Sponsor an AfterSchool Student’s Mosaic for the Greening Green Street Mosaic Project

Our AfterSchool students are the heartbeat of Green Street. We want to involve them in our community arts activities and help them discover their passions. This spring, we are doing that through the Greening Green Street Mosaic Project. The AfterSchool students will have the opportunity to make their own pebble mosaics with nationally known mosaicist Debora Aldo that will become a part of the permanent installation in front of the building. Every day they come to Green Street, the students will be able to see and show off their work.

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Your sponsorship of an AfterSchool student’s mosaic will help us pay for the materials to complete the mosaic project. Our garden is a large space and it takes lots of pebbles and cement to create the beautiful mosaics.

You can sponsor an AfterSchool student’s mosaic at several levels.

  • Level 1 – only $10! Level 1 sponsors will receive recognition on our website.
  • Level 2 – $25. Level 2 sponsors will receive a student-made thank you card for their support.
  • Level 3 – $50 and up. Level 3 sponsors will receive recognition on our donor tree so all Green Street visitors can see how they support community youth programs in art, math, and science.

All sponsors will receive an invitation to the mosaic unveiling at our Green Street Open House on Saturday, June 14, 2014 and recognition on our website.

To sponsor an AfterSchool student’s mosaic, you can either call Claudia with your credit card information at 860-685-7797. We accept Visa, MasterCard, and American Express. Or you can send a check to the Green Street Arts Center at 51 Green Street, Middletown CT 06457. Please make checks payable to GSAC/Wesleyan and note “Mosaic Sponsor Level 1, 2, or 3” in the notes section.

Make Your Own Mosaic Community Workshops – The Greening Green Street Mosaic Project

The Green Street Arts Center of Wesleyan University would like to welcome you to participate in our Greening Green Street Mosaic Project by taking a mosaic class taught by nationally known pebble mosaicist Debora Aldo.

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We will be hosting several afternoon mosaic workshops this spring. These are the dates, stay tuned for more details.

Wednesday, February 19 from 5:00-8:00pm (Make+Take)

Saturday, February 22 from 1:00-5:00pm (Make+Leave)

Saturday, March 29 from 1:00-4:00pm (Make+Take)

Make+Leave Workshop — Come to the Green Street Art Center and learn how to make a pebble mosaic in this 4-hour workshop. You will make a black and white pebble mosaic that will become part of a permanent installation in the front Green Street garden – a space for youth education programs and community gathering. The mosaic stays but you take the knowledge of the process with you so that you can make another at your own pace in your own space! The cost of the class is normally $140 with Deb, but you pay only $65 to be a part of this community project.

Make+Take Workshop — You can come and make a small craft style mosaic during a 3-hour mini-workshop using stone, glass and ceramic and mortar. All materials are provided and you will bring the project home. This is a basic mosaic class, no experience needed. There is an explanation of cutting and fitting of materials. Simple designs, basic instruction and small substrates are provided. The cost of this class is $65.

If the classes sound great but you would rather just donate to the project and leave the mosaic making to the Green Street AfterSchool students, you can Sponsor an AfterSchool Student’s Mosaic.

Workshop fees help us purchase materials for the AfterSchool portion of the Greening Green Street Mosaic Project.

Call or email Green Street today at 860-685-7871 or gsac@wesleyan.edu to sign up for a mosaic workshop.

Half-days are far from a drag

Wesleyan Physics Professor, Dr. Christina Othon, and students from her lab came to visit the Green Street Arts Center last week.

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The Othon Lab led an activity for our AfterSchool elementary school students on one of their early dismissal days. The students learned about physics concepts, specifically the force called drag by making paper helicopters. In groups, they experimented with different variables to make the paper helicopter that fell to the ground the slowest while learning about the physics behind flight.

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Thank you Dr. Othon and friends!

Acadia Insurance supports Green Street Art and Science AfterSchool Program

The Green Street Arts Center is honored to receive a donation from Acadia Insurance to support our Art and Science AfterSchool Program. The support is much appreciated and our students thank you.

Acadia Underwriting Team Lead, Lou Gold, and Underwriter Dave Walsh, visited Green Street this week to deliver the check. They are pictured here with Green Street Director, Sara MacSorley.

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Our integrative classes in art, math, and science foster creativity and build problem-solving skills in a safe space where students can express themselves. We serve students in grades 1 – 8, many of them from the North End of Middletown. Support from organizations like Acadia Insurance allows us to give scholarships so that all children can enjoy our program. You can watch their enthusiasm in the video of last semester’s student showcase.

Registration for spring classes will open soon.

This fall we had exciting new classes for middle school students. In Art with Math, students explored shapes, patterns, and measurement while building spatial skills and creating works of art.  Wesleyan Bound took students to the Wesleyan University campus once a week to tour science laboratories, meet with student groups, participate in special art and cultural activities with the Center for the Arts, and more.

Please call the Green Street Arts Center at 860-685-7871 for more information about our AfterSchool Program or to get on our waiting list for spring registration appointments.

Capoeira Classes starting October 29th

Capoeira is a unique Brazilian martial arts form that brings together music, dance, and acrobatics to build community. You’ll sign, play instruments, and improve your balance and flexibility. You’ll learn to physically and mentally challenge yourself and your opponents while building self-confidence in a game-like environment.

Watch our AfterSchool students perform Capoeira.

Classes run on Tuesday evenings from 7:00-8:30pm for ages 12-adult. The class is 6 weeks long and meets on 10/29, 11/5, 11/12, 11/19, 11/26, and 12/3.

Registration is required and payment for the full class block, $90, is due at the first class. Call Green Street today at 860-685-7871 or email us at gsac@wesleyan.edu to sign up today.

*A minimum enrollment of 10 people is required to run the class. 

Halloween Bash at Green Street

Come join us on Sunday, October 27th for a family-friendly Halloween Bash! Wear your costume and enjoy fun fall activities. Green Street’s basement will be transformed into a haunted house too!

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The festivities start at 5pm and we’ll wrap up at 7pm.

Hope to see you there.

 

Microcosmic Nature exhibit coming to Green Street – October 4th opening

On Friday, October 4th, from 5-8:00 p.m. (in conjunction with Middletown’s Gallery Walk series), the Green Street Arts Center will host an opening reception for  NYC artist,  Jennifer Formica, whose exhibit, Microcosmic Nature, will be on display from October 4th through October 29th (M-F, 9a.m.-3p.m.).

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Jennifer Formica, originally from Hartford, currently resides in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and is an adjunct professor of Photography and Digital Imaging at Dowling College and York College/CUNY. Here photographic images — vibrant, symbolic and seductive, whimsically evoke the inner psyche and hidden beauty in organic matter, often capturing the magic of nature on a microscopic scale. Formica’s artistic process and techniques range from the use of traditional analog large format camera, to the use of a computer scanner as an image-capturing device, and even to the connection of a microscope to various film and digital cameras.

Formica says of her own work: “Though each individual organism’s color, structure and markings were not merely created for their visual beauty, I hope to transform them into something symbolic and monumental by documenting, magnifying and abstracting an unseen hidden world of complex forms, textures and bright vibrant colors.”  Certainly, this  special opportunity for a glimpse into her microcosmic perspective is not to be missed.

Wesleyan Student Opportunities at Green Street

The Green Street Arts Center and Project to Increase Mastery of Mathematics and Science (together referred to as Green Street) are excited for a new year! We welcome and encourage college students to come learn more about what we do at Green Street. There are lots of ways to get involved in the community and we’re looking forward to your ideas and contributions.

Art and Science AfterSchool Program

  • Build teaching experience, teach an integrative class in art, math, and science
  • Work with a professional teaching artist as a teaching assistant
  • Tutor younger students and help with homework
  • Be a mentor for community youth
  • Volunteer to be an extra set of hands and eyes during Wesleyan breaks

Watch the students perform at the student showcase last semester for an idea of what AfterSchool is all about.

Private Lessons

  • Share your skills, be an instructor for lessons in music, art, and more
  • Learn new skills, take lessons yourself

Classes and Professional Development

  • Come practice Capoeira (Brazilian martial arts)
  • Take a sound production class in our recording studio with our master sound engineer
  • Learn more about integrative education by attending teacher professional development workshops
  • Build skills in grant writing and proposal development

Communications and Marketing

  • Spread the word, help us get the word out on campus about our activities
  • Tell the Green Street story, reach out to local media
  • Practice your science communication
  • Design flyers and promotional materials
  • Be a guest blog writer
  • Take pictures or video of events, edit videos for web

Community

  • Interact with the community by working events
  • Garden at Green Street
  • Teach community computer classes
  • Come over to Stretch and Stitch
  • See local artists exhibit as part of the Middletown Gallery Walk
  • Coordinate special projects like a donor tree or Green Street history display case

Get in touch or come by for a visit to learn more
gsac@wesleyan.edu
860-685-7871
51 Green Street, Middletown
www.wesleyan.edu/greenstreet

September 6th Gallery Walk – Barbara Alden DiOrio’s “Flesh and Bones” Exhibit

Come join us Friday, September 6th, from 5-8:00 p.m. (in conjunction with Middletown’s Gallery Walk series) for an opening reception for New England artist, Barbara Alden DiOrio. DiOrio’s exhibit, Flesh and Bones, featuring pastel and charcoal drawings, relief prints, and mixed media works will be on display at Green Street from September 6th – September 30th (M-F, 9a.m.-3p.m.).

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Barbara Alden DiOrio, originally from Rhode Island and currently residing in Burlington, CT is an adjunct professor of art and art history at several Connecticut universities and community colleges.  Her powerful and sinuous drawings, prints, and mixed media works will be on exhibit at the Green Street Arts Center, where the intersection of art and science is what we explore everyday.

DiOrio’s recent work involves a series of images about the biological creatures that share our world, and our tenuous relationship with them.  Ever intellectually reflective and environmentally conscious, her observational studies of the animal world are an attempt to visually depict their physiology in direct conflict with the thrust and force of human will.  Her relief prints from a destruction block series entitled Decomposition (pictured above), astutely and ironically points to the dual decomposition of both the artistic medium with which she works, as well as to the subject (a bird carcass) that she observes.  DiOrio refers poignantly to the sentiments of Degas who said, “In art, one is never entitled to disregard what is true”.

Many Thanks to Liberty Bank

The Green Street Arts Center is honored to receive a Liberty Bank Award to support our Art and Science AfterSchool Program. The generous and continued support from Liberty Bank is much appreciated and our students thank you.

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Our integrative classes in art, math, and science foster creativity and build problem-solving skills in a safe space where students can express themselves. We serve students in grades 1 – 8, many of them from the North End of Middletown. Support from organizations like Liberty Bank allows us to give scholarships so that all children can enjoy our program. You can watch their enthusiasm in the video of last semester’s student showcase.

Registration for fall classes is still open, especially for the middle school age group.

This fall we have exciting new classes for middle school students. In Art with Math, students will explore shapes, patterns, and measurement while building spatial skills and creating works of art. Students in Creative Writing and Bookmaking will craft original, autobiographical works with illustrations bound in their own handmade books to share with family and friends.  Wesleyan Bound will take students to the Wesleyan University campus once a week to tour science laboratories, meet with student groups, participate in special art and cultural activities with the Center for the Arts, and more.

Please call the Green Street Arts Center at 860-685-7871 for more information about our AfterSchool Program or to set up a registration appointment for your child.

For the list of fall classes and information about the activities at Green Street please visit our website.