I am very lucky to be teaching Art in downtown Hamilton on James St. North, host to the monthly James St. North Art Crawl. The community of artists and entrepreneurs on this street are known for their collaboration in promoting the arts in the wider Hamilton community.
The program that I teach, called NuSteel, is a pilot project partnership between the Hamilton board of education and a small Gallery for print and media arts called Centre3. This partnership is the first of its kind, placing students in an artist-run gallery environment, and developing curriculum that is community focused and locally relevant to kids.
Through our partnership with Centre3, students who come to our program become connected to a variety of community-based services and opportunities, including the Notre Dame youth housing and support centre, and Art Forums, a creative after-school space for youth to extend their art practice. Further to these relationships, each semester students make connections with the artist-members who work and produce art at Centre3, often gaining access to future co-op and employment opportunities.
One great thing about our program is that it an alternative education program, so students from all over the city are referred to the program, and provided with bus tickets or taxis, so that even students who live further out in Wentworth can access the downtown arts community.
Another area of support for the arts that I am now learning about, from working with artists at Centre3, is the access to grants for local art initiatives. One of the artist-members I work with was able to obtain a grant from the Laidlaw foundation so that NuSteel students and community youth could create and publish a youth-led Zine, called the Outsider Zine. The grant from the Laidlaw foundation is one of several grants that Centre3 members have obtained in order to keep the gallery and studio space running with up-to-date equipment and resources, and to pay staff and students a fair wage for their work.
Finally, many students who come through the NuSteel program become connected with the wider arts community and thus grow their support network and network of friends. Youth who may very likely have ‘fallen through the cracks’ of our social and education systems have instead become connected with craftsmen and women, artists, entrepreneurs, and administrators, who are more than willing to mentor students and help them to explore potential career paths. Accessing caring adult mentors is the most significant factor that influences students to become re-engaged with education and the idea of having a career, and is also the most significant factor in the development of positive self-esteem.
In sum, I am very very fortunate to be part of a community that supports education through the arts, and I hope that this partnership becomes an exemplary format for future school-community initiatives.
