Jordan Ashby Photo
Summer Artspace Program students, instructors, and TAs.
Artspace New Haven celebrated the culmination of the free Summer Artspace Program (SAP) with a community exhibition highlighting the work of six high school artists.
Tré Bolden, William O’Shea, Richard Luciano, Luca Rivera, Ryan Rugarema, Jayden Carty, and Adam Simpson began the program on July 6. They worked Monday through Friday with a different established artists in the community.
With the change in instructor came a change in medium; students experimented with sculpture, digital art, oil painting, drawing and 2D mixed media, such as screen printing, paper cutting, and embroidery.
While the program has existed in various forms for almost 20 years, this is the first year that the program has enlisted multiple instructors rather than one resident artist.
Artspace Executive Director Lisa Dent said it has been a positive change.
“I wanted the students to be able to find their own voice. When you have one lead artist, if you don’t connect with that person, maybe your whole summer is lost,” Dent said. “But when you have five different instructors, you have five different personalities and ideas.”
William O’Shea enjoyed having a multitude of different instructors and learning different media. Beyond visual art, he does “a little bit of everything,” he said, including music (check out his band with his siblings, Oddly Porcelain) and interior design.
William O'Shea explaining his digital collage, which incorporated baby photos and birds for a psychedelic effect.
Sasha Cohen Cox, 16, was an SAP participant last year and returned this year as a teaching assistant. While that involved helping make sure the program ran smoothly, it also gave her an opportunity to sit in on the classes and make some art herself.
“I always like opportunities that make me try something that I wouldn’t normally be into,” Cohen Cox said. “The sculptures that we made with found materials is not something I would have ventured into on my own but it was nice to be pushed out my comfort zone with guidance.”
Sasha Cohen Cox's artwork.
Tré Bolden, age 14, spent his summer heading from football practice at Hamden High School in the morning to Artspace in the afternoon.
He particularly enjoys animations and digital art which he learned how to do through the SAP program last year. His interest in sports is also visible through his animation of Michael Jordan dunking. Although he focused on digital animations and drawings, he was particularly proud of the charcoal still life he made during the drawing lesson.
Tré Bolden showing his digital art and charcoal still life.
Luca Rivera’s work was introspective, influenced by his own identity as an Afro-Latino, he said. In his self-portrait, he used reds and golds to signify that pride he has in his identity, pride that he credited to his mother for instilling in him.
“I’m proud for him,” his mother, Sai-‘Cha Griffin said. “This is something he’s been doing for a very long time so something like this is the next level.”
Luca Rivera explaining his work.
Rivera is particularly interested in figure art.
Adam Simpson, a 16-year-old at Hillhouse High School, enjoyed the multitude of media that the program gave him exposure to, particularly digital animation. One of the self portraits that he made in Procreate shows himself back to back with an alternate furry persona. In the portrait, he is blurred in order to draw focus to the furry persona, but both figures are “glitched” to signify how both have flaws.
Self portrait series by Adam Simpson.
While developing artistic abilities was the primary focus of the program, students gained much more.
“They really get to look inwardly ask who are they as artists, who do they want to be as artists, and what do they want to see for themselves,” said Gabriel Sacco, visual culture producer at Artspace.
The program also taught them how to give and receive critique in a respectful way which was particularly important as the cohort ended up being all male, Executive Director Dent said.
While recognizing the need to support young women artists, particularly women of color artists, Luca Rivera shared how meaningful it was for him to be in a male cohort when so frequently young men of color aren’t encouraged to pursue the arts due to “a warped sense of what masculinity is.”
“To have young men who are supporting each other and not be judgmental in exploring themselves and their ideas was beautiful to watch,” Dent said.
Thanks for this coverage.
My wife and I had the pleasure of attending this event and talking with several of the young artists. They are impressive.
Compliments to them, to their teachers (in this month-long program and in the NHPS), and to Artspace!