March 13, 2008

Eleven Art Teachers Win Fellowships From Bay Area Community Foundations

Creativity, Networking, and Revitalization in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, Santa Clara and San Mateo

(SAN FRANCISCO) – Thursday, March 13, 2008 – Eleven San Francisco Bay Area Arts teachers – four at Alameda County schools, one in San Mateo, and two each from Marin, Santa Clara and San Francisco County schools – are recipients of the “Fund for Artists Arts Teacher Fellowship” sponsored by the four community foundations in the region.

The Fund for Artists is sponsored by the East Bay Community Foundation, the Marin Community Foundation, The San Francisco Foundation and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.  With financial support from the Surdna Foundation, the Fund’s fellowship program strengthens the artistic revitalization of outstanding arts teachers in Bay Area middle and high schools by allowing recipients to foster their own creative work and to interact with other professional artists in their field.  

2008-2009 Fellows:

Estelle Akamine (Westmoor High School, San Mateo County, $5,000) will take 12 courses from Mendicino Art Center/Skyline College and the Institute of Mosaic Art in order to acquire skills to create permanent outdoor sculpture and wall mounted architectural work. She will also create a public art mosaic

Kimberley Noel D’Adamo-Muanga (Berkeley H.S. International Baccalaureate Program, Alameda County, $5,000) will attend three workshops at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology in Oregon, study the encaustic method, and create three large canvases to complete a series she's been working on this past year. She will also create a digitalized portfolio to show professionally.

Heidi Guibord (Leadership High School, San Francisco County, $4,700) will travel to Accra, Ghana and study fiber design and beading techniques as a participant in a two-week workshop with The Cross Cultural Collaborative. She will work in tandem with her school’s Humanities Department, incorporating new material into their unit on Africa.

Anne Lerner-Wright (San Rafael High School, Marin County, $4,767) will study opera with the internationally renowned faculty at the Bay Area Summer Opera Theater Institute (BASOTI) in San Francisco. She will also stage an opera, utilizing student singers and instrumentalists.

Sam Mulberry (Oasis High School, Alameda County, $5,000) will spend July of 2008 traveling the Medicine Roots district of the Pine Ridge Reservation to study traditional paint making and create community murals with Lakota elders (Ray Takes War Bonnet and Ed Young Man Afraid of His Horse).

Elizabeth Pedinotti (Freestyle Academy, Santa Clara County, $5,000) will attend a two-week workshop in Ireland with photographer Jo Ann Walters in June 2008 to further develop a body of work exploring the role of memory in building identity, and purchase a negative scanner for future bodies of work.

Elahe Shahideh (John O'Connell High School, San Francisco County, $5,000) will travel to Florence, Italy to attend a three-week Landscape Painting course at the Florence Academy of Arts and study the Macchiaioli collection of landscape painting at the Pitti Palace Modern Art Gallery.

Richard Silberg (MLK Middle School, Alameda County, $5,000) will attend a workshop in LA with SITI company members (world renowned theater group based in NYC and Saratoga, NY at Skidmore College), focusing on Viewpoints, Suzuki and composition.  He will also take an advanced storytelling workshop with Ben Haggarty.

Rachel E. Somerville (Tomales High School, Marin County, $3,965) will attend two Mexican Folk Art workshops at the Sachmo Center for the Arts in Oaxaca, Mexico and at the Idyllwild's summer art program. She will gain knowledge of techniques, tools, and sustainable materials used for wood sculpture, and produce a multi-cultural art resource book for teachers and students which will document the experience.

Sylvia Thomas (East Oakland Leadership Academy, Alameda County, $5,000) will study four types of welding at The Crucible with Don Carlson and Gian Bongiorno. She will focus on large scale work, and create the first public sculpture for the opening of the new East Oakland Leadership Academy in the fall of 2008.

Margo Wixsom (Palo Alto H.S., Santa Clara County, $5,000) will travel to Santa Fe, Rochester, New York, Jordan and Syria to attend technical and conceptual workshops in Photography and do visual research while touring galleries. She will create a series of visual narratives of life, culture, and the arts in Middle Eastern Culture.

In addition to their individual fellowship funds, awardees receive a $1,500 stipend earmarked for follow-up activities with their students.

With only 22% of California schools meeting the state mandated standards for art instruction and 29% offering no arts instruction at all, these fellowships, while small in scale, are a means to inspire arts teachers and their effectiveness in the schools in which they work. These teachers, who all are artists themselves, continue to impact the lives of students in their classes by representing the movement to put the arts back into education.

The East Bay Community Foundation (www.eastbaycf.org) serves as a catalyst for change in Alameda and Contra Costa counties by connecting community needs with individuals, families and organizations interested in charitable giving  -- and through leadership of initiatives designed to improve the quality of civic life.  As the first public foundation in Northern California, formed in 1928, the East Bay Community Foundation is a leading resource on charitable giving and community needs, stewarding more than 400 charitable funds and endowments.      

The Marin Community Foundation (www.marincf.org) is the primary center for philanthropy in Marin County, California. Dedicated to enhancing the community's quality of life, the Foundation provides support in the areas of the arts, community development, education, the environment, human needs, and religion, ethics, and conscience.  The Foundation administers assets from the Leonard and Beryl H. Buck Trust and from funds entrusted by 350 Marin individuals, families, businesses, and community groups. One of the largest community foundations in the U.S., the Foundation's assets exceed $1 billion, with annual distributions of approximately $50 million.

The San Francisco Foundation (www.sff.org) is the community foundation serving the Bay Area since 1948 with current assets of more than $970 million. Through the generosity and vision of our family of donors, TSFF awarded grants totaling $68 million in fiscal year 2006. Bringing together donors and building on community assets through grantmaking, leveraging, public policy, advocacy, and leadership development, TSFF addresses community needs in the areas of community health, education, arts and culture, community development, and the environment. The San Francisco Foundation is a community foundation serving San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, and San Mateo Counties.

The merger of Community Foundation Silicon Valley and Peninsula Community Foundation took effect on January 1, 2007, creating Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a catalyst and leader for innovative solutions to the region’s most challenging problems. The new community foundation is among the largest community foundations in the nation, with more than $1.7 billion in assets under management and 1,400 philanthropic funds.  In a region known for innovation in business and technology as well as philanthropy, the new community foundation will address local needs and support Silicon Valley’s charitable giving to causes locally, nationally and around the globe. The integration marks the first merger of equals involving two of the country’s leading community foundations and sets new precedent in the philanthropic sector. The new regional headquarters will open in Mountain View in the summer of 2007.  Find out more at www.siliconvalleycf.org.