The Connections Art Participants hosted their first group exhibit, Monday People, in June of 2014. They have since particpated in five group exhibits across Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Connecticut. They are currently creating works to show in their next exhibit on May 14th, 2018 in Brooklyn, New York.
Tales from Three Below
The year 2017 was the fifth iteration of the Connections Art Class during which students continued working with STORIES. In 2017, students began writing their own stories. They wrote, created visuals and directed their own tales. They worked with imaginary ones as well as ones based on events from their own lives, families and friends.
Expectations
Each year the group studies different themes such as people, objects, places and make artwork around these big ideas. In it's 4th year, the class focused on stories. Over the course of the year, participants studied the narrative form and its visual potential. They started with stories that exist within popular culture as well as from different cultures around the world. They practiced listening, understanding, recounting, interpreting and visualizing these existing stories. With this experience and knowledge, they moved onto telling their own stories. As a group, we thought about what these stories are about and why they are important to us. We then explored visual ideas about storytelling by means of artistic expression. We looked into character and plot development, storyboarding, illustration, comic-booking and other formats. Some of the results were shown along with works from other semesters. As always, we have expectations as individuals and as a group.
"We have expectations from ourselves, from each other, from our work and from our creative participation in the world as we talk back to the world. We continue to work hard in maintaining our community as a creative place. And our expectations are growing, day by day."
David M. Hunt Library
Falls Village, CT
June 27th, 2015
Long Trip
In April and June 2015, Connections Art Class traveled together to Falls Village, CT on day trips, taking the train out of Grand Central and then to the library from Wassaic, documenting their experiences in visual works created on the way and at the Hunt Library. These works will be featured in the Long Trip exhibit on the library’s art wall. In addition, the student’s work will include a series of drawings titled “Imaginary Spaces.”
Growing Inclusively: The Story of the Jack + Shirley Silver Center for Special Needs
The Jack and Shirley Silver Center for Special Needs builds and nurtures an inclusive and accepting community where individuals with varying special needs and their families can participate and succeed in innovative social, recreational, and educational activities. This multimedia exhibit explored the stories and celebrated the diversity of our community.
Connections Art contributed a series of self portraits created during their first year of class.
Lonnie Miles & Amanda Kauftheil
Monday People
The Connections Art Participants were very proud to plan, install, and host their first group exhibit on Jun 16th, 2014. Click on the video to learn more about what the journey meant to them.
Video created by Charles Reynoso