artsed4all Art & the Environment, Arts Education, Community, Family Art Workshop, Music, poetry, Technology, Visual Arts

We The Arts: Civic Season 2023

We The Arts: Civic Engagement Through Art is an ArtsEd4All project taking place from June 17 – July 4, 2023, in celebration of Civic Season 2023.

From Juneteenth to the 4th of July, we invite you to participate in the third annual #CivicSeason through self-guided public art visits in San Francisco, as well as in-person and online events that invite civic engagement through the arts. We’re teaming up with hundreds of history museums and sites across the country through @HistoryMadeByUs, in partnership with the next generation shaping our democracy to launch a new tradition that makes room for all of our stories – and write the next chapter together.

Read the Civic Season Report: The Art of Changemaking for more about ArtsEd4All’s participation in Civic Season 2022.

JUNETEENTH at Healdsburg Jazz

FREE – Saturday, JUNE 17, 2 pm – 8 pm Healdsburg Plaza, Corner of Healdsburg Avenue and Matheson Street, Healdsburg CA.

Healdsburg Jazz Festival kicks off its 25th Anniversary Season with Juneteenth. Enjoy free music and arts & crafts workshops!

Healdsburg Jazz is proud to present a diverse range of music, art, culture and education in honor of this holiday, free to the public in the Healdsburg Plaza. Our Juneteenth performances celebrate the wide range of Black music and art including gospel, early blues, New Orleans jazz, funk, R&B, spoken word, and straight ahead modern swing.

FREE JUNETEENTH Celebration in the Healdsburg Plaza with the Charles McPherson Quintet featuring Terell Stafford, Randy Porter, Akira Tana, and Marcus Shelby, vocalist Martin Luther The Real McCoy, The Robin Hodge Williams Gospel Choir, MJ’s Brass Boppers, Healdsburg Jazz Poet Laureate Enid Pickett and KCSM’s Greg Bridges.

Educational Activities – Families and young people are invited to join ArtsEd4All in the plaza to learn more about Juneteenth and check out the exhibit celebrating 25 years of Healdsburg Jazz Festival. Fold a zine, make a flag, pinwheel, fan or decorate your own musical shaker at the art table. This year, the public is also invited to join teaching artist Amelie Anna Hinman for music workshops at 2:30 pm-3:00 pm and 4:30 pm-5:00 pm to play and learn about the origins of a variety of percussion instruments.

Imagining “TOMORROW” with DWeb Camp

The Internet Archive is an American digital library with a mission to provide Universal Access to All Knowledge. DWeb is a global network of builders and dreamers working to create a better, decentralized web. The goal of DWeb Camp is to create a collaborative space for people to connect, learn, share, and have fun as we work towards building a better, decentralized web.

Del Sol Quartet’s DWeb Camp 2022 performance inspired The DWeb is an Ensemble Piece” which uses music as a metaphor for cooperation.

At camp, Del Sol Quartet and composer Erika Oba conducted an open workshop demonstrating the give-and-take process that goes into creating and performing a new musical composition. Erika’s composition, “Behold the Sea,” is inspired by a story of friendship between two artists, Bill Zacha & Japanese artist Toshi Yoshida which resulted in a sister city relationship between Mendocino, California (USA) and Miasa, Nagano (Japan). Continuing the tradition, Erika and the Del Sol Quartet are using music to highlight the importance of building friendships and networks of community in order to protect the water and environment to help build a better world.

Composer Erika Oba invited DWeb campers to make music using stones in the dry bed of the Navarro River.

This plaque, dedicated in a community ceremony held on July 4th, 1982 reads, “The citizens of the sister cities of Mendocino, California and Miasa, Japan dedicate this plaque to the peaceful pursuits of the peoples of the Pacific Basin and to the protection of its environment that all living things there-in may exist in perpetual harmony.”

The Plastic Pollution Coalition’s Global Webinar dives deep into the challenges that plastic pollution poses to our oceans and our bodies.

Register for the global webinar: https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/event/ppc-webinar-062223

FREE on ZOOM – Thursday, JUNE 22, 12-1 pm PT | 3-4 pm ET.

This year at DWeb Camp, we’re tuning into the Plastic Pollution Coalition’s global webinar, Plastic-Free Seas: Diving Into How Plastic Impacts Health, Climate, and Our Oceans, on Thursday, June 22, 12-1 pm PT | 3-4 pm ET. On June 22, we will dive deep into the challenges that plastic pollution poses to our oceans and our bodies, how polluted waters disrupt the “Blue Mind” mental health benefits we gain from access to healthy oceans and waterways, and how we may restore our planet as well as our own physical and mental well-being.

Joining the conversation will be “Her Deepness,” Sylvia Earle, President & Co-Chair of Mission Blue and National Geographic Explorer in Residence; Wallace J Nichols, Marine Biologist & Author of Blue Mind; and Imari Walker-Franklin, PhD, Research Chemist at RTI International & Author of Plastics. The panel will be moderated by Plastic Pollution Coalition CEO & Co-Founder Dianna Cohen.

“Tomorrow” is a LARP!

DWeb Camp is using imaginative live action role play to dream of a better internet.

Build new networks and find your flow in Nature.

FREE – Saturday, JUNE 24 (or anytime, anywhere, as you please)

Technologists at DWeb Camp are hosting a LARP Worldbuilding session, using play to imagine how the Internet of Tomorrow might be transformed for the better. A LARP is a a live-action role-playing game in which a group of people enacts a fictional scenario (such as a fantasy adventure) in real time typically under the guidance of a facilitator or organizer.

Here are some ways to play along and join in the DWeb Camp experiment.

UNPLUG– Take time out from the Internet and spend time recharging with a walk in nature.
– Reflect upon your relationship with technology. Make a list of the ways that technology has changed your your life – for better and for worse.
– What might be different? Are there aspects about your relationship with the Internet that you would like to change? “Think Different” was a slogan created for a 1997 ad campaign for Apple.
LEARN– What is the Decentralized Web?
– What are some important real world challenges that the DWeb aims to address?
– Read the DWeb Principles which define the values of a decentralized web based on enabling agency of all peoples and learn about the origins of DWeb Camp
ENGAGE– Design your DWeb Alter Ego (with or without technology!)

“A Place for Poetry” with The Last Hoisan Poets

Anytime, in-person or virtual, FREE exploration of San Francisco public art

Take a poetry tour of the public spaces at the de Young Museum in San Francisco with The Last Hoisan Poets.

Write a poem with The Last Hoisan Poets.

Poets Genny Lim, Nellie Wong, and Flo Oy Wong — trace their roots to China’s Hoisan villages. They conduct special poetry readings in English and Hoisan-wa (a.k.a. the Toisanese/Taishanese Chinese dialect), to pay homage to their mother language which is at risk of fading from collective memory.

A Place for Poetry is a collection of poems by The Last Hoisan Poets inspired by the de Young Museum’s art and architecture. “One Eye” is a community poem begun by The Last Hoisan Poets, inspired by the sculpture of Ruth Asawa. The Last Hoisan Poets welcome poet of all ages and abilities to write a cinquain of their own. Listen to Asawa’s Gift to San Francisco, an audio tour sharing stories from the Asawa family. Take an ASL Tour of the Asawa sculpture installation the de Young Museum docent Jim Brune.

“When you put a seed in the ground, it doesn’t stop growing after eight hours. It keeps going every minute that it’s in the earth. We, too, need to keep growing every moment of every day that we are on this earth.” — Ruth Asawa

The book Your Brain on Art by Ivy Ross and Susan Magsamen shares that “neuroarts” is the transdisciplinary study of how the arts and aesthetic experiences measurably change the body, brain, and behavior and how this knowledge is translated into specific practices that advance health and wellbeing. The Aesthetic Mindset Index is based on a research instrument called the Aesthetic Responsiveness Assessment or AReA,developed by Ed Vessel, cognitive neuroscientist and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt, Germany. The authors invite you to take the short survey, and then take it again in a month or two after you’ve had time to go out in the world and build your aesthetic mindset.

San Francisco is home to one of the largest and most diverse public art collections in the country. All city residents, workers and visitors have access to world-class art in everyday settings. Here are additional resources that will introduce you to some of the most engaging public art that San Francisco has to offer.

This Civic Season, discover your story.

Join 400 cultural and civic institutions across the country for the third annual Civic Season, a new summer tradition for learning and action co-designed with Gen Z, the future inheritors of our democracy. Civic Season unites our oldest federal holiday with our newest, going beyond hot dogs and fireworks to invite meaningful reflection on our country’s past and our role in shaping its future.

artsed4all Arts Education, Community, Literary Arts, poetry, Visual Arts

Happy World Poetry Day 💗

The Last Hoisan Poets & Friends have been drawing inspiration from the de Young Museum, using poetry to reflect upon the sights and sounds of silence.

Read Poetry inspired by the de Young by the Last Hoisan Poets in the March 16, 2023 Stories article by the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.

In conjunction with the March 25th celebration of World Poetry Day with The Last Hoisan Poets & Friends at the de Young, poets of all ages and abilities are invited to write a short poem inspired by the work of two American artists – sculptor Ruth Asawa (1926-2013) and poet Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1915).

We welcome your participation!

Celebrate Women’s History Month 💗

Poetry in Motion: Participate in the creation of a community poem.

In 2005, artist Ruth Asawa donated 15 sculptures to the deYoung museum. 

>>> Listen to Asawa’s Gift to SF, de Young Museum, 2005 on the Ruth Asawa Public Art Tour (3:47)

>>> See the sculpture Installation at the de Young museum

Docent Jim Brune provides an ASL Tour of Ruth Asawa’s Sculpture Installation at the de Young museum (5:26)

Learn more about Ruth Asawa with the de Young museum on Google Arts & Culture.

Write a cinquain inspired by Ruth Asawa’s looped wire sculptures.  

Poet Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1915) is credited with invention of a new poetic form: the American cinquain. Her poems share a similarity with the Japanese tanka, another five-line form, in their focuses on imagery and the natural world. 

“… these poems grew—flowers of a battlefield of the spirit.”

— Verse, Adelaide Crapsey’s first book of poems which includes 28 cinquains, was published posthumously in 1915. 

An American cinquain has five lines and twenty-two-syllables.

Here is an example:

Amaze

by Adelaide Crapsey

I know

Not these my hands

And yet I think there was

A woman like me once had hands

Like these.

Use this form to write your own poem about Ruth Asawa’s art.

Line 1 has two syllables. ____________________________________________________________

Line 2 has four syllables.  ____________________________________________________________

Line 3 has six syllables.  ____________________________________________________________

Line 4 has eight syllables. ____________________________________________________________

Line 5 has two syllables. ____________________________________________________________

If you wish to share your cinquain, please email your contribution to andi@artsed4all.blog. We will loop these short poems together to create a collaborative community poem.

artsed4all Art & the Environment, Community, Literary Arts, STEAM

Angel Island Insight #9: Mr. T and The Poet’s Tree

Tyson and Genny, together under the Elk Antler Arch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Our friend Tyson really enjoys plants and being outside in nature. He wanted to have the experience of planting and caring for a real tree, in conjunction with a special book project that he is working on with his grandmother. They are collaborating to write story of hope and compassion that involves the history of immigration to the United States through Angel Island.

Tyson and his Paw Paw are excited to collaborate on this story of love, gratitude, and healing that bridges generations, with help from the natural world. Thanks to a project mini-grant from Roots and Shoots USA, we were able to purchase a cherry tree, soil and planter, and give Tyson some money to buy art supplies that he needs to create the illustrations for his storybook.

In Genny and Tyson’s story, The Bird from Heaven, a boy cares for a bird named Tien-si.

Through this project, we certainly learned a lot more about cherry trees! Andi’s cousin Todd, who is also an Angel Island descendant, absorbed a lot of knowledge about planting vegetables and fruit trees, passed on from his grandparents who tended their home gardens. Todd shared some very important advice with us about cherry trees— we would certainly need to purchase a second tree, if we wanted fruit in the future, because most sweet cherry trees do not self-pollinate without the help of honeybees. Jan suggested that we go to Green Acres in Elk Grove to look for some nice trees. Since we knew that Tyson would like to enjoy cherries with his friends, we purchased two trees – one cherry tree is a Bing; the other is a Lapin. Tracy, who works at Green Acres, offered Tyson some great tips on how to plant and care for his new cherry trees.

We hope that Tracy’s advice can help others who might like to plant a cherry tree!
Tyson’s new trees, Bing & Lapin, fresh art created with brand new ParKoo markers.

Good for All: Roots & Shoots Celebration 2023

When Dr. Jane Goodall came to the Oakland Zoo for the Good for All Roots & Shoots Celebration on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022, there was time after her remarks for a Q & A session hosted by April Z, a freshman at UC Berkeley. We recorded the response to our question, “Do you have a favorite myth or story that you heard as a child, that you would like to share with future generations?” Of course, Dr. Jane wanted to share what she learned from animals, saying of her dog Rusty, “I think he was sent to teach me” because Rusty didn’t actually belong to her family, but lived in a hotel around the corner. “Out of nowhere comes… the most amazing intelligent dog that I’ve ever known.” The young protagonist in Tyson & Genny’s story finds an injured golden finch, which the boy names “Tien-si,” which means “Angel” in Chinese. The boy and the bird become friends on Angel Island.

Dr. Jane also answered a wonderful question from the 5th graders and their teacher Carol at San Dominico School asked “What student activism has made an impact on you? What story has stayed in your mind and your heart?” She responded with a moving story, about planting trees for the future, involving the first group of Roots and Shoots started in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Good for All: Roots & Shoots Celebration Q & A with Dr. Jane Goodall and April Z.

National Angel Island Day 2023 at the de Young Museum

In the coming weeks, Tyson will be picking out a few of his illustrations to share in a special pop-up exhibiton created for National Angel Island Day at the de Young Museum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. In 2010, former president Barack Obama proclaimed January 21 as National Angel Island Day, calling upon the people of the United States to “learn more about the history of Angel Island and to observe this anniversary with appropriate ceremonies and activities.”

On January 21, 2023, the de Young Museum, Angel Island Immigration Station and UC Berkeley’s Future Histories Lab present a special free Saturday program, “Echoes from Angel Island” with The Last Hoisan Poets & Del Sol Quartet, dedicated to the ancestors and descendants of Angel Island immigrants. We invite the public to join us to learn more about Angel Island history through poetry, music and art, including Tyson’s illustrations for “The Bird from Heaven,” a story written by his grandmother, poet Genny Lim.

For the 2023 National Angel Island Day program, Genny will read her poem, The Journey, which closed Del Sol Quartet & The Last Hoisan Poets virtual presentation of Angel Island Insight for APICC’s United States of Asian America Festival 2021.

“The Journey” was originally written and performed as the concluding poem for Lenora Lee Dance’s Within These Walls, an integrated, multi-media contemporary dance project performed at the Angel Island Island Immigration Station in 2017.

Within These Walls, choreographed by Lenora Lee Dance, performed by the Berkeley Dance Project, directed by SanSan Kwan, will be presented at the Zellerbach Playhouse from February 23-26, 2023, in conjunction with UC Berkeley’s Arts + Design Initiative and Future Histories Lab’s project, A Year on Angel Island,

This project was made possible with support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Visit http://www.calhum.org

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this website do not necessarily represent those of California Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities.

ANGEL ISLAND: IN SIGHT 2021 at the Angel Island Immigration Station is made possible with support from North East Medical Services (NEMS). https://www.nems.org/