All
children
are
artists
.
We're on a mission to unite children and artists to create and share ambitious works of art with their communities and the world.
Since 1988, Children’s Museum of the Arts has been changing the way people value our youngest artists and their aesthetic contributions to the world.
Our concept of a museum has been changing too. Born as an artist’s Soho studio project, Children’s Museum of the Arts grew into a neighborhood stalwart for local families while building a collection of works by children from over 50 countries dating back nearly a century.
After a decade of steadily building bonds with schools and community groups citywide, with a particular focus on connecting with young artists typically disenfranchised from the story of art, Children’s Museum of the Arts has taken the opportunity of the pandemic crisis to transform once again.
We're not your parents' children's museum.
In 2022, pledging to make all of its programs 100% free of charge, the museum closed its fee-for-service facility at 103 Charlton Street to follow a new North Star: maximizing accessibility to excellent progressive arts education for all children.
Maximizing accessibility means prioritizing partnership – working with schools and community groups to meet young artists where they are, in neighborhoods across NYC and beyond. It means designing our programs for a hybrid world, so excellent arts education is available anytime, anywhere. It means integrating children into the wider culture, through public art, exhibitions, talks and media.
Maximizing accessibility means changing our idea of what it means to be a museum from a place to an ambition, and our ambition is a world where all children are artists.
What is Progressive
Arts Pedagogy?
“Education is not preparation for life; it is life itself.”
– JOHN DEWEY
Even before the recent school budget cuts, the recommended spend per child on arts education was only 44 cents per day, and middle school students were only expected to spend about 1% of their time in school receiving arts instruction.
Less than 1/3 actually did.
It is clear that decades of advocacy touting the ability of arts education to improve test scores, to support mental health, and to prepare the next generation for the growing creative workforce, have failed to move the needle.
It’s time we stop rationalizing.
At Children’s Museum of the Arts, we believe art is fundamental and needs no justification. So we’re building a new way of doing things: a Progressive Arts Pedagogy.
Our roots are in the Progressive Education movement, which sought to integrate the arts and vocations into the classical academic curriculum. But while Progressive Education, as imagined by John Dewey, aimed to engender a more democratic society, Progressive Arts Pedagogy goes further, recognizing that the arts are the principal aim of that society, with democratization as an essential process toward that goal.
Progressive Arts Pedagogy is premised on the belief that talent isn’t rare, it’s just grossly mis-recognized and unduly stifled by traditional school structures and pedagogical methods. We seek to overcome these obstacles by creating a full-circle creative pedagogical pipeline, inspired by laboratory schools, but decentralized across a network of art institutions, schools, public and community spaces, art studios and homes everywhere.
Our program treats children, educators, artists, and audiences as mutual aesthetic learners, engaged together in the continuous experiment of creating a common culture.
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Our Impact
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Here is how we learn:
The Look
Make Show
.
The Look Make Show is an online learning platform providing direct access to Children's Museum of the Arts' ongoing research in arts education. The Look Make Show expands art educators' ability to provide resources tailored to the individual learning of young artists, as well as inspiration for classroom projects and curriculum.
The Look Make Show is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Additional support is provided by Cornelia T. Bailey Foundation, The Ruth Foundation for the Arts, Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, William Talbott Hillman Foundation, First Republic Bank, The LeRoy Neiman and Janet Byrne Neiman Foundation, Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, Google Community Grants Fund, Amazon, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Harriet Ames Charitable Trust, The Cowles Charitable Trust, Hammitt and the Vinair Family Foundation.
The Residency
for Experimental
Arts Education
.
Great artists
make artists.
The beating heart of our model is The Residency for Experimental Arts Education, wherein a select group of artists devote a full academic year with us developing utterly ambitious art programs in schools and community organizations that need it most. Our Resident Artists touch every piece of our program and engage with every aspect of our community, teaching and learning, connecting history and the future. They are the critical feedback loop that keeps progressive arts education – well – progressing.
The Residency for Experimental Arts Education is generously supported by The Ruth Foundation for the Arts, William Talbott Hillman Foundation, Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The LeRoy Neiman and Janet Byrne Neiman Foundation, First Republic Bank, Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, Google Community Grants Fund, Amazon, LeRoy Neiman Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Harriet Ames Charitable Trust, The Cowles Charitable Trust, Hammitt and the Vinair Family Foundation.
Additional support is provided, in part, by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts and in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Emergency Arts
Education Fund
.
The Emergency Arts Education Fund was formed in response to continued DOE budget cuts (-$200M this year) and decimation of arts classes in our schools. Children’s Museum of the Arts believes the ongoing insecurity of arts education is a public health and creativity crisis deserving of immediate assistance.
For over 15 years, we’ve connected local artists to low-income schools to lead high quality arts education through our Accessible Arts program. We provide all necessary art materials and develop a curriculum representative of the rich cultural diversity of the school’s neighborhood and community.
For the 2023-24 school year, CMA's three Residents Artists are currently implementing ambitious arts curriculum at each of our partner sites throughout New York City: Hudson Guild in Chelsea, Sid Miller Academy in Crown Heights, and Children’s Workshop School in the East Village. Come spring, our residents will showcase their students' work through exhibitions and installations across the city.
Throughout the year, we meet with principals, teachers, council members, and community leaders to help schools to navigate the difficult process of arts funding with the goal of creating a blueprint to sustain quality arts education for their students.
Current Schools
Brooklyn
IS 068K Isaac Bildersee
Manhattan
Children's Workshop School
Manhattan
PS 33M Chelsea Prep
Queens
Renaissance Charter School
Manhattan
Hudson Guild
Bronx
PS 106X The Parkchester School
Manhattan
PS 347 American Sign Language School
Queens
PS 46Q Alley Pond
Brooklyn
P396K Sid Miller Academy
Manhattan
City-As-School
Brooklyn
PS 52K Sheepshead Bay
Bronx
PS 69X Journey Prep
The Emergency Arts Education Fund is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Additional support is provided by Cornelia T. Bailey Foundation, The Ruth Foundation for the Arts, Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, First Republic Bank, The LeRoy Neiman and Janet Byrne Neiman Foundation, Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, Google Community Grants Fund, Amazon, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Harriet Ames Charitable Trust, The Cowles Charitable Trust, Hammitt and the Vinair Family Foundation.
