Green Street Arts Center Blog
Ben Parker thoughtfully and skillfully challenges the cliché notion of origami as merely the art of cleverly crafting amusing paper animals. Ben’s workshop will teach students the art of the fold and how to break some of the rules associated with traditional origami.
Workshop Date: Wednesday, June 24th from 3:30 – 5:30 PM
The workshop cost is $15.00 per person
To register please call us at 860-685-7871 or email us at gsac@wesleyan.edu
During the month of July, the Green Street Teaching and Learning Center will be exhibiting the work of North Haven artist, Nancy Eisenfeld. This show of her newest work entitled, On the Diagonal will highlight her recent exploration of the emotive power of diagonal line. Alive with the energy and movement of the diagonals which she uses to both construct and dissect their richly layered surfaces, Eisenfeld’s oil stick paintings and glass collages are the serendipitous results of the intuitive experimentation that is integral to her process. With open-ended, poetic titles like Ice and Angled Light these striking textural wall works provide access and intrigue for the viewer, while offering plenty of room for reflection and personal interpretation.
The exhibit will open on Thursday, July 2nd from 5-8:00p.m. in conjunction with the Middletown ArtWalk series. On the Diagonal will run from July 2nd through July 29th. The gallery hours are Monday-Thursday 9a.m.-5p.m. and Fridays 9a.m.-noon (closed on July 3rd for the 4th of July holiday).
In his series, Breaking the Pattern, that will be on display at the Green Street Teaching and Learning Center of Wesleyan University from June 4th through June 24th, Ben Parker thoughtfully and skillfully challenges the cliché notion of origami as merely the art of cleverly crafting amusing paper animals.
Parker’s aesthetic clearly affirms his affinity for pattern, precision and problem-solving– all of which are inherent to the mathematics that underly his works and that are in keeping with the Green Street’s overarching theme of science and math. He exquisitely explores and manipulates a much broader range of hand-folded patterns, designs, and surface textures than one would typically associate with the traditional craft of origami. The works in this show gracefully embody Parker’s contemplative, uniquely personal, and contemporary approach to the ancient art of origami.
This extraordinary exhibit will open on Thursday, June 4th from 5-8:00p.m. in conjunction with the Middletown Art Walk series— and will be a delight for crafters, as well as fine art aficionados.
On Thursday, May 14th from 6:15-8:15 in collaboration with HOT Schools the Green Street Teaching and Learning Center will be hosting a potluck workshop about how to use improvisation in the classroom setting. All teaching artists and interested college students are welcome to join this fun filled night at no cost. All we ask for in return is that if you bring your favorite dish to share with the group. This workshop will be led by HOT Schools very own Teaching Artist Jackie Coleman.
Jackie Coleman is Senior Executive Advisor for the Arts for Hartford Public Schools. As such she works toward bringing dance, music, theatre and visual art to the students of Hartford in as many ways as possible.
Prior to Hartford Schools, Jackie left Hartford Stage as Director of Education. During her 6 years there she expanded the reach of Connections – a theatre literacy program, created Innovations –a science/theatre residency, formed the Hartford Stage Young Company, designed a multitude of interdistrict and after school programs, increased professional development opportunities and started their adult acting series.
Jackie is a Master Teaching Artist on the roster for the Connecticut Office of the Arts. She has 15 years of acting credits in and around New York City and Connecticut. She holds an MFA from the University of South Carolina and a BFA from the University of Connecticut.
The schedule will be as follows:
6:15-6:45 eat
6:45-7:30 circle share
7:30-8:15 improv workshop with Jackie
Connecticut Higher Order Thinking (HOT) Schools in partnership with Wesleyan’s Green Street Teaching and Learning Center is offering an internship to Wesleyan Students.
This is a unique opportunity for a highly organized, tech savvy individual interested in understanding the elements of planning, developing, implementing and managing the HOT Schools program including an intensive interactive arts education experience for 200 plus artists, teachers, administrators and parents engaged in school culture change through strong arts, arts integration, and democratic practice.
Duration: June 15- July 17
Details: June 15- July 1 – 20 hours per week and July 6-17 – 40 hours per week
Description: Participating in event planning and implementation
During the Institute, this person will be responsible for assisting with technical services for all presenters which includes power-point projection and any audio/visual needs.
Qualifications: self-starter, collaborative, use excel, use google docs, audio visual equipment, general clerical skills, flexible, strong interpersonal skills
Stipend: $1,920.00 paid in bi-weekly installments
Room & Board at the Hilton will be provided from 7/12-7/17.
The HOT Schools program will hold it’s 22th Annual Summer Institute, a 5 -day residential professional development opportunity for teachers, administrators, parents and teaching artists to be held at the Hartford Hilton from July 13-17, 2015. The program is a synthesis of educational pedagogy and strategic partnerships with teaching artists and arts and cultural organizations dedicated to cultivating arts energized school communities. Program fellows will assist in all aspects of planning and implementation of this intensive week- long professional development opportunity.
Interested Wesleyan students should submit a cover letter, resume, and two references to hotschools@wesleyan.edu by May 1, 2015.
This year the Green Street Teaching and Learning Center formerly known as “Green Street Arts Center” is celebrating its 10 year anniversary.Throughout its 10 years of existence, Green Street has formed an extremely close-knit community, gathering a variety of teachers and students all expressing their love of art, and now even other subjects such as science and math.
Within this community is Eric Quinones, the current hip-hop instructor and former student of Green Street. Since the very beginning, Eric has been involved. “I was here since it first started. So it’s the 10 year anniversary now. I’m 21, so I was about 10 years old when I first started going here.” Ever since then, Eric has grown up with Green Street, taking a multitude of art classes offered to kids from first to eighth, from visual arts like film, to dancing classes like ballet. After years of dabbling in various classes, Eric found one that truly stuck: hip-hop.
“Green Street has made a huge impact in my life because I was able to take hip-hop classes here. As I got older and started high school, I began to volunteer, and now I actually teach the classes.”
Throughout his time at Green Street Eric has seen himself transform from student to teacher, now teaching younger kids as well as the older kids the art of hip-hop. “Back then it was me performing and now I get to teach them. It’s great to watch my students perform and improve. Some students come in without having danced a day in their life and they come here just to try out the class, and then sometimes even advance to older age levels.” Just like himself, Eric sees his own students fall in love with the subjects they experience. “There are times when I come in and I’m not even teaching and they’re just showing people the dances in the studio. I can definitely see them continuing to dance, maybe even teach too.”
For those who are interested in arts (and now math and science), Green Street serves as an incredible source; one that offers not only experience and learning, but a family community. “It’s a great place; whether you’re into hip-hop, drumming, or anything, Green Street can let you try it out. The whole atmosphere is so welcoming and you just feel at home.”
Support Green Street’s youth programs by visiting FroyoWorld on Main Street in Middletown on Friday, April 17th from 5-8pm.
(RE)PRESENTING PLACE: A Portrait of the Coal River Valley
A Multi-Media Project by
Wesleyan University Undergraduate Students,
Rachel Lindy
Rachie Weisberg
Isaac Silk
In the Summer of 2013, Rachel Lindy (’15), Rachel Weisberg (’15) and Isaac Silk (’14) spent six weeks living in the Coal River Valley of southern West Virginia—an area highly affected by mountaintop removal coal mining and teeming with activist resistance. During this time, we developed a multimedia project that explored the future of the region and its inhabitants in a post coal economy, attempting to place this change in the larger context of social and environmental justice issues. By sharing these images and stories, we hope to provide the Wesleyan community with a sense of the deep complexities surrounding the coal industry, and to encourage dialogue around the often absentminded nature with which we consume fossil fuels.
This exhibition was made possible through the generosity of the COE’s Visualizing the Environment Program, the COE, the Green Fund, and the CFA’s Feet to the Fire Program.
Exhibit will run until March 25th.
Gallery hours are Monday – Friday 9-3:00pm.
The Pysanka workshop is returning to Green Street just in time for Easter!
For the past two years we have had a full house for our Pysanka egg decorating workshop with Wesleyan Dance Department Chair, Katja Kolcio. Katja and her husband have been using the technique for many years and offered to share their skills with us.
The design is created using wax and you have to think about your color pattern in reverse. The wax creates a barrier where the dye won’t stick. So wherever you put wax first on the egg will remain white. Then you pick your first color, say yellow. After you dye the egg yellow, you add the next level of wax and all those spots will stay yellow. At the end, you carefully melt off all the wax and blow out the contents of the egg. The traditional technique produces beautiful geometric patterns.
Workshop Date: Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Time: 6:00-9:00pm
Location: 51 Green Street, Middletown
Fee: $10.00 per person
This workshop is for teens and adults
There is a limit of 20 people, so early registration is encouraged.
To register please call us at 860-685-7871 or email us at gsac@wesleyan.edu
Civic engagement takes many forms at Wesleyan: volunteerism, activism and advocacy, 
community-based work, and more recently, unique academic experiences like service-learning and civic engagement courses. Alicia Gansley ’15 – a Computer Science major completing the Economics minor and Civic Engagement certificate – has been involved with nearly all of these activities during her time at Wesleyan. In the fall of 2014, she brought her programming knowledge to COMP 342: Software Engineering, a service-learning course where groups of Computer Science majors developed special projects for local organizations. For insight on how working with a community partner affected her experience of this course, I asked Alicia a few questions about the service-learning component:
Q: What project did you work on this semester?
A: My group made a web application for Green Street Teaching and Learning Center to use to sign students up for one of its after school programs. Our system will allow Green Street to collect students’ contact information and course preferences, as well as allow the staff to keep track of this information throughout the semester.
Q: How did the experience of working on a project for an organization differ from working on a project for a typical academic course? Were there unexpected rewards and challenges that came with having a client?
A: It was a real pleasure working closely with Sara MacSorley at Green Street and learning more about their facility and programs. Part of what struck me about working on a project for a client was the fact that you can never just say “90% is enough.” We needed to always figure out some way to meet their specifications, which I think pushed the team to really learn and work together. I think it was a great motivation to produce our best work, and I’m excited to think we helped such a worthy organization with a hard working staff.
Q: Now that the course has ended, what’s next for your project? Does Green Street plan to implement your work?
A: A couple of students will be hired this Spring to polish all of the projects our class produced last semester. Hopefully, Green Street will be able to implement the project in the Fall.
Q: Why did you sign up for this course?
A: I signed up for the class mainly because I am pursuing a career in software engineering and I wanted to get some formal training in that field. I wanted an opportunity to take the time to learn Ruby and Ruby on Rails. I was also interested in taking a class where we would be undertaking a large scale, team-based programming project.
Q: How has this course influenced your career interests?
A: It solidified my interest in being a software developer and made me realize how much I value teamwork. It also made me realize how much work and thought goes into good software projects. I also realized that software can be used in all kinds of organizations to solve many different problems, and I’m really interested in seeing how I can use my programming skills to promote and help with other good causes in the future.
Q: What other student groups and activities are you involved with at Wesleyan?
A: I am a Publicity Assistant at the Wesleyan University Press and a course assistant in the Computer Science department. I was the web editor for The Argus and a peer advisor for the Patricelli Center. I have also been involved in feminist activism on campus and was the student leader for Democracy Matters, an organization that advocates for public financing of elections.
Ornament decorating workshop courtesy of Middletown Parks & Recreation Dept at Green Street Arts Center.
Kids can decorate an ornament for FREE to place on their tree at home or give as a gift.
Saturday, December 13, 2014
10:30am-12:00pm
