InsideOut

Green Art Workshop is a hands-on eco-conscious program that brings professional teaching artists into Bay Area classrooms and after school programs. In our classes, youth will create imaginative personal and collaborative projects by re-envisioning everyday materials. We seek to encourage critical thinking and heighten environmental awareness in the creative process.

Todd is an artist who travels the world and his local community, sketchbook in hand. His art shows the colorful eccentricity bound within moments and individuals, depicting scenes of people coming together to improve the world. Todd encourages people to create small, personalized drawings which he collages into larger collaborative art works.

When he's not circumnavigating the globe, you'll find Todd working as a public school substitute teacher or living in San Francisco’s eclectic Mission District neighborhood, painting scenes that capture a chaotic sense of community and collaboration in bright, expressionistic drawing, painting and collage.

Over the past nine years, Todd has experimented with a variety of approaches to bring art to students in the San Francisco Unified School District. He has worked with teachers to incorporate art into their curriculum and has engaged classrooms in quick, energetic collaborative art games.

Todd was born in the hills of West Virginia, grew up on Long Island, NY, and moved to San Francisco in 1998 with Lauren. He has a BA in Public Policy from Brown University and continues his arts education through programs at U.C. Berkeley Extension and the San Francisco Art Institute. His art often hangs on the walls of local community spaces, offices and homes.

Trash Mash-Up is a community art project. Using disposable materials, collected before they enter the waste stream, participants construct “Maskostumes” which are original pageant masks and costumes inspired by traditions from around the world. This project reduces waste and inspires people to see each other and our environment in a new way.

A professionally performing ensemble, the Cypress String Quartet spends about half its resources reaching out to students and community members through various programs. The Cypress Quartet's student work ranges from providing "non-music" and "music" students access to creativity and chamber music as well as training in chamber music. The Cypress is building chamber music audiences in younger generations--for both classic and contemporary music. Whatever level at which students see and hear the Cypress Quartet, they are sure to find their concerts and presentations fascinating and fun.

Classroom visits, field trips, outreach events and professional development led by book artist/instructors introduce bookmaking as a way of fostering literacy and nurturing artistc expression, while creatively incorporating topics across curriculm. Sample projects, always tailored to grade level and specific classroom themes, are online at the SFCB Youth Programs web page, www.sfcb.org/php/yp.php and on the Teacher Features blog, www.sfcb.org/teacher-features. 

RayKo’s expertise is in all things photography.  We offer affordable photo-based workshops and facility rentals for school groups, after school programs, community groups, non-profits and arts institutions. RayKo is a comprehensive rental photographic facility with black and white and color darkrooms, digital labs, studio, a gallery space and an photographic education center. We can help teachers and administrators utilize photography as a tool for teaching.  In studying photography, students can expand their visual vocabulary, learn about narrative, art history, critique, chemistry and even mathematics!

Folk Art International has an extensive resource loan program that is available to teachers and adults who work with youth in community settings.  Arts based and integrated curricula are available in the visual arts, social studies, English, literature, writing, and science.  The resource binders include background information, teaching suggestions, and student activities, and are targeted to grades K-8.

Concerts for Kids is the Symphony's oldest education program, providing the sonic and visual experience of a live orchestra to schoolchildren. In advance of the concert, study guides and CDs are provided.  Music for Families is a weekend matinee series that provides children and parents with the opportunity to share in an educational and entertaining series that provides children and parents with the opportunity to share in an educational and entertaining series of stimulating, participatory music encounters.  Pre-concert materials are mailed to promote music engagement at home.

San Francisco Symphony's "Learning Website" is an online interactive educational resource serving children and their families through interactivity, animation, and tools for the creative exploration of music making.  The site is located at www.sfkids.com