Not one of the artists we report on was born a fully-fledged creative. Their individual bodies of work stem from education, whether that education is experiential or formal. An early exposure to the arts is one of the greatest gifts you can give a child; it expands their minds and unlocks new insights that wouldn’t be achieved in other courses of study. However, because the arts have not been historically regarded as ‘practical’ compared with other subjects, instruction in this area often faces harsh and swift cuts when education budgets slim down. Sara Mraish Demeter encountered this problem when her son Sebastian began kindergarten. His school lacked visual arts education because it, too, suffered from a lack of funding. Dissatisfied to simply witness this injustice, Demeter looked for a solution.
Thus, her Boston-based nonprofit Art Resource Collaborative for Kids (ARCK) took shape as a pilot program in 2011 at Josiah Quincy Elementary School. As ARCK’s website recounts, “By late spring, all 840 students in grades K–5 had enjoyed lively visual art lessons.” Impressed by the program’s success, Demeter soon “Formalized ARCK as a nonprofit organization and in fall of 2012 began serving students in other Boston schools.”
Today, the organization states its mission of “Empowering students to become innovators and creative thinkers by integrating art and design with literacy and STEM education.” They do so by partnering with Boston Public Schools “to deliver arts integration programming for 36 weeks,” to students in grades K-8. The organization’s “trained teaching artists and classroom teachers offer weekly, in-school arts integration lessons free of charge through ARCK’s core three modules: Leadership, Civic Engagement, and Social Justice.”
In a note to Street Art United States, Demeter wrote, “I am a leader that learned to make a difference by opening my mind to allow and welcome people from all walks of life [to] experience the power of knowing one-self and what it does to impact your close-knit community, and be a role-model to empower women and children around the world to have a voice and to be the voice of the voiceless through believing in yourself and appreciating and be proud of your roots.”
Demeter has channeled her desire to affect change into projects that extend beyond ARCK’s traditional classroom offerings. She wrote, “I worked on three art workshops in Jordan- two with the Syrian refugee children centers nearby camps.” Demeter was able to host these workshops by securing “A small grant from an MIT Global Challenge Competition.”
In June 2016, ARCK oversaw the creation of the “I Am We Are” mural, incorporating the professional work of Boston-based multimedia artist Mark Cooper alongside artwork contributed by students from the Gardner Pilot Academy School in Allston.
“This mural is an example of how we can build bridges between our youth and our community,” Demeter is quoted as commenting on the project.
In June 2016, Art Scope reported that the mural, “Comprised of numerous panels,” featured “bright colors and simple designs [that] give it an appropriately-childlike energy. The individual panels stand out as showcases for the students as individuals, yet melt together as one cohesive piece just as seamlessly. Helping this are the blue and yellow designs interspersed throughout the mural. Cooper explained that he painted these designs in order to tie the panels together.”
In May 2019, ARCK also organized the Miles of Murals public art festival hosted to further engage its community in the arts. Each of these projects highlights the nonprofit’s commitment to endowing the next generation with a profound appreciation for the power of their innate creativity.
Before incorporating the organization in 2012, Demeter wrote, “It’s not only about the visual art experiences. It’s about opening the dialogue between students and the outside world. Through our investigation of culture and the promotion of acceptance, we will be able to expand on the understanding of respect, the ability to be self-expressive, and the mission to support the development of informed and proactive citizens of the world.” This sense of acceptance is creativity’s greatest power in this ever-changing world we’re handing down to our children. Creativity will be necessary to deal with whatever faces our society, and with its fierce commitment to enrichment, ARCK ensures every child has a chance to access it.
