RACC Blog

Portland General Electric Foundation Awards Arts Education Grant to the Regional Arts & Culture Council

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Aug. 20, 2021

logo for PGE FoundationPortland, Ore. – The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) is pleased to announce its Arts Education Program was awarded a Community Creative Expression Grant for $10,000 from the Portland General Electric Foundation. The purpose of the grant is to expand arts education advocacy and equity in Multnomah County’s middle and high schools with the expansion of advocacy into Clackamas and Washington County. This is a collective impact project with a focus on equity and access to arts education in underrepresented and underserved communities in the tri-county area compromised of Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas counties. As we emerge into a new post-COVID world with a focus on equity and access we look to include more counties (Washington and Clackamas) school districts on the artlook® platform, a unique data driven arts education platform that connects schools, families, students and arts organizations to quality arts programs in their neighborhood.

RACC will conduct outreach and engagement, and offer professional development opportunities for arts educators in seven elementary schools in the Reynolds School District in East Multnomah County, which are currently unserved by the Council. This effort will support equity and access in arts education in the tri-county region through advocacy, outreach, and engagement. RACC’s mission is to enrich our communities through arts and culture. Support for artlook® Oregon will support this through collaboration and community engagement.

The Regional Arts & Culture Council wishes to thank the PGE Foundation for recognizing the past work in arts education and appreciate their acknowledgment with this grant in RACC’s pivot to expand the scope of services, advocacy, and community engagement.

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An independent nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, we support greater Portland’s creative economy by providing equitable funding and services to artists and art organizations; managing and growing a diverse, nationally acclaimed public art program; and developing long-lasting public and private partnerships. For more information visit racc.org. 

artlook® oregon Interactive Database Expands in Greater Portland

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An initiative of the Regional Arts & Culture Council, Parkrose, and Portland Public Schools in Partnership with The Kennedy Center and Ingenuity/Chicago

Portland, OR – Through a unique partnership with the Kennedy Center’s Any Given Child and Ingenuity-Chicago, The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) is pleased to announce the expansion of Portland Metro’s artlook® oregon. Selected for a 3-year pilot program, RACC joined other arts education organizations and school districts across the United States to work with the Kennedy Center’s Any Given Child program and Ingenuity in Chicago to create a free, accessible, online arts/culture education search engine.  An interactive mapping platform and software, artlook® oregon, allows school districts of all sizes to collect, map, and analyze data regarding the availability and distribution of arts staffing, funding, and services on a school-by-school basis.

Chanda Evans, RACC’s AEAF Specialist, explains the importance of the initiative and how it fits into the art nonprofit’s strategic plan. “Our advocacy agenda includes creating a culture of accessibility and inclusivity as we move forward equitable arts/culture education for all K-12 students,” she said. “We know that supporting a well-rounded education includes an arts education: visual arts, dance, theatre, music, and media arts.”

As RACC looks to partner with more school districts and arts and culture organizations, artlook® oregon gives school districts a snapshot of the arts landscape within their district. It provides up-to-date mapping of how arts resources are allocated during the school day and uses data to help administrators set strategy and measure progress. Arts and culture organizations can more efficiently connect their services to schools and thousands of students.

The coalition partners, led by RACC, hope for collective impact including:

  • Accelerate arts equity for students in schools and monitor progress towards this goal over time
  • Build responsive, targeted, collective impact agendas with strong data backing
  • Use real-time progress indicators to guide monthly and annual decision-making
  • Leverage aggregated data to make a compelling fundraising case to supporters/donors
  • Make a data-driven case for better arts/culture policies and practices at district, city, and state levels.

The benefits of artlook® oregon reach across all levels of the community by unifying data in a comprehensive, interactive map.

You can find artlook® oregon at https://portlandmetro.artlookmap.com/

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About the Regional Arts & Culture Council

An independent nonprofit 501(c)3 organization, RACC supports greater Portland’s creative economy by providing equitable funding and services to artists and art organizations; managing and growing our diverse, nationally acclaimed public art program; and developing long-lasting public and private partnerships. For more information visit racc.org.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arts Education and Access Fund 2021 Logo Design Winner

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Rose City Park Elementary third-grader selected

Vincente, Rose Waterfall, logo design 2021

We are delighted to announce the winner of the 2021 Arts Education and Access Fund (AEAF) Logo Competition. The competition challenged students to reimagine the original logo to illustrate how the fund supports the community and showcase students who benefit from arts education in school.

Arts education helps children develop the skills they need in order to communicate effectively, expand their analytical thinking, and engage with their community. In traumatic, turbulent times like these, art can be a literal lifeline for social, emotional, and mental health.

Arts Education and Access Fund 2021 Logo Design Competition

Winner

Vincente, a third-grader at Rose City Park Elementary School

Finalists

Edison, a fifth-grader at Rose City Park

Cate, a seventh-grader at Sunnyside Environmental School

All students attend Portland Public Schools.

The design competition was open to all students from kindergarten to eighth grade who receive arts education in Portland’s six school districts: Portland Public, Parkrose, Reynolds, David Douglas, Centennial and Riverdale. The design challenge was to for students create a new AEAF logo over Winter Break 2020. The competition was a collaboration between RACC and the City of Portland’s Arts Oversight Committee.

A panel of judges including professors and officials from Reed College, University of Portland, Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland State University, Portland Art Museum, Echo Theater Company, Office of Commissioner Dan Ryan and the City of Portland Department of Revenue reviewed the submissions and selected the winner.

Read Vincente’s interview with RACC’s Arts Education Access Fund Specialist, Chanda Evans.

Vincente, AEAF Logo Design Competition 2021 Winner

Vincente, why did you decide to submit your art for the AEAF Competition?
Because I wanted to see how good at art I am. I tried my best.

What inspires you about art?
Happiness. I have a sign in my room “Build Yourself Up and Never Give Up” I want people to become happy when they see my art.

Did you have fun doing the drawing? What is the title of your piece?
Yeah – the name is The Rose Waterfall. Because there is a waterfall behind the rose.

How do you feel about your logo design used by different School Districts and Arts Organizations across the Portland Metro region?
Excited! I thought I would never win!

Your Art Teacher is Ms. Vang, what is your favorite part of having art at Rose City Park Elementary?
She helped me in first grade making faces – so she helped me learn art. She is nice.

If you could give advice to a budding artist, someone who is just starting to draw or paint, what would you tell them?
Become yourself. Draw any art in the future – what you do is art. All art. Just be true.

 

Learn more about Portland’s Arts Education and Access Fund.

The Arts Education & Access Fund Oversight Committee seeks new members. Commitments include quarterly meetings, with a variety of projects in between.

Current Chair Laura Streib explains the committee’s purpose, “The committee engages with City of Portland officials, the Regional Arts & Culture Council and school districts to make sure the AEAF is doing what the charter set out for it to do – ensure funding for K-5 Arts Education teachers and support for accessibility and access to the arts and arts organizations.” Find out more.

Worrying is Just Another Form of Storytelling

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How Kathleen Lane is working with youth to understand anxiety as a universal human experience

by Lokyee Au, Communications Manager

It’s estimated that we create anywhere between 50,000 to 70,000 thoughts a day. These tens of thousands of thoughts running through our head every day have the ability to reinforce, dictate, or alter our actions, our decisions, and all our subsequent thoughts. For those of us who worry (and let’s be honest – we all worry), that’s 50,000 to 70,000 opportunities for worrisome ideas, feelings, and stories to be produced by our brains. Worry and anxiety are not things everyone is comfortable talking about, whether it’s with friends, family, or complete strangers. As adults traverse through the stigmas or shame around anxiety, stress, and worry (subsequently fueling the significant boom for the wellness and health industry), what about young students who have those tens of thousands of thoughts? Who do they share them with? And how?

Writer Kathleen Lane developed Create More, Fear Less for students to navigate some of those anxious waters. Borne out of a confluence of events and experiences – publishing a book about an anxious 10-year-old, managing her own experiences with worrying, and meeting students who deal with anxious feelings, this RACC-funded project brought Lane to middle schools over the past two years to create a place for students to share their thoughts and feelings with one another, while partaking in hands-on art activities that encourage them to express and work through those feelings.

So how do you get kids to share deep, personal feelings with their peers and adults? Each workshop begins with ‘worry stones’, where everyone, including Lane, writes their worries onto a stone and take turns sharing. These stones are then placed into a bag, a physical reminder that students are separate from – and have power over – their worries – they get to decide when and how much time to spend with them. It’s also a reminder that carrying our worries (stones) around all day can get heavy. Comfort is key in setting the tone and expectations for the group: anyone can pass, and can draw on their stones if they don’t want to write out their worries. The important thing is that students see they’re not alone in their feelings, and that they can unload some of the weight of those worries.

Through workshops, and now an interactive website, Lane introduces kids to various art and writing activities that aim to normalize the feelings and worries themselves, as well as the act of expressing their anxieties. Some activities include using metaphor to capture the feeling, creating a “worry survival kit”, drawing and dialoguing with a “worry monster”, and more. With these activities, Lane says, “It’s not about pushing feelings away, it’s about working with your feelings—it’s human to worry, it’s okay, and you can get through it. And also, thank you for being a sensitive soul because we need more of those in the world.”

Although described as a project of using art for anxious youth to express themselves, Lane’s approach and practice remind us that it’s more than that. She encourages students to see the power in their feelings and anxieties – Our great storytellers, thinkers, and problem-solvers often start with some form of worry, and that is important to celebrate. “I want to help kids see that not only can art and writing be powerful tools for expressing anxiety, but anxiety can be a powerful source of imagination, wisdom, and healing. You have anxiety, you have your fears, now what are you going to do with them?”

And while students certainly need more than a creative workshop to navigate these feelings, the project has created new paths for students and adults to understand, communicate, manage, and embrace them. In the two years since Create More, Fear Less began, the project has already taken hold in other spaces, and Lane has been in outreach mode to share it far and wide. Her hope is this project serves as a resource for as many students, teachers, and counselors as possible, and that the projects and activities create a cultural shift in how we view and deal with anxiety.

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Create More, Fear Less was funded in part by the Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC). Learn more about RACC’s Grants Program here. You can find more about this RACC project grant by visiting the project website and more about Kathleen Lane on her website.

The Right Brain Initiative awarded $45,000 grant from National Endowment for the Arts

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PORTLAND, ORE — National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Jane Chu has approved more than $80 million in grants in its second major funding announcement for fiscal year 2018. Included in this announcement is an Art Works grant of $45,000 to The Right Brain Initiative, the Regional Arts & Culture Council’s (RACC) arts integration program. This generous award will support Right Brain’s innovative, systematic, and equitable approach to arts integrated education in Portland area elementary and middle schools that delivers creative learning experiences through a variety of art forms to teach core subjects like reading, math and science.

The Art Works category is the NEA’s largest funding category and supports projects that focus on the creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence, public engagement with diverse and excellent art, lifelong learning in the arts, and/or the strengthening of communities through the arts.

“For the Portland metro area this means that students will experience new ways of learning and find creative ways of demonstrating their knowledge and understanding,” noted Marna Stalcup, RACC Director of Arts Education. “Picture a 6th grader who now understands the water cycle because of a movement experience or a 2nd grader whose writing is ignited through storytelling and puppetry. That’s Right Brain in action.”

This marks Right Brain’s 8th year of funding from the NEA, and is the largest amount the program has been awarded to date. The grant will equip an estimated 1,813 teachers, arts specialists, principals, and teaching artists in the 2018-19 school year with professional development opportunities. By offering education professionals the resources to weave creative thinking into teaching practices, The Right Brain Initiative works toward creating lasting change within our school systems so that students can thrive academically, socially, and artistically.

“The variety and quality of these projects speaks to the wealth of creativity and diversity in our country,” said NEA Chairman Jane Chu. “Through the work of organizations such as The Right Brain Initiative in Portland, Oregon, NEA funding invests in local communities, helping people celebrate the arts wherever they are.”

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The Right Brain Initiative is a sustainable partnership of public schools, local government, foundations, businesses and the cultural community working to transform learning through the arts for all K-8 students in the Portland metro area. Now in its tenth year, Right Brain serves 70 schools and approximately 29,500 students from urban, suburban and rural communities in the Portland area. In fall of 2014, Right Brain released data connecting the program to an above-average increase in student test scores, with greatest results for English Language Learners. Right Brain is a program of the Regional Arts & Culture Council. Operating partners include Young Audiences of Oregon & SW Washington (Residency Partner), Victoria Lukich (Research & Evaluation Partner), and Deborah Brzoska of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Professional Development Consultant). Read more online at TheRightBrainInitiative.org.

The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) provides grants for artists, arts organizations, and artistic projects in Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington Counties; manages an internationally acclaimed public art program; raises money and awareness for the arts through Work for Art; convenes forums, networking events and other community gatherings; provides workshops and other forms of technical assistance for artists; and oversees a program to integrate arts and culture into the standard curriculum in public schools through The Right Brain Initiative. RACC values a diversity of artistic and cultural experiences and is working to build a community in which everyone can participate in culture, creativity, and the arts. For more information visit racc.org.