Memphis Street Arts Holiday Cards 2013

This year, we kept up our holiday tradition with the Memphis Street Academy Arts program. Our students once again made a handmade holiday card for every student in the Therapeutic Nursery at the Children's Crisis Treatment Center (CcTC).

Our students viewed a public service announcement about CcTC, and discussed how they could use art to make someone's day brighter. Students played to their individual artistic strengths to make sure they made the best cards possible. Some students use reference from the internet. Others freehand sketched original ideas. Others used intricate cut paper designs for their cards.

Memphis Street Academy students were thrilled to take part in this this Caring School Community project. A few students have seen firsthand the amazing work CcTC does (either for themselves or family members), so they were particularly passionate about this project.

Students not only made enough cards for all the kids in the Therapeutic Nursery, but enough to give to CcTC staff as well. When the cards were dropped off to CcTC, Therapeutic Nursery Director Nicholas Bisaccia explained that the cards would be distributed to children when they receive gifts of books for the holiday.

CcTC Therapeutic Nursery Director Nicholas Bisaccia, welcoming the delivery of Memphis Street Academy Art students' 2013 holiday cards

Thanks to Farel Dalrymple and Locust Moon!

Here we see Eliza and Kamari showing off the newly framed masterpieces created by Farel Dalrymple.

A special thank you goes to artist Farel Dalrymple and Locust Moon Comics for the images we had made into posters for Art Room 100 here at Memphis Street Academy!

Farel is an amazing artist whose work the kids have come to know and love. Some have read his Pop Gun War comic, and we even have an original page from the book framed and hanging on the wall.  Recently, we made these images into posters and framed them for the art room. One has "The City" from Pop Gun War, which maps out the entire environment of the story. The other poster is the cover of Locust Moon's comic from last year, in which Farel illustrated a hyper-detailed cover that depicts the ultimate comic book store.

We will be using these posters for cooperative learning art projects and also "art scavenger hunt" projects.We will also be doing some comics projects throughout the year, since sequential art can help with both art and literacy. I am glad to know Farel and the Locust Moon guys, and grateful to make these masterpieces permanent fixtures for our students to study.

International Peace Day 2013

Memphis Street Academy Students march for PEACE!

On Friday, September 20, 2013, every student, teacher, and staff member from Memphis Street Academy Charter School marched for the cause of global peace through the neighborhood surrounding the school. Students exclaimed chants for various peaceful causes that they rehearsed in their homerooms. They carried signs and posters that called for peace in many ways, such as stopping gun violence, and end to bullying, proclamations against abuse, and many other peaceful causes.

Neighbors waved to children on the march, cheered, and threw up peace signs in support of their cause. It was a great step in getting our students to think about global and local ideas of peace. It was also a great way to show the neighborhood the progress our students are making every day.

MSA Student Volunteers at Peace Day Philly 2013 (photo by Brandon Lee)

Later in the evening, ten students attended Peace Day Philly at Hawthorne Park in South Philadelphia. These students were part of last year's Advanced Art class. All week long, they worked on "Peace Pinwheels" to be placed in a garden for children who attended the event.  Our students also designed several posters for the event. While at the event, these Memphis art students volunteered for hours to help younger children make origami "Peace Cranes" and pinwheels of their own.

Advanced Art students presenting their work to Philly poet and peace advocate, Sonia Sanchez at Peace Day Philly 2013 (photo by Brandon Lee)

Our students were also invited on stage to present legendary Philadelphia poet Sonia Sanchez with two posters they created. These posters were inspired by Sonia, and had decorative quotes she'd written about peace.  Sonia was delighted. She was very thankful and happy that our students were thinking about peace at such a young age. Later, students helped Sonia pass out "Peace Journals" to the crowd in attendance.

A special thank you goes out to our Activities Director, Mr. Lee, who arranged the day's events. All in all, it was an incredible day here at Memphis Street Academy. These kids really showed us what they are made of. It gets better every day. 

MSA Students with Councilman Mark Squilla at Peace Day Philly 2013 (photo by Brandon Lee)

Wildcat Artist Spotlight: Nefferra Hart's Paper People

Nefferra Hart is shown here showcasing her "PAPER PEOPLE". These are handmade paper dolls where she draws the front and back of each original character on opposite sides of a single sheet of paper. The dolls are then cut out with meticulous care.

When asked about the origins of this amazingly creative artwork, Nefferra explained, "I make these Paper People because one day when I was little, my sister and I were bored and decided to play, but we didn't have any dolls. So my big sister came up with this crazy idea of PAPER PEOPLE. Ever since that day, I decided I will be making and playing with these dolls for the rest of my life!"

Wildcat Artist Spotlight: Pablo Cordero (And the first day of Young Picasso's Club)

5th Grade Wildcat Pablo brought some of his work from home today - pieces he did in fourth grade last year. Both pieces were done in iridescent watercolors.

One piece was based on Pablo's favorite thing to draw, superheroes:
  

 Another was a sea life scene with a jumping shark:

Today was the first day of the "Young Picasso's" club at Memphis Street Academy. Students gathered for the first time this year to trade their free time for artistic growth and share their ideas and dreams.

 We look forward to an amazing year here in our art rooms, and we cannot wait to showcase more work from our young scholars!

Welcome Back, Memphis Street!

Welcome back to a brand new school year! We look forward to an amazing year of ART in our caring school community. Here we see Ms. Wiesner's afternoon class (Homeroom 8-7) performing a team-building art exercise.

Students worked in groups (in silence for ten minutes, communicating only with facial expressions and hand motions) building structures made of popsicle sticks, tape, straws, and toothpicks. The winning team had a structure topping off at 33 inches!

"I had to get a bigger ruler," said Ms. Wiesner, "I didn't think we'd be able to build higher than twelve inches!"

It is fixing to be an amazing year. Welcome back, Wildcats! It gets better and better every day!

Student Spotlight: Tyshira (posted by Art Teacher Mr. Kilpatrick)

Tyshira is a 5th grader at Memphis Street Academy, but not one of my art students. However, she stops by my room almost every morning while I am drawing the wipeoff lunch menu board. Tyshira is always full of questions. A couple weeks back, when I was drawing Louis Armstrong, she asked me to look up Ray Charles on Youtube, so we could listen to his music. She is a really awesome kid. She gave her teacher this drawing of me and her. I always call her "Old Timer" because she seems to have an old soul. I like that she gave me a mustache!

Music Students

This video was taken last Friday. The clarinet player Jamil inspired me to write this out for the students. They only had the music for 10 minutes before I recorded them. Our students never stop amazing me with their musical talent. They just recently received their instruments.THAT MEANS THEY HAVE ONLY HAD A COUPLE LESSONS!!!!! WOW!!!!

Just another day at Memphis Street Academy. Orlando on trumpet, Zuriel on flute, Travonne on Drums, Eryk on guitar and Zion the rapper. It is such a pleasure mentoring these students. They bring such creativity and enthusiasm to the music program.

Philly Photo day Field Trip Dec 2012

Students looked through over 1800 entries to find their photos on display at The Crane Arts Center's Icebox Gallery. The students submitted photos taken on October 26, 2012 = Philly Photo Day and then had their work entered into possible exhibition on Septa buses trains and billboards around Philadelphia so far two people have seen our student's work on display this way! Keep your eyes open as you travel around the city, you may see some of their work! The first 12 photos are the pictures the students took for the exhibition, and the the last photos are from the day of the field trip. Good times had by all!