Girls Incorporated of Alameda County

GIRLS INC.

"Girls Inc. of Alameda County is a nonprofit organization dedicated to inspiring all girls to be strong, smart, and bold. We are a local affiliate of the national Girls Inc. organization, which provides vital educational programs to millions of American girls, particularly those in high-risk, underserved areas."

I am a part of Girls Inc., an afterschool program in Futures and Community United elementary schools located in East Oakland. My job title is a teaching artist in which I teach art and literacy in the GIRLStart Literacy Program. GIRLStart is a program for kindergarten through third grade girls that have a below reading grade level.

My goal is to help build and strengthen the girls' literacy skills through the creative process. I hope to engage my students by creating a lesson that involves craft and literacy tools. There is no doubt that I will learn as much from them then they will from me.

GIRLS INC. is respected program because it serves the needs of the youth by providing outside activities, parent and student counseling, homework help, and clubs (such as the dance, cooking, gardeing, and art history club). I am also running my own club called the "Craft Club" in which the students and I get together to do an activity twice a month on 'club fridays.'

Overall, I enjoy working in the GIRLStart Literacy Program and look forward to enhance my teaching practice and communication skills among students. I value the education of today's youth; I wish to inspire these girls to follow their dreams and build future careers.

-CSF Parina Daraphet

Shot down

Teaching has been difficult these days, with numerous gun related incidents, and one known fatality. It's hard to watch school administration completely ignore grieving children and communities. It's even harder to watch children go missing as they are expelled, hurt, scared to show up or pulled out because of extra curricular violence...

Other than recent fiascoes, the girls are doing fabulous. Simultaneously composing dynamic Super Hero paintings and designing/creating outfits for the upcoming ArtEsteem Exhibit.

You are all invited! SAVE THE DATE: Saturday, May 16th from 3-6 in the Oliver Art Gallery on the Oakland CCA Campus. All of the art is for show, most of it is for sale. There is a raffle, craft table, cultural arts performance, fashion show (my girls!!) and food! Come learn about ArtEsteem and the long standing AHC - CCA partnership. I think this partnership has truly added to my in-the-field learning experiences. Because these two communities are so well acquainted, I feel I have a lot of support for my formal work, and when I need a little therapy during the tough times. Also, I have realized that my partnership with my co-teacher is slowly dwindling. Sometimes, she just doesn't get it. She wears me out and makes me tired. She is hardly any kind of influential support for these girls, and very tough to work with.

hey

hey you guys sorry I havent posted in a while...things have just been really crazy. None the less working at mocha has been working really well for me. Working with the kids is great there really starting to warm up to me, hopefully things go well for the rest of the semester.

Working with constraint

The past few weeks at the museum have been focused on creating a visual language around the Legacy Oral History program. The program has been functioning under the umbrella of the museum without an identity of its own for the past 15 years. With this in mind the challenge was to create an identity that gave the program of voice of its own without separating it from the larger community of the Museum of Performance and Design. Legacy has used a variety of logos and designs over the years, none of which particularly exuded what Basya (my site supervisor) envisioned the program to stand for. I reviewed past posters and marketing materials for the program, tracing the visual presence, or lack there of, in order to get a sense of what had been done before and how it had been used. Through my research it became clear the main goals and characteristics of the program revolve around creating a community of conversation in order to preserve the histories of communities. From there I began a series of design explorations using text in order to reconstruct a visual sense of this conversation (pictured below).



Another challenge for this project has been keeping my site supervisor focused on the larger picture of what this design work will do in the long run. As a designer, it's uncommon for a client to be this close to the design process and it has been hard to proceed with the work while simultaneously explaining every step, especially the experimental steps, and how it relates to the finished product. When the client is this close to the process it is almost imperative that I work with the client to help them develop a sense of faith in the process. Otherwise, they have a hard time understanding what I'm doing at the micro level and how it relates to the bigger picture. This challenge is something I've seen other CSF's talk about. Trying to communicate the value of what you're doing to those who are not familiar with a process, whether its art or design, can be challenging and sometimes discouraging. However, I believe the more we are forced to defend the value of what we do the more power we will have to make valuable contributions to the community.

After completing a series of type studies I began to apply them to the materials being produced. This was the really fun part and helped the client see how the experimental work was related to the final product. So often, there is a misconception that designers sit a their desk and a good (or bad) design magically appears with a few clicks of a mouse. So in terms of how these challenges have turned into opportunities, I personally feel it was a chance to contradict some of these misconceptions by allowing the client to really see the dirty, and sometimes weird, work that goes on in the design process.

Below is the final poster that was created from these type experiments. The next posting will go into more detail about the process of creating both this visual language and identity system for the Legacy Oral History Program.



- Melissa

Creativity Explored

Hi everyone! This is Ryan.

I apologize that this blog is a little late.

What I've learned from other CSF's over the colloquias we've had is that there is true happiness to be found through community work, and that being exposed to what each other are doing inspires us to really jump into our work. My community partner, Creativity Explored, is an organization that provides an art studio for people with developmental disabilities. Needless to say, I have learned a lot of this experience. I've never been so appreciative, and I have really enjoyed the time working on projects with the artists there. Everyone has their own process, and allowing the artists to approach their processes without getting in the way has taken me out of the box, and allowed me to examine my own process with a more objective eye. My site supervisor, Francis, has taught me a lot of patience.

The challenges I have faced at first existed in getting familiar with the artists. I didn't have strong experience with people with developmental disabilities, and honestly, it took me a few weeks to get comfortable and be myself, because I was worrying so much about being respectful. I am far past being uptight now, and I am very comfortable with everyone there. I've developed relationships with the artists there and know everyone pretty well. Now my challenges lie in helping the artists come up with project ideas that they can get excited about, and in helping them to understand new processes. This is basically overcome with trial and error, but it is working. For example, I tried a lot of different drawing mediums with a guy named Norman that I work with quite frequently. He didn't seem to get too excited about the different mediums, but then one day, we made some block prints. He liked the block prints a lot, and now he works in that media a lot more. He has also opened up more to painting over his text (which a lot of his work focuses on) and then rewriting, or finding other ways to "go back in" to the piece.

-CSF Ryan Humphries

Temescal Mural Project

Hello Folks,

 This is Abdan. I hope all is well with everyone. I'm really having a great time in the Temescal Mural Project class. All the students have really gotten into it. At first, there were a few students who weren't really enjoying their projects. They were either not satisfied with what their groups had decided on or they didn't feel they contributed enough. But once the ball got rolling, many of those same students became excited and couldn't wait to see the end product. I'm starting to become very interested in murals because

 of

 this class. Ray Patlan is very passionate and knowledgeable about murals and his love for it has made look further into the subject.Just last week, I was in the Mission District and looked at the walls very differently. I've always noticed the murals, but never really took the time to LOOK at them. Each one tells a unique story from an equally unique perspective. I'm glad I could be given this lens to view from.

Thanks!

The Factory and some of the work

Hello, i apologize if this is a bit late.

Aside from administrative day to day stuff, I've been enjoying my time at The Factory. I'm continually intrigued by the kind of work the students make. The other day i worked sound for a young girl that is making a film about labels and how they create atrophy within the LGBT community. She was conducting an interview with a friend, and they discussed how they disagree with the use of labels like "stud" or "femme" used to categorize, or even 'pigeonhole', young lesbian women. This tendency to create labels is not only common outside of the community but in fact rampant within those very same social circles.

I have been keeping up on some college research for the kids, after doing a lot of research on private and not to mention expensive schools, I have been focusing my attention on schools with low tuition costs that still offer similar and affordable courses in film production.

Below you can see some samples of the student work, the first clip is a video portrait on Malcolm, a Factory student.





Also;

New Clear Vision is an experimental found footage film that explores nostalgic images from our collective urban and mental landscapes. directed by Henry Zaballos. two minutes, thirty seconds.