From Micro to Macro: The Interconnectedness of Nature Including Us!
From Micro to Macro: The Interconnectedness of Nature Including Us! is the theme of GRO’s Artists in the Schools program for 2022-23. The theme encourages students to observe and learn about their environment from the smallest organisms to the largest creatures.The students consider how everything is interconnected and how humans also impact the natural world.The art projects embrace, respond to and reflect the theme through drawing, painting, weaving, printmaking, glass blowing and more.
Our talented teaching artists come from West Marin as well as the Greater Bay Area. This year we will be bringing back field trips in nature that pair a naturalist with an artist or poet for additional creative exploration and enrichment. The goal is to deepen the students’ understanding of their relationship with the environment around them. Artists are sent to all five of the schools in the Shoreline Unified School District. The project culminates with a wonderful exhibition of all the students’ work at Toby’s Art Gallery in Point Reyes Station in June.
GRO’s Artists in the Schools also extends to three community based projects; The Mural Project, Eco-Sorting Stations and the Mobile Maker Space. The Mural Project at Tomales Bay Youth Center celebrates students’ perspective of West Marin through a beautiful group painting.
The Eco-Sorting Stations and Mobile Maker Space trailer are run with the involvement and support of the Rotary Club of West Marin, West Marin Climate Action and other funders. The Sorting Stations are designed to help consumers understand where to sort, dispose and reduce waste in our community. The Mobile Maker Space which has reopened after a two year pandemic hiatus fosters tinkering and open-ended exploration for students. It also offers an opportunity for the community to reuse, recycle, repair, repurpose and restore through its Repair Cafe and Fix-It Clinics.
Gallery Route One’s Artists in the Schools Program is supported by The Buck Family Fund of the Marin Community Foundation, the Rotary Club of West Marin, West Marin Climate Action, the Shoreline Unified School District, and donations from people like you.
Meet Jennifer Tesoro Reese, Director Artists in the Schools
Jennifer has thirty years experience in the art world. For twenty years she worked as a museum educator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art teaching K- 12 grades, conducting teacher workshops, giving gallery talks and writing family guides. While at the Met she also managed all the adult, college and senior groups that entered the museum. Jennifer has worked as a private museum guide at SFMOMA where she engaged a wide range of audiences with the museum’s collection, special exhibitions and architecture. Currently Jennifer also works part-time as an art consultant at Desta Gallery in Mill Valley.
Jennifer has a Master’s degree in Art History from Hunter College, City University of New York where she was awarded the Graf Travel Grant to do research in British Columbia for her thesis on the 20th-Century painter, Emily Carr. Her undergraduate degree is from Trinity College in Hartford, CT.
When Jennifer is not working she is hiking the hills of Marin County, listening to local live music or spending time with her family.