The Art Effect

3 Ways Your Child Can Enjoy Art This Summer:

Spend your summer with The Art Effect! With programs for children ages 4-19, your child will develop personally and professionally while gaining the tools necessary to explore the arts, strengthen their creative voices, and gain meaningful experiences. Take a look at what’s happening this summer: Dutchess Arts Camps: Ages 4-12 Each week brings a new adventure! Camp directors create wonderfully imaginative weekly themes and professional teaching artists develop creative projects around them, using visual, media, and performing arts to foster self-expression and creativity. Campers will be immersed in colors, lines, shapes, textures, fabrics, clay, and sound as they develop new ideas and learn new skills. Weekly sessions offered July 8 – August 16th. Three locations: Poughkeepsie (Poughkeepsie Day School) Red Hook (Red Hook Community Center) Millbrook (Alden Place Elementary School) NEW! Ulster Arts Camp: Ages 4-12 The Art Effect is moving into Ulster County this summer! Our signature youth arts program is now offered in New Paltz on the campus of SUNY New Paltz. Join us for our inaugural season across the river! Junior Art Institute: Ages 11 – 14 The Junior Art Institute is for mid-level students to focus on developing their skills in drawing, painting, photography and filmmaking while helping them prepare for intensive visual arts instruction in high school and beyond. Held in the studios of Dutchess Community College along with its sister program The Art Institute, students will explore the foundations of good artmaking practices in a variety of media. Film & Photography studies will build students’ understanding of storytelling, conceptualism, and digital equipment while Drawing & Painting studies will expand their understanding of composition, color relationships, visual art techniques and more. There are three two-week sessions offered: July 1 – July 12,  July 15–26, and July 29 – Aug 9. To learn more, visit our website. The Art Institute: Ages 14-19 Located in the Fine Arts Studios and Photo Lab at Dutchess Community College, the summer sessions of The Art Institute are for motivated teens to develop their creativity, build skills in the visual arts, and prepare portfolios for college. Professional artists serve as teachers and mentors, encouraging students to build their skills while becoming well-rounded and diversified in the visual arts. There are two two-week sessions offered: July 1  – July 19 and July 22 – August 9 with a residential option offered in Session 2. **Residential Program (July 21 – August 9) Enjoy the same great Art Institute summer day program while receiving added bonuses. Participants will enjoy special evening activities, additional challenging night workshops (Tuesday–Thursday), and rewarding weekend art excursions while living in the dorms on campus at Dutchess Community College. Meals and accommodations included. Spaces in our summer programs are likely to fill up with the warmer months approaching – register today! If you have any questions, please contact us at 845.471.7477 or email info@thearteffect.org.

RECAP: Art After Hours: Teen Visions

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Thank you to all for joining us for Art After Hours: Teen Visions at the Poughkeepsie Trolley Barn last Friday! It was a special evening for us and we hope you enjoyed the fabulous food and drink vendors that provided us with a delicious experience! Guests enjoyed over 70 pieces of artwork created by young artists as part of The Art Institute Summer Intensive and the Junior Art Institute. This exhibition represented only a small portion of the more than 1,500 works created last summer, and therefore it was an incredible accomplishment for each of these young artists to have their work chosen for display. Students with work in the show ranged from 14 –18 years old and came from schools around the Hudson Valley and beyond. While exploring artwork through the Trolley Barn, guests also listened to live music from the Absolute Zeros and tasted food and drinks from many great local food and beverage vendors. From dessert samplings like cupcakes and fudge to hot dishes like mac ‘n cheese and taquitos, guests enjoyed samples paired with great local beer from Foreign Objects Beer and Mill House Brewing Company. A special thank you to all of our wonderful vendors for the evening:

• Chakra Bowls
• Cheesecake Heaven
• Cyn’s Sweet Tooth
• The Educated Chef
• El Azteca Mexican
• Foreign Objects Beer
• Hudson River Housing Coffee House, Cafe & Kitchen
• Noshi’s Coney Island
• Twisted Soul Food Concepts
• Sprout Creek Farm

This exhibition was the first in the gallery at the newly renovated Poughkeepsie Trolley Barn. Guests had the opportunity to tour the rest of the Trolley Barn with Dean Temple, President of the Board at The Art Effect, and Roy Budnik from the Mid-Hudson Heritage Center. We then invited guests to provide us with feedback on a potential move of The Art Effect’s offices and studios to the Trolley Barn once the rest of the restoration is complete through a survey as well as through a selfie station here: All of the proceeds of Art After Hours support The Art Effect’s youth programs. By attending this event, you helped us continue to change young people’s lives through the arts. Be sure to mark your calendar for our next Art After Hours event, happening April 6, 2019 from 8:00pm-10:00pm! All of the proceeds of Art After Hours support The Art Effect’s youth programs. By attending this event, you helped us continue to change young people’s lives through the arts. Be sure to mark your calendar for our next Art After Hours event, happening April 6, 2019 from 8:00pm-10:00pm! Special thanks to Esther Ndacyayisenga at MASS Design Group for capturing drone footage of the event!

Presenting Teen Visions at the Poughkeepsie Trolley Barn

Join us for this exhibition of more than 35 young artists! Teen Visions showcases the artistic accomplishments of students at The Art Effect to the community. This year, the Poughkeepsie Trolley Barn will feature Teen Visions as the first exhibition in its newly renovated space. The Teen Visions exhibition features more than 70 works of art, from drawings, photography, paintings, and mixed media, created over this past summer’s Art Institute. It is an incredible accomplishment to be chosen for the Teen Visions exhibition. The work in the show represents 71 number of pieces out of over 1,500 created. Experience the Trolley Barn for the first time as you enjoy the exhibition from January 4th to January 18th, Tuesday to Friday from 11:30 am – 4:00 pm. This exhibition is free and open to the public. In addition to the two-week exhibit, we invite you to our Art After Hours closing reception on January 18th from 5:30 – 7:30pm, during which artists will be honored in a family-friendly, happy hour-style event. Art After Hours is a signature fundraising event for The Art Effect, featuring unlimited tastings from local craft breweries and amazing food vendors as well as live music. Art After Hours is open to the general public for $40/ticket which can be purchased here.

You're Invited: Senior Project Opening Reception

  Please join us this Saturday, December 15th from 4:00-6:00pm for the opening reception of the Senior Project exhibition! Senior Project is the most intensive program offered at The Art Institute. Modeled after a senior thesis college course, Senior Project challenges high school seniors to be career-minded and think seriously about their art as they develop a portfolio of artwork around a personal theme. After the twelve week course, students finish Senior Project with twelve finished works in their portfolio. The Fall 2018 Senior Project class was a unique one – the class was made up of only female students for the first time ever! This created an exciting dynamic between seven young painters who discovered how to tie personal themes into their professional artwork. The final work created by Senior Project students will be on display in a month-long exhibition, open for free to the public Monday through  Friday from 9:00-5:00pm at the Carole J. Wolf Gallery at The Art Effect’s Pershing Studios (45 Pershing Avenue, Poughkeepsie, NY.) The seven artists featured in the exhibition include: Wislianie Valdez – Marlboro High School Nina Ansaldi – Yorktown High School Ashley Pink – Arlington High School Lauren Ricci – Arlington High School Melanie Moore – John Jay High School Emma Schmidt – John F. Kennedy Catholic High School Molly Stark – Rhinebeck High School A panel discussion will be held during the reception and moderated by Rick Price. This event is free and open to the public!

FROM JAMAICA TO NYU: TARIQ GORDON

With his heart pounding, Tariq clicked on the email. Was he going to chase his dream of becoming a filmmaker in New York City? Was he going to become the first person in his family to go to college? “We are pleased to inform you…” He didn’t need to read anymore: Tariq was going to New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, class of 2022! Tariq didn’t have an easy childhood: born on the island of Jamaica, he moved at age 9 to the City of Poughkeepsie and struggled to find his place. In 10th grade, Tariq discovered his passion for making films at The Art Effect. With The Art Effect, Tariq earned an income, gained important filmmaking and workforce skills, and found a home among his peers and teachers. With this support, Tariq felt confident applying for college. Tariq was accepted into one of the best film schools in the country and would become the first person in his family to attend college. With The Art Effect’s guidance—from learning about filmmaking, to receiving mentorship during the college application process, to affording the full cost of attending college—Tariq’s dream became a reality. Local youth like Tariq need your help. By making a gift to The Art Effect, you are supporting programs that help students get into college and reach their ambitions. On Tuesday, November 27th, The Art Effect is participating in Giving Tuesday, the largest charitable day of the year nationwide. Your contribution can make a huge difference to local youth in need of The Art Effect’s programs and mentorship. With your help, future artists and media masters will be able to take their next step toward higher education. Join us on November 27th to reach our goal of raising $6,000 in 24 hours and help students like Tariq realize their dream of attending college. Make a gift by clicking here!

RECAP: Art After Dark 2018

On September 25th, 2018, The Art Effect held its inaugural Art After Dark at The Henry A. Wallace Center at The FDR Presidential Library and Home, honoring Michael J. Quinn and Niki Pagones Quinn, Creative Breanna Lee Nussbickel, and Amina Kearney. 140 guests enjoyed a wide variety of immersive arts experiences, including digital art created by students of The Art Institute and Junior Art Institute, as well as an interactive projection that had them jumping for joy! Our youth volunteers in A Light in the Dark painted guests with colorful light sources during a photoshoot to create beautiful, bright images in a room that was otherwise pitch black! Thank you to Jen Kiaba, one of our teaching artists, for being our painting with light photographer. Meanwhile, in the FDR Inks & Drinks room, guests tasted our signature cocktail “A Mead Buzz” donated by Salt Point  Meadery and tried on custom temporary tattoos while watching youth-produced historic documentaries. Missed it at Art After Dark? Here’s how you can make A Mead Buzz at home: 2 oz. Honeymoon mead from Salt Point Meadery 2 oz. club soda 1 lemon wedge, squeezed 1 lemon wedge, garnish on rim Sprig of thyme Stirred Guests received the star treatment in Quiet on the Set! Our youth production crew directed our guests to act in various scenes using props on a faux movie set. The big surprise: these scenes were later used in the evening’s feature film The Art Effect: An Origin Story. You can view the film here! Note: the password to view the video is ‘art’. Preceding our film screening, our honorees were presented with their 2018 Art After Dark awards, personalized tunnel books handcrafted by Art Institute Alumni Eleanor Milkowski Dahlgren.

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We would like to extend a thank you to our music for the evening, Basestation68, our youth jazz band, as well as our event sponsors: Mill House Brewing Company, Nostrano Vineyards, Poughkeepsie Wine & Liquor, Queen City Lofts, Salt Point Meadery, Vanikiotis Group: Daily Planet Diner, Red Line Diner, Table Talk Diner, and Hyde Park Marina and Tinkelman Architecture! What was your favorite part of the evening? Be sure to tag us and let us know on Facebook by using the hashtag #thearteffect!

Closing the Loop: Listen for Good Round One

The Art Effect is Listening for Good! “Last year we provided some feedback about the state of the Art Institute… I wanted to thank you for making so many improvements, including the suggestions we made. We were impressed by the year over year improvement. It shows you listened and are an organization that listens.” — Art Institute parent Here at The Art Effect, we value the input of the students and families we serve. This past year, we initiated the first of what will become many organization-wide feedback loops through the Listen for Good grant, made possible by the Fund For Shared Insight. For our first round of Listen for Good, we created a survey and kept it open from December 12th 2017 through March 30th 2018, sending it to over 400 past and present program participants for a selection of The Art Effect’s programs: Dutchess Arts Camp, Art Institute, MADLab, and Spark Studios. We heard back from 160 people about a wide variety of issues, including schedule and structure of programs and classes, effectiveness of different teaching/learning strategies, and more. Here’s what you told us:

• When responses are viewed as a whole, we’re doing an above average job on all questions….

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) system is a standard feature of the Listen for Good survey, enabling The Art Effect to compare results to an industry baseline to get a sense of how we’re doing when compared to other arts and education organizations across the country. A high NPS means that our constituents are highly likely to recommend The ARt Effect to a friend, and, by extension, they are satisfied with our program services. The Art Effect netted an overall NPS of 68 (above the national benchmark). Our NPS score of 68 means we have more people who actively promote our organization than the average arts organization. In addition, half of respondents say we meet their needs extremely well. 135 of 160 respondents say our staff always treat them with, and a majority of respondents (130 of 160) say it’s extremely easy or very easy to get services at our organization. We are very proud of this!

• Our program audiences are segregated across racial lines and higher-income groups are overrepresented.

Cross-tabulation reveals our program audiences are diverse, but separated by how clients racially identify as well their relationship to our organization. For example, we found through this survey that our Arts Institute and Dutchess Arts Camps programs serve audiences who are primarily white, and our Spark Studios and MADLab programs serve audiences who are primarily people of color. The Art Effect stands for diversity, inclusion, and so we plan to use this feedback as an opportunity to ensure that our programs are equally accessible to all people, regardless of race, class, gender, and other demographics. This information also helps us realize the nuances of how this programmatic segregation plays out and helps us to learn more about the people we serve and how their situations influence how they rate The Art Effect. For example, when counted as an average, our NPS is 68, above the national benchmark. However, when the results are cross-tabulated by race, it emerges that white respondents rated us an NPS of 74, Latinx respondents rated an NPS of 63, and Black/African-American rated NPS of 52. We first interpreted this to mean that the white folks we serve are largely enthusiastic “promoters” of our work, while most people of color we serve are largely passive. However, because our programs are also predominantly segregated by race, this could also mean that some programs are much better than others. In fact, neither of these assumptions are exactly true. When we closed the loop with Spark Studios and MADLab program youth (who are predominantly Latinx and Black/African-American) and asked for insight as to why they gave us such a low NPS, it turned out that, contrary to what we’d thought, they said they were unlikely to recommend the program because they viewed it as theirs and wanted to keep it for themselves. Though the NPS was low, we now understand that the wording of the question (likelihood to recommend) signified something to students that we had not considered.

• Small logistical improvements can make a huge difference to how an overall program flows and feels.

If you participated in any Dutchess Arts Camp, Art Institute, or community program such as MADLab or Spark Studios in 2018 we want to hear from you! Please take the following anonymous survey. It should take no more than 5 minutes to complete: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PWRCLVF. If you have any questions, please call 845.471.7477 and someone can assist you.

Did you miss After Hours?

After Hours: Summer Edition

We had so much fun celebrating the kickoff of our After Hours event series in April! We hope you’ll join us for this month’s summer edition of After Hours on Thursday, July 26th. Your ticket provides you with unlimited tastings from craft breweries, local distilleries, and amazing food vendors, as well as chill music and unique youth art! Enjoy tastings from vendors like Hudson Valley Marshmallow Company, Salt Point Meadery, Taqueria Los Ortiz, The Educated Chef, Tied House, Inc., and more! Listen to a special acoustic set performed by Absolute Zeros! Tickets are on sale now: thearteffect.org/store/after-hours THANK YOU TO OUR AFTER HOURS SPONSOR: Thursday, July 26, 2018 5:30 – 7:30 pm Poughkeepsie Underwear Factory 3rd floor

Local Library Partner Receives NEA Grant

Congratulations to the Poughkeepsie Public Library District for receiving the NEA Big Read Grant earlier this month! The NEA Big Read is a national initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest, which broadens our understanding of our world, our communities, and ourselves through the joy of sharing a good book. A list of all of this year’s Big Read recipients can be found at arts.gov.  “This program encourages people to not only discuss a book together, but be introduced to new perspectives, discuss the issues at the forefront of our own lives, and connect with one another at events,” commented NEA Acting Chair Mary Anne Carter. “We are thrilled to once again receive an NEA grant for the Big Read,” says Library Director Tom Lawrence. “But this is really a grant to our entire community since our local Big Read would not be possible without the enthusiastic involvement of so many partner organizations.”  The National Endowment for the Arts announced Big Read grants totaling $1 million that will be distributed to 79 communities across the country in 2018-2019. Poughkeepsie Public Library District will receive $15,000 to coordinate the community-wide reading program this Fall. One of the Poughkeepsie Public Library District’s community partners for this Big Read is The Art Effect, a non-profit organization focused on supporting personal growth, fostering self-expression, and enhancing human services through the arts to build a shared sense of community. The Art Effect has a strong history of collaboration with the libraries of the Hudson Valley thanks to its Mobile Media Lab programming, media and arts workshops that reinforce digital and visual literacy while patrons engage in art and media-making. These two-hour, 10-15 person, contract workshops facilitated by a professional teaching artist are booked and paid for by the library and are free to the public. Sometimes for more intensive programming, libraries have booked two back to back for a 4 hour session, or scheduled multiple sessions over a series of weeks for longer projects. Thanks to the NEA Big Read grant, The Art Effect has 10 two-hour workshops available to book free of cost for libraries looking into offerings and activities for their patrons that can dovetail with the Big Read’s book selections. Workshops can also be custom-made to suit a library’s particular needs and specific requests. Get your library on the list and reach out to us to book a workshop today! Email maryellen@thearteffect.org if you are interested in bringing us in or for more information about our offerings.