Artists In the Schools

The Seed, Cycles of Life is the theme of GRO’s Artists in the School’s program for 2020-21. The theme embraces core aspects of growth in the natural world and discovery of personal growth and identity in the individual student. Students look at environment, diverse cultures and communities and respond using a variety of artist mediums.

This year the program is being taught by more than ten different Teaching Artists living in Marin, the Greater Bay Area, and as far north as Portland, and as far south as Mexico. Their projects explore the theme of The Seed through botanical illustration, seed architecture, and drawing outdoors in nature. Other Teaching Artists have chosen to explore the Cycle of Life, by asking students to explore their own identities and personal growth through writing poetry about their transformation during the pandemic, or by creating self-portraits.

For the first time in the program’s history all AIS projects are available online as a series of free video workshops. By holding its classes online, the Artists in the Schools Program found an opportunity to bring the voices and perspectives of Teaching Artists and Educators from outside the Bay Area, a benefit the Gallery hopes to continue and expand in the coming year. By offering students pre-recorded sequential videos online, the students can choose to watch their class -assigned videos and also have free access to the whole set of Lesson Projects to view at any time. In the coming year the Gallery hopes to expand the online library of offerings to include more videos which can be enjoyed by K-12 students and their families. We invite the community to join us online. Please explore all the projects mentioned above and more.