CAP is a non-profit dedicated to providing people-centered education and training in the visual and performing arts.

The project works with youth and unemployed adults in order to help develop their income generating skills and to open up opportunities for further learning. CAP is committed to developing and promoting the arts for community development.

I spent an amazing two weeks at CAP in February 2001, during which I volunteer taught a still life painting workshop to some very talented and enthusiastic artists from the townships near CAP's Capetown, South Africa facilities.

For more information about CAP (or to provide much-needed donations!) contact the new visual arts coordinator, Sara at s_schneckloth@hotmail.com or see their somewhat dated site at: www.museums.org.za/cap/index.htm

Palo Alto Arts Center Children's Program

Four-day Intensives:

Intro to Computer Animation
(ages 9-15)
Kids learned the basic concepts of animation through discussion, paper storyboarding, and using Macromedia Flash.

Computer Animation Intensive
( 9-12, 13-18)
Kids use powerful tools including Flash™ to create exciting animation in the Art and Technology studio. Students can create and animate their own characters. and character animations.

Great Novels in Hypertext
(ages 11-18)
Kids learned to set up their own simple webpages with illustrations while conducting a survey of kid-friendly online literature and animations.

Art Mini-Camps

Exploratory Drawing
(8-12)
We emphasized the role of impulse and emotion as important parts of the creative processes. Class covered drawing basics including tone, texture, line, composition and more.

California Arts Council -
Abravomitz Mentor

I am currently mentoring a teenage artist through the Palo Alto Arts Center's administration of a joint grant. Activities with Julia include: visiting galleries and artists' studios, critiques, life drawing and other arts-related activities.

Our focus is on feeding her passion for different media within visual art and honing her ability to engage in critical thinking and conversation about aesthetics and the creative process.

In past years, I have mentored young women at risk for gang involvement. This involved teaching them Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator through creative projects centered around identity and self-esteem issues.

This mentoring was part of a technology outreach program started by Women on the Web (then called Webgrrls). The organization I worked with was a San Francisco Teen Drop-in center.