ArtSpan's Art for City Youth delivered arts education to 21 classrooms at Bessie Carmichael (BCES) from September 2008 to December 2008, and will continue to do so through February 2009. The program is comprised of two separate but complementary arts programs: Three-part SF Open Studios Tours and an Eight-week Residency. Seven artists from the SF Open Studios program were hired to be Teaching Artists to meet the goals of the Art for City Youth program.

This program was designed in collaboration with Bessie Carmichael Elementary School's principal who desired a program that served every child with repeated educational contact with artist teachers. The overarching outcome is to say that BCES students received deep visual arts education every year.

From January to February 2009, artwork created by Bessie Carmichael Elementary School students during the 2008-2009 ArtSpan Residency Program is on display in the San Francisco Public Library's Children's Section. During the 2008-2009 school year, ArtSpan added Marshall Elementary School to the program.

Three-part SF Open Studios Tours

Pre-Visits: Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) is the integral focus of the Pre-Visits. ArtSpan Teaching Artists with diverse art backgrounds bring their art and other relevant art for VTS exercises and discussion into the classrooms at Bessie Carmichael. Each classroom at BCES receives one hour of this component of the program. The goal of the Pre-Visits is for the students to meet working artists and to see their artwork, as well as to practice VTS methodology.

Tours: BCES brings each classroom to ArtSpan's SF Open Studios Exhibition, where the work of over 430 SF Open Studios artists' work is on display. Resident Artists give VTS-centric, docented Tours of the exhibition to BCES classes. The goal of this part of the program is for the students to see a multitude of artwork, meet working artists, and to learn more art vocabulary.

This year ArtSpan integrated a literacy project where students were given a large sheet of paper (which would be used for the Post-Visit activity) and asked to use the vocabulary they learned to describe the artwork they saw on the docented Tour. Each classroom at Bessie receives one hour of this component of the program.

Post-Visits: Teaching Artists again visit Bessie Carmichael for one hour per classroom. The goal of the Post-Visits is to complete a hands-on art activity with the students. This year, Teaching Artists brought the students' written responses to the Tour at the exhibition and students then created a large-scale, collaborative painting.

The Pre-Visits, Tours, and Post-Visits took place over September and October in 2008.

Eight-week Residencies

ArtSpan then begins an Eight-week Artist Residency where Teaching Artists work on ongoing arts projects with each BCES class. In 2008, the residency began in December, so Resident Artists developed a three-week project for December and a five-week project for January and February. These final projects will be entered into the Youth Arts Festival Week in May, held at the de Young Museum.

Prior to beginning the Residencies, Teaching Artists meet with their corresponding BCES teachers to discuss their lesson plans and receive feedback.

Support Art for City Youth

This year, ArtSpan has added several Membership categories - all of which provide direct support for the Art for City Youth program:

• The ArtSpan Benefactor Membership is $75. This membership includes an advanced copy of the San Francisco Open Studios Guide mailed directly to your home. More importantly, it directly underwrites art education for an under-served San Francisco grade school child.
• The ArtSpan VIP Membership is $500. This membership includes: VIP Tickets for two people to our Private Preview Gala; VIP Tickets for two people to the Benefit Art Show & Auction; VIP Tickets for two people to a Guide Tour of San Francisco Artist Studios; a gift from the ArtSpan Limited Edition Art Collection; an advanced copy of the San Francisco Open Studios Guide mailed directly to your home; and, again, most importantly all VIP Memberships directly support the Art for City Youth Program, providing hands-on art education for 4 under-served grade school students.