2/16/24 Artists in Schools Charcoal Observational Portraits Dispatches from CMA Resident Artist Noormah Jamal's fifth grade class at Children's Workshop School. Click to expand media gallery. Students were challenged to create 3 different charcoal portraits in 30 minutes – that’s 10 minutes per portrait! This allowed students to slow down and really focus on their portraits instead of rushing through. To help with the placement and proportions of the face, students looked at works by British figurative painter Leon Kossoff . This week’s key skill was observation. Noormah reminded students to keep looking back at the reference and use the charcoal sticks according to what it does best, and not necessarily like a pencil. The best part about these hyper-specific assignments is that when students engage, they fully jump into the assignment. Some students wanted specific feedback about the shape of the nose for example. It’s fantastic to see students really honing their skills in charcoal. Noormah’s work at Children’s Workshop School is supported by the Emergency Arts Education Fund , which provides free arts education to NYC school communities whose art programs have been decimated by recent budget cuts. Children’s Museum of the Arts’ 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. Learn how you can support the work of our residents here . NEXT Emergency Exhibition: New Training for Future Artists and Art Lovers Take a Virtual Tour on Bloomberg Connects Donate Now

See More Children's Museum of the Arts 2/14/22 Fun Facts Kids Art 8 Fun Facts About Valentine’s Day Valentine's Day has a fascinating history. It’s the season of love and we couldn’t think of a better person to celebrate it with than … you! We’re teaming up with Hudson Square Business Improvement District to share the love for our New York City community with families near and far. All week long, participate in Valentine-inspired art projects to show affection for the friends, coworkers, neighbors, educators, and pets that bring joy to our lives. Get inspired with these eight fun facts about Valentine’s Day. Get inspired with these eight fun facts about Valentine’s Day! 1. The custom of handing out valentines is an ancient tradition that’s over 600 years old. That means when you’re making or sending a valentine, you’re participating in history! 2. Teachers are the #1 recipients of valentines. Can you think of a special teacher or educator that deserves a valentine this year? 3. The iconic box of chocolates has been around for over 160 years. Richard Cadbury (yes, that Cadbury!) created the first heart-shaped box of chocolates in 1861. 4. California has the largest number of chocolate creators per state, followed by Pennsylvania. Which state do you think has the largest number of chocolate lovers? 5. Before it became the #1 symbol of love, the heart shape symbolized memory. At the time, people thought of our hearts as “books of memory” 6. Nordic countries celebrate Friendship Day, or Ystävänpäivä, on February 14. Which friends are you grateful for this Valentine’s Day? 7. Yee-haw! There is a city in Texas called Valentine. 8. Feeling under the weather? Candy hearts started out as medical lozenges for sore throats. Pictured: "Swan Lake" by Matilda Svensson, age 10, Sweden. Courtesy of CMA's permanent collection of children's art from around the world. NEXT IN Fun Facts 6 Fun Facts About Hudson Square 6 Fun Facts About Hudson Square

See More Children's Museum of the Arts 10/5/23 Interviews "Studio practice is something that you develop over time and take with you wherever you go." Artist Judd Schiffman on the sculpture he returns to again and again. NEXT IN

11/29/23 Interviews "It was thrilling to imagine what it would be like to be an artist with such a unique vision." Artist Marcy Hermansader on learning to draw alongside her father and visiting a Giacometti retrospective as a child. Click to expand media gallery. CMA's end-of-year artwork sale raises essential funds for free arts education in NYC schools whose arts programs have been decimated by recent budget cuts. These works – starting at $100 – have been generously donated by celebrated artists who uphold our belief that all children are artists deserving of the materials, access, and encouragement to allow their creativity to soar. Below, meet contributing artist Marcy Hermansader. Marcy's childhood artwork Do you have a favorite memory of making art as a child? My father was an artist and sometimes he would set me up to work at his drawing board while he painted. I was about 5. We would listen to opera or jazz. Can you describe a formative experience visiting a museum or gallery? When I was a teenager I went with my parents to MoMA to see a Giacometti retrospective. I was stunned by his drawings and paintings. It was thrilling to imagine what it would be like to be an artist with such a unique vision. Marcy Hermansader Milkweed color pencil, pastel, gouache and ink on paper Buy Now NEXT Emergency Exhibition: New Training for Future Artists and Art Lovers Take a Virtual Tour on Bloomberg Connects Donate Now

10/5/23 Interviews "Art is a way of speaking your mind when words can’t be found." Artist Isis Avila on finding her path to becoming an artist through her career as an attorney. Click to expand media gallery. Great artists make artists. And to prove that point, over 70 of today's greatest have contributed their work in support of Children's Museum of the Arts' Emergency Arts Education Fund , establishing utterly ambitious art programs in New York City schools that need them most. Bidding for the online auction concludes Thursday, October 19 at 12 PM EDT . Bid now. Bid often. Bid here. Below, meet auction artist Isis Avila. Do you have a favorite memory of making art as a child? I remember scribbling all over my school notebooks, and of course the walls and even the furniture at my childhood home in Mexico. I always got into some trouble with my mom at home! What advice would you give to young artists who wish to pursue an art practice? Art is a way of speaking your mind when words can’t be found. Dare to speak freely through your art and trust that a powerful message lies within it. How does working with children inspire you? Children are the most precious gift for humankind. It is our responsibility to guide and empower them towards their biggest potential, especially those children who live in disadvantaged communities where access to art and culture is not always available. When did you first know you were going to be an artist? Growing up, I felt I had one call only: to become an attorney just like my mom and dad. However, deep within myself I always realized I had a thirst and hunger to express myself through an artistic lens. Thus, throughout law school and through my practice as an attorney, I always looked for ways to learn and cultivate my artistic self. Isis Avila Grande Love canvas mixed media Bid Now NEXT Emergency Exhibition: New Training for Future Artists and Art Lovers Take a Virtual Tour on Bloomberg Connects Donate Now

Oct 17, 2023 Children's Museum of the Arts Partners with David Zwirner to Host Fundraising Auction Maxwell Rabb Donate Now

Family Day at David Zwirner Galleries Book Release Celebration Saturday, December 4, 2021 9 AM to 12 PM David Zwirner Galleries Media Inquiries: adam@culturalcounsel.com RSVP Join us to celebrate the debut children’s book published by David Zwirner Books, Making a Great Exhibition , with a family day across David Zwirner's New York galleries! Children’s activities will be guided by CMA's Artists in Residence, Ciana Malchione, Tati Nguyen, and Frank Traynor. 525 West 19th Street with Ciana Malchione Portia Zvavahera: Ndakaoneswa murima 537 West 20th Street with Tati Nguyen Ruth Asawa: All Is Possible 52 Walker with Frank Traynor Kandis Williams: A Line Additionally, David Zwirner Books will be hosting a holiday pop-up sale at the 525 W 19th Street location from 9 AM to 6 PM. Programs at Children's Museum of the Arts are 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. Donate Now

12/17/23 Artists in Schools Artists in Schools: Maria D. Rapicavoli CMA Resident Artist Maria D. Rapicavoli begins her school year at Hudson Guild in Chelsea, Manhattan. Click to expand media gallery. Widely known as the center of the NYC art world, Chelsea is also home to Hudson Guild , a 128-year-old community center dedicated to those living, working, and attending school on Manhattan’s west side, with a priority focus on those in economic need. CMA Resident Artist Maria D. Rapicavoli leads after school art programs for students twice a week, where first-through-fourth graders learn foundational techniques – and produce exceptional self portraits. Maria's work at Hudson Guild is supported by the Emergency Arts Education Fund , which provides free arts education to NYC school communities whose art programs have been decimated by recent budget cuts. Children’s Museum of the Arts’ 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. Learn how you can support the work of our residents here . NEXT Emergency Exhibition: New Training for Future Artists and Art Lovers Take a Virtual Tour on Bloomberg Connects Donate Now

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2/29/24 Studio Visit In the Studio with Noormah Jamal CMA Resident Artist Noormah Jamal discusses her favorite art tools, her Pakistani childhood, and learning to paint in the Mughal Miniature style. Click to expand media gallery. As part of CMA's Residency for Experimental Arts Education, Noormah Jamal teaches art to fifth graders twice weekly at Children's Workshop School , a progressive public elementary school in NYC's East Village. Below, visit Noormah in her studio and get a glimpse at her artistic process. On a Perfect Day in the Studio I come to my studio at least six days a week. I've been experimenting quite a lot recently. Initially, my practice was primarily in gouache. During grad school at Pratt, I developed a new style that incorporated my training in miniature painting. It was quicker, and I was able to work on a much larger scale, and acrylics worked really, really well for that. The line work that I’m doing is a finishing technique to achieve the flatness of gouache. I flipped it, in a sense, because I want to create a certain vibration and sense of urgency in my work. Instead of flattening, I try to show movement, almost like a woodcut. It’s very directional. I’m jumping back into gouache again and seeing how the techniques that I used for acrylics translate to gouache. I enjoy working in acrylics, but the flatness of gouache really does something for me. You can also layer on with pencil colors. Her Favorite Tools You know when people have acrylic nails, and they use that really tiny drill? That’s what I use for my air dry clay. You have to wait for it to dry and not crack into a million pieces. Once it’s bone dry, I sculpt with that tiny drill. I found this really stiff brush that I love. It allows me to make marks that I couldn’t do with softer brushes. With my early works, a lot of people thought I was doing line work with markers. The stiff brush helps me achieve that look. This is a work by one of my students from the Bushwick library where I also teach. It’s a drawing of me. The funny thing is that I wasn’t even wearing blue earrings that day. The student looked at me and said “blue would look good on you.” It made my heart melt. Painting Miniatures I attended undergrad at The National College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan, where we studied painting, sculpture, printmaking, and miniature painting, which is an ancient South Asian, Central Asian, and Iranian art style. The National College of Arts is the only institute in the world, I believe, that grants undergraduate degrees in Mughal Miniature painting. Once you have the gouache paint washes on the paper, you do the finishing with a tiny brush that is made of squirrel or cat hair. It has to be hair from the tail because it holds water in a certain way without collapsing. This gray brush is from Iran and it’s made of cat hair. The other two are handmade squirrel tail brushes. The holder (between the hair and wooden part) is the tip of a pigeon's feather. When the Mughal emperors took over India, and set up their royal court, they brought their court painters with them, so many traditional miniature paintings depict the life of the emperor or great battles that took place. These paintings used a lot of gold leaf and were often very small and held together in books. “Neo miniature” is the name for the contemporary style. The size has increased, but the level of flatness and finishing with tiny dots and lines remains. The goal is that it should look as perfect as it can be – staying true to the artform. Other students would call our department "the boot camp” because you have to pick up the technique very quickly. The first year was copy work, where the professor would show us ancient paintings that we had to replicate. You use gouache on wasli paper, which is basically multiple cotton-based papers sandwiched on top of each other. It’s very thick, so it can take a lot of water and gouache on top of it. After the copy work, we were encouraged to develop our own style, but we still had to adhere to the miniature aesthetic. As soon as I graduated, I changed my style, because I knew that my miniature training would be a tool, but not a box that I’m confining myself within. I came to Brooklyn to attend grad school at Pratt. The distance really helped me. Back home, it's considered a pity if you change your style post-training. Other artists feel that it’s a shame that you’re not sticking to the tradition and the classics. But that's not the type of artist that I am – I love experimenting and playing around. That’s why I love teaching kids. Kids have incredible bravery when they’re dealing with new mediums or techniques. They inspire me not to limit myself. My scale and material also changed once I came to Pratt. Being in that “boot camp” for so long was integral to my practice, and I still borrow a lot of elements from that training. You can see the traditional 2D flatness and angles in my work, except I also incorporate motion and organic brushstrokes. On Oral History, Censorship, and Character Creation I have an archive of old family photos that I get inspiration from. The ethnic group that I come from are called Pashtuns, and they have more of an oral history than a written one. I also draw from my family’s own oral history – although obviously there’s a lot of embellishment, and things often go missing depending on who’s narrating things. I get really inspired by conversations with my family. The work I created in Pakistan relied on symbolism and a child-like aesthetic because I was having to deal with censorship. Kids can get away with saying so much. Since moving back to the United States, the news has played a big role in my life. I started religiously following the news, and the more I watched, the more I realized that media bias exists in the United States equally. It’s important for me to be here and witness it. It’s sad that the whole world deals with media bias, but it makes you ground yourself and realize what you’re up against. You have to educate yourself, do your own research, and not blindly trust everything that’s coming out of someone’s mouth. The figures in my work are very aware of the situation they’re in. The more you look at them, the more you see. I also have very blatant associations with the symbols that I use. I tend to drown my paintings in symbolism so the viewer can get a lot out of it without me necessarily having to spell things out. In terms of creating the characters, I free draw a lot, so I’ll merge images on top of each other. The current series I'm working on are figures based on news anchors. They’re an amalgamation of multiple people from different countries. This one is a play on a Pakistani news anchor and Christiane Amanpour. The guy at the bottom is a mix of an Indian and Pakistani news anchor. I have a show coming up and I’m planning to do a whole wall of them, much like the television screens in a grid format at Best Buy. This work is based on a loose drawing of a photo I found a few years ago of my sister and cousin watching television. You can recognize the pose of being sprawled out in front of the TV. Noormah Jamal, When at Home, acrylic on canvas, 34 x 34 inches We saw a lot of instability because of random acts of terror in my hometown of Peshawar when I was young. I spent most of my early teenage years indoors because of this, so I know a lot about pop culture. People say that I’ve integrated so well into American society, but that’s because I had nothing else to do. I was either drawing or watching television – constantly taking things in during those years. I attended art classes at my school until my O-levels, which is about 10th grade. For my A-levels, I went to a school in another city because art was offered there. For my undergrad, I then moved to another city. I guess I’ve been chasing the arts my whole life! Mother Tongues My mother tongue is Pashto, but the national language of Pakistan is Urdu. In schools, we’re taught Urdu and English. I ‘think’ in one language when I’m excited, and I think in another when I’m upset. I often talk in all three languages together. I’ll start a sentence in Pashto, and it’ll end in English. When I first came to the United States and had to depend solely on English, I had to slow down and think of substitutions for words, because I was so used to jumping in and out of languages. Even though I’m fluent in my mother tongue (Pashto), I didn’t learn to read or write it in school. After undergrad, I had to teach myself how to read and write the language. Luckily, the alphabet is the same as Urdu, with a few more characters. It was strange to teach myself how to read and write a language that I’ve been familiar with my whole life. On Moving Back to Pakistan I plan to move back to Pakistan at some point. I’ve been looking for jobs in children’s education because I want to start something in my village related to that. My sister works with NGOs and does a lot of field research, we thought that would be a good mix. The Malala Fund does a lot for that part of Pakistan as well – arguably the most famous Pashtun is Malala. My plan in the next 5-7 years is to affiliate myself with one of the foundations to test out certain lesson plans. There’s no government funding for the arts in Pakistan, so there’s nothing to support artists, in that sense. Interview and photography by Kerry Santullo for Children's Museum of the Arts NEXT Emergency Exhibition: New Training for Future Artists and Art Lovers Take a Virtual Tour on Bloomberg Connects Donate Now