For the past six years, I have administered the Arts Partners Intergenerational Program at the DCA. I work closely with the arts administrators at the partnering organizations who in turn collaborate with senior centers and schools. To give those unfamiliar with intergenerational programs a deeper look into the process of partnering seniors with students through the arts, I will approach this subject in terms of challenges and successes.

Challenges: Wherefore Art Thou Seniors?

Even though the senior population in New York City is growing rapidly, it can be difficult to tap into this population when it comes to finding arts partners. Traditionally, arts organizations have worked with senior centers. It makes it easier on the seniors to participate when the children and artists come directly to them and gives the students better insight into the lives of their elders. We have found that although sometimes this works well, sometimes it does not.

Upon visiting a site this year, I found out that some of our seniors were out picking up their MetroCards—a surprise to the artists and students. Unfortunately, this meant that few seniors would be participating that day. This is nothing new and certainly not unique to this center. Many folks who attend senior centers, it seems, dearly hold on to routine. This can make it somewhat difficult to work a hands-on arts program into their busy schedules. Even when the program is scheduled, there may be events that can interrupt the flow of a residency. This results in students working with a fluid group of seniors as opposed to the steady and committed group that is needed. However, with a capable senior site director overseeing things, the frequency of these situations can be lessened.

Also, one can never predict if a senior will become ill, have a doctor’s appointment, or even accompany a friend to the doctor, which is what happened at another site. Consequently, each time this occurs, the children naturally react with concern and caring for the elders who have changed from strangers to friends.

A third, and not insignificant problem, is that many sites do not have adequate space to accommodate the participants. So, as you’ll read, using alternative spaces or methods can prove useful.

Alternative Approaches

Henry Street Settlement has been working with the Rosehill Senior Residence in the Bronx for the last two years. This partnership has functioned smoothly because the seniors are active and look forward to interacting with kids and the arts. Since the seniors live at the location, they are readily available; it also helps to ensure the participation of a greater number of seniors. Another asset of the Residence is that it has a wonderful community room that accommodates everyone comfortably.

Elders Share the Arts has also tried to find seniors outside of the traditional senior center experience. They have called upon church groups to find independent seniors who want more community involvement. I have found that this works particularly well in their time spent with pregnant and parenting teens. This has occurred primarily because there is a need for active seniors to come to the girls’ schools and not the other way around. Because these classes are small, several enthusiastic seniors can make a program very successful.

The John A. Noble Collection has also begun to look for new ways to recruit seniors. This year, the Collection partnered with the Staten Island Community Association of Senior Citizens (CASC) in order to connect with seniors. It was a real success. The Collection hopes to continue this partnership and expand the list of elders who want to participate. As always, these programs are works in progress.

Program Highlight: Elders Share the Arts

Elders Share the Arts (ESTA) has worked for many years to tap into the creative energy of seniors. Recently, they have relied on this energy to pilot hands-on arts experiences for pregnant and parenting teens, and the DCA has been an eager supporter. This year, ESTA continued to work with young women from the Program for Pregnant and Parenting Services’ Harlem site and initiated work with students from the Jamaica, Queens site.

Esperanza Cortes is the teaching artist—as well as confidant and role model—for the Harlem site. Esperanza has been involved in a baby quilt-making project with two seniors at the school, Dr. Thomas and Rev. Murray, for the past two years. They are outgoing, smart, creative women who want to give back to their community. Having also been through tough times in their lives, they identify with many of these young students. To personalize their quilts, some students incorporated trees, birds, stars, and moons while others chose to sew letters spelling the name of their child. Not only were the quilts beautiful, they also reflected the creativity, intelligence, and dedication of these over-burdened adolescents.

At the Jamaica, Queens site, ESTA teaching artist Tish Williamson and Elder Craftsman artist Sheila Black worked with their students on patchwork quilts as well as a group poem. The different generations asked questions of the other and shared stories of their lives and came up with wonderful quotes and comments to include in the poem. This made the work quite personal and touching. Seniors Ms. Ruby, Ms. Pauline, and Ms. Lourdes Braxton, the Community Coordinator for the school, were all experienced quilters who mentored the teens in this age-old art form. The quilts were a beautiful expression of the creativity and commitment of their creators and later were exhibited at a Fashion Institute of Technology conference.

As these workshops take place in an intimate setting, the young people work very closely with the teaching and senior artists. Although the adults were present to assist the students, as time went on, the students were able to help each other as their confidence and skills grew. Not only does this work serve to bring arts experiences to those who may not normally receive them, but it also serves as a positive social experience. The adults are able to give advice on parenting and schooling as well as help them through a rough time or even accompany them home when they need assistance. There is, however, a delightful absence of judgment and harsh criticism. It is important to note the commitment of the school administrators who helped make this work a success.

More Successes: The John A. Noble Collection

With the seniors recruited by CASC, lead teaching artist Anne Marie McDonnell, assisted by Education Director Diane Matyas, worked well with Mrs. Claudio’s students from I.S. 61 in Staten Island. The participants enjoyed the spacious education rooms and printing press in the collection’s impressively newly renovated home at Snug Harbor. As the work of John A. Noble—lithographs, writings, photographs, etc.—celebrates the traditions of the working waterfront, so too did the work of the program. Starting with sharing a picture of their first memory of water, the residency progressed to students interviewing seniors about their past. Later, lessons were dedicated to learning printmaking, drawing techniques, and making maritime related art together. From this, each senior received a decorated personal history book filled with the children’s stories and one of the wonderful prints from the collagraph created by their partner group. Befitting a maritime arts program, the partners celebrated their time together on the New York Fast Ferry that circumnavigated Staten Island. The seafarers took in the sights of the ship boneyards, bridges, container ships, and a wild bird preserve.

Henry Street Settlement

Teaching artist and Education Coordinator Katha Cato, and teaching artists Leslie Concannon and Cat Fisher, worked with sixth graders of PS/MS 20 and seniors from the Rosehill Senior Residence in the Bronx in creating "Interview Quilts." The larger group broke into smaller ones so that each senior could partner with the same children during each session. During this time, the students interviewed the seniors to find out details of their lives: Where did they grow up? What are their favorite foods, sports, or hobbies? The answers made for vibrant and varied visual histories of the seniors’ lives.

Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning

Quilter Diane Holland and storyteller Oriolla Makheru worked with seniors from the Conlon Senior Center in Jamaica, Queens and two classes of fourth graders from P.S. 116. After listening to stories of Brer Rabbit, the students wrote creative stories about their character of choice and took on the role of storyteller. Many of the children and seniors shined as storytellers using inflection, hand and body gestures, and lots of humor. Beforehand, the children heard personal accounts from the seniors and chose details to work into their quilt blocks to create two quilts. The seniors, Mother Farmer in particular, worked side by side with the students showing them their sewing techniques.

We hope that Arts Partners Intergenerational Program 2001 will benefit from the successes and lessons learned from this exciting year. I look forward to working with the DCA’s arts partners in order to see that it does.

Marge Markey is the Director of Education Services for the DCA.

Susan Rothschild

New York City is home probably to more arts-related enterprises than any other city in the world. Not-for-profit cultural organizations, commercial theaters, art galleries, auction houses, motion picture and television production studios—these are just a few examples of arts-related industries with a significant presence in New York City. Together, the businesses just cited generated over 130,000 jobs in New York City in 1995. When we add to this figure the number of persons employed by other major New York City companies engaged in arts-related activities—such as publishing, new media, advertising, fashion, architecture, and design—we have to conclude that the impact of the arts on employment in the City is truly extraordinary.

Despite the employment possibilities offered by this sector, many New York City youngsters are unable to take advantage of the substantial number of arts-related jobs in their own hometown. One reason is because they have not been given the training necessary to provide an entrée to these jobs. According to a recent study commissioned by the Center for Arts Education (CAE), less than five percent of the internship opportunities offered students in New York City are with arts-related industries. Happily, this situation is beginning to change. I would now like to describe two job training initiatives that seek to train New York City youth for jobs in the arts.

The CAE Career Development Internship Program

The Career Development Internship Program, a CAE initiative, began last October as a pilot program. Aimed at students enrolled in the City’s public high schools, the program seeks to inform both students and their teachers and guidance counselors about the broad range of employment opportunities available in arts-related industries. Participating students take part in a number of sequential activities which include the following: assessing their aptitude for particular arts-related careers; researching employment opportunities in the arts and relevant educational requirements; practicing résumé writing and interviewing for jobs; learning about networking and community service; improving communication skills; and learning how to dress for the work environment. Students participate in a 15-week internship and/or job, 15 to 20 hours a week, shadowing activities at an arts-related worksite.

Seventeen students have completed the program to date, interning at a wide variety of sites that include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Youth Channel of the Manhattan Neighborhood Network, ABC, and Thad Hayes Design. Participating students also took part in the Grammy-in-the-School program. Skills learned included studio engineering, videography, marketing, and general office work. Several of the students have been invited back to their internship sites for summer positions. Nearly all of the high school senior participants will attend college this fall where they will major in arts-related fields.

As for the teachers and guidance counselors, the program provides a two-week internship in which the educators visit a number of sites—both for-profit and not-for-profit—to learn about the large number of arts-related jobs. The first week’s visits took place the week of April 25th during which educators visited sites as diverse as Chrysoula Designs, SONY Music Entertainment, the Disney organization, and the Whitney Museum. The reactions of those participating were uniformly positive: a counselor from Chelsea High School wrote that it had been a "life-changing experience" to see first hand the passion and "intensity of energy" driving the work of professionals engaged in the arts. Another participant from the Career Education Center noted that she’d had no idea as to the wide variety of behind-the-scene jobs in arts-related fields or how many of those jobs involved academic skills such as math and science. Meanwhile, a representative from the Leon M. Goldstein High School for the Sciences commented enthusiastically about the "great potential for relationships . . . between the talented students of New York City and the businesses that flourish here."

Book Arts Job Training Program

The Book Arts Job Training Program is a joint initiative of the Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) and the Bronx Council on the Arts (BCA) to provide job training in the book arts for homeless teens and young adults. The program builds on the DCA’s ten-year history of providing cultural services for young people living in temporary housing. It also builds on the BCA’s success in working with youth from economically disadvantaged areas. Examples of BCA programming include the Youth Poetry Slam League presented in cooperation with Borders Books, and a model job training program in art handling for the long-term unemployed.

The program concentrates on one field of endeavor: the production and distribution of books and other vehicles for the dissemination of creative writing. By exploring just one area, program participants are given a more cohesive and in-depth understanding of the world of work. They also gain a greater appreciation of the wide diversity of jobs that can be generated by just one arts-related industry. Students learn how these jobs relate to and complement each other. Perhaps even more important, by focusing on creative writing, the program has a unique opportunity to educate the participants. Many of these teens have difficulty learning how to read and write. So it is important that they learn the fundamental importance of literacy.

Following recruitment at their housing facilities, participants explore the concept of literacy and learn about the many types of creative writing designed to reach the public—from the strictly commercial (e.g., advertising) to the creation of anthologies. Students are also taught about the tasks involved in creating a book, i.e., copy, artwork, editing, design, layout, and binding. A number of field trips are conducted to publishing companies (both commercial and small press), technology centers, and not-for-profit organizations specializing in books and the literary arts. Additionally, program participants are expected to keep journals and to work together to create an anthology of their own writings which are published at the conclusion of the program.

Participants learn specific skills related to the workplace (including computer proficiency) and receive guidance in developing a financial plan for themselves that is aimed at achieving their educational and career goals. They are then placed in internships with not-for-profit and for-profit organizations involved in the field of creative writing, working four afternoons a week during the school year and receiving a stipend pegged at the minimum wage. Two afternoons a week are devoted to working at their internship site; the other two are spent at their housing facilities where they work on writing projects under the supervision of instructors from the BCA’s Writer’s Center. Following completion of the internship phase, a graduation ceremony is held for the participants and their families. Each participant is given a copy of the published anthology of the groups’ work. Follow-up sessions are then held on an individual basis to help participants develop a written plan for the future.

Organizations looking to assist young people seeking jobs in the arts do not have to start a full-fledged school-to-work program. Flushing Town Hall mentors students to help them participate in a national virtual training network in which animators at Warner Brothers work with students to create professional animation portfolios. P.S. 1 offers a college preparatory course to help high school students build portfolios for art school applications. The American Museum of the Moving Image maintains a computer listing of the types of jobs available in movie and television production.

Programs such as the CAE’s Career Development Internship Program and the BCA’s Book Arts initiative are a win-win situation for everyone involved. First and foremost, New York City youth gain knowledge about and access to challenging, rewarding jobs in their own city which they otherwise might not know existed. Likewise, the arts-related industries benefit from being able to recruit from a pool of trained youngsters within their own community. All of us in the City’s cultural community know what a profound privilege it is to receive a paycheck for working in the arts.

For more information on the CAE’s Career Development Program, please contact Kaia Calhoun, Career Development Director, at (212) 971-3300. For information on the BCA’s Book Arts Career Development Program, contact Robert S. Garcia, Program Director, at (718) 842-3955.

Susan Rothschild is the Assistant Commissioner for the Institutions unit of the DCA.

Gary Miller, a ten-year veteran of the DCA, has accepted the position of Managing Director of P.S. 122 (Performance Space 122). During his tenure, Gary managed small capital projects and purchased professional arts equipment for community arts organizations throughout the City. Gary earned the respect of the many organizations he has helped—even those beyond the scope of Community Arts Development Program—and he remains very committed to this part of the cultural community.

Although we are very happy for Gary and wish him the very best, he will be sorely missed, not only as a colleague, but as a wonderful character of good humor, quick wit and great taste for finding the perfect quote—and let us not forget his spirit-lifting singing. Break a leg, Miller. . .

The information contained in the above article is current as of its September 2000 publication date. Please be advised that this information may be out of date.