art/vision/voice - Maryland Institute College of Art

20 art / vision / voice
working together on a mini wall mural.
At this time, Banner Neighborhoods convened a community conference
which revealed that while the adults had justifiable concerns, the youth
had a legitimate complaint that also needed to be addressed: there was
no safe place to play, and Patterson Park was still a dangerous place for
younger children. Banner helped to mediate a heated dialogue, and the
outcome was that several adult community members and Banner staff
pledged unwavering support for providing safe, adult-supervised activities
for youth through a range of programs. The group’s first effort, the
Banner Football League, was a resounding success. In addition to this
highly successful sports program, new arts programming was piloted. Local
community artist Cinder Hypki worked with neighborhood children to
create an outdoor mosaic gallery in a garden at the heart of the community.
When Cinder later joined the cap staff, mica took advantage of
her spadework in the community. With funding from the Baltimore
Community Foundation’s A-Teams Initiative, cap and Banner agreed
to create the Banner Art Club in Patterson Place. This after-school arts
program provided a group of fifteen eleven- to fourteen-year-olds with
arts-related learning experiences twice-weekly for ten weeks during
the winter of 2003. The youth Banner recruited for the Art Club reflected
the demographic of the neighborhoods: most were African American;
one white and one Hispanic family were represented. Most of the children
came from economically disadvantaged homes that varied widely in
terms of parental involvement in their children’s activities.
The cap team that arrived on the scene was diverse in its own way.
Five of the seven, including all three leaders, were white. One student
was African American, and the other was Chinese American. All but one
were female. Two of the three leaders were graduate students; all other
team members were undergraduates. Not one member of the team was
from Baltimore.
Since Banner had not completed the necessary renovations for a
planned community art studio in a building near its offices, the pastor
of nearby St. Elizabeth’s Church, located adjacent to Patterson Park,
volunteered the church hall as the site for the art club.