What's New Archives
Open Eyes...Open Hearts (Ability Awareness Training): Wednesday, April 19, 2006
The second session (for spring semester) of Open Eyes...Open Hearts took place at Coloma Community Center, the site of the annual Very Special Festival of the Arts. Now, with a few months experience in the classroom, artists led and contributed to a discussion about the accomplishments of their students, as well as problems they have encountered so far.
Open Eyes...Open Hearts (Ability Awareness Training): Wednesday, January 25, 2006
VSAS hosted the first of two Open Eyes...Open Hearts training sessions which are a new component of the organization's twenty-year-old artists-in-the-schools program I CAN DO THAT! The session offered new and returning artists to the program a chance to meet and discuss experiences, fears, and expectations for the upcoming semester. A panel of experienced artists including Kathy Waste, Ned Hammad, Alice Fong, and Alice Twilla led the discussion and offered suggestions and advice to newcomers. A second Open Eyes...Open Hearts session will take place Wednesday, April 19, 2006.
Open Eyes...Open Hearts (Ability Awareness Training): Wednesday, November 16, 2005
As part of VSA's Ability Awareness Training, Artist-in-Residence Kathy Waste presented Shriners Hospital staff with information regarding the hospital's VSA sponsored program Artshift. Open Eyes...Open Hearts serves disabled youth by building awareness and acceptance of children with disablities within the schools and community. Through these training workshops, VSA provides teachers, artists, program coordinators, and facility staff with ideas on how to utilize the arts to reach the whole child, the whole class, the whole community in a positive, self-esteem building manner.
The training, which took place at Shriners Hospital for Children Northern California, involved 30 hospital staff who learned about Artshift and recent studies on the theraputic qualities of art for hospital patients. As part of the training, staff were encouraged to make their own works of art under Kathy's instruction, just as Artshift participants do during the program's weekly sessions
