Lisa Venturelli / Huy Pham

Our Values and Missions

Our goal and our mission is to open the doors through the visuals arts. We enrich education in New Mexico in numerous ways.

We teach parents and volunteers to teach complex art education plans in their classrooms.

We provide free art programs and provide professional help to show how to use visual art as an education enhancer.

Our Community's Needs Our art schools do

receive funding, however it is not enough to provide an art education to every child every year. Four of Albuquerque’s middle schools do not have art teachers and therefore can not have art as an elective.

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Our Goals

Our professional development workshops for certified teachers show how an arts-infused, inquiry-based curriculum and imaginative teaching provide multiple ways for students to be successful. 

Our workshops explicate effective ways to incorporate art into all subject areas, inspiring and enabling teachers to create an art-centered approach to education.

About Ourselves

We were established by a historian Sara Otto-Diniz in 1985 because the art education funding had been moratorium, eliminated, in our public schools.

Our values wish to help support education in New Mexico by providing quality visual art education.

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More About Ourselves

A unique curriculum was created for the elementary program by artist / art teacher Bethe Sailer.  The lessons introduce a wide variety of art media and explore master works of art from many cultures.  Drawing, painting in watercolor and tempera, pottery, weaving, print making and tin work keep the children learning and engaged in the classes.

Thanks to generous funding from grants and donations, the program is provided at no cost to the children or the schools. 

Inputs

Our program and continuously expanding. Many schools are interested in establishing their own Art In The School’s after school programs and teacher workshops.

We require more funding so that we may be able to meet the need of communities beyond ours to keep art and creativity in the schools.

Outputs

Our middle and elementary schools after school after school programs focuses on expressions of self-identity. It allows students to explore their creativity and individually through graphite, painting mediums, collage, clay and wire sculpture.

Thousands of children in New Mexico school’s have benefited from our programs since 1985

Comparison

THINKING FOUNDATION ART IN THE SCHOOLS

To support high quality academic and applied “action” research cognitive thinking skills in schools.

Is working to change the schools teaching of critical skills in schools that have completely ignored the important values.

We support the teaching of qualitative art skills in elementary and middle schools.

Our non-profit is trying to bring the art programs back to schools that have terminated them.

Critical Action

Our nonprofit believes in critical action. Getting out there and making a real difference.

The teachers who sign up for our workshops are actively trying to better themselves and their teaching strategies so that they can bring more stimulating education.

Critical Thinking

Art requires a lot of metacognitive and cognitive skills, meaning that you have to think about what your painting and in turn go over that process of thinking to make sure that you are taking the route you need to create something wonderful.

Critical Reading Our non-profit organization relates to

critical reading by having students interpret emotion in the arts, and to be able to seek connections with the art and their thoughts.

We also encourage for them to be able to access a text (or an art piece) and where they stand on the matter of they subject.

To be able to interpret art such as these masks requires some creativity and critical reading on their significance

Our Connections to NP

At our high school, our art program was non-existent. It was poorly funded to the point where as the art teachers would try to sell snacks to help fund their class. In addition to lack of funding, there were over sized classes that couldn’t get their supplies on the limited budgets set by the schools.

How you can help!• To get involved

in volunteering for our organization sign up on our website or come to one of our meetings or workshops

• You can help with fundraisers and other events to raise money and awareness about our cause.

We rely on the donations and kindness from individuals and corporations and grants to help fund our work.

We wish to expand our program to states that desperately need it, like California in the Anaheim School District. We received e-mails that one of the high schools only has two art classrooms and two art teachers that have to teach art one through three all in one class period.