additional food pantry expenses.
The food pantry is experiencing record need. Learn how to support here!
A local way to support resistance!
Anthology on State St. has an open call for artists until Feb 5.
From Anthology: “
Submit artwork for our MN legal+mutual aid postcard pack! We're looking for anti-ICE or pro-mutual aid artwork for a postcard set to benefit Minnesota legal+mutual aid organizations. 100% of $25 selling price going to 3 Minnesota organizations. Send artwork formatted for a single-sided 4.25" x 5.5" postcard to anthologymadison@gmail.com. Subject line: Minnesota. Your IG/signature/web/credit info should be somewhere in your design.”
Or support by purchasing the postcard packs here: $25 good things for all: Minnesota - Anthology LLC
Some words from Corita Kent - patron saint of pop art for justice:
“Creativity belongs to the artist in each of us. To create means to relate. The root meaning of the word ART is to fit together and we all do this every day. Not all of us are painters but we are all artists. Each time we fit things together we are creating - whether it is to make a loaf of bread, a child, a day.
…..As artists, we accept responsibility to create - to realize our immense powers to change things, to fit things together in a new way. As artists, we work every day. We make our own lives every day; we care for our family every day. It is hard daily work, this creative process. But it is also greater than personal. We are asked to care for others as well - helping them to create their lives as we were helped. Our work is global - we are asked literally to help make the countries of the world fit together in new ways. We begin this making, of course, in our own selves, our homes, our own country.”
-Corita Kent, Learning by Heart
