Art

Why Art?

The ‘A’ in MAPS should very well stand for Art. MAPS recognizes that as the organization grows, so does our potential to reach and support students in other art disciplines. MAPS has added a visual arts component to our model in an effort to round out our focus on arts education, while allowing students to maximize their artistic experience and collaboration. Creating visual art, that is inspired by the Poetry and Music, allows MAPS students to express their feelings in new and poignant ways. The visual art brings an added dimension to the overall creative partnership and provides an even deeper emotional connection to and for the students and their school communities. This work also adds to the end of year Program Books providing a visual art component to the Poetry and Music represented.

MAPS Visual Art is all about:

Students practicing and enhancing their artistic skills through creating visual art either digitally or on paper or canvas.
Students gaining improved abilities and exploring their emotional expression.
Students studying college-level art from a variety of cultural backgrounds; discussing and analyzing the poems, relating the student’s life experiences to the subject.
Students using varying techniques and art tools to accomplish their desired result.
Students discussing their artistic creations, including their personal truths, memories, and dreams.
Students sharing their art in small-group to large-class settings.
Students working on their art both in school and out.
Students learning painting techniques that guide them in analysis of one another’s work and other artists.
Students coming together with MAPS musicians and poets and sharing how the music and songs were created in order to express the written word and music in visual art form.
Learning how to collaborate with students from another school with differing and diverse backgrounds to accomplish a finished work of art together.
Learning to have a better understanding of what other students from different backgrounds and geography think about, how they live their lives, and express themselves.