Take a look at our year studying the different movements of art history! Our Program Coordinator, Maggie Emerson, wrote this year’s fun curriculum, focused on moving through the history of art while learning about why people used art to tell their stories and all the different ways they found to express themselves. We did our best to emulate the types of art while trying to infuse it with our own stories and experiences. See how we worked our way through time below and then head on over to Facebook to see more of our student’s creations :

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10201320272634507.1073741825.1403710930&type=1&l=280623581f

At Waco Arts, we work on a school schedule, so we have wrapped up programming for the year. We wanted to share with all of our fans and followers about how successful our efforts and curriculum were this year! Keep checking back with us as we continue to post photos from this year as well as exciting plans and opportunities for the next year!

We love partnering with other organizations who share in our mission to support the arts and who do so in such wonderful ways. This past Saturday, we set up an interactive art booth to accompany the musical stylings of 4 artists from the Waco Music Co-Op. We asked the audience to feel the music and translate that experience into something visual. (We will be showcasing these, along with a year’s worth of student work, at a show later this year!)  Art is powerful. Combining two different art form into one great night of music and expression–unbelievable! We hope that if you came out you had a unique experience, and we hope that you will come out to the next event that we partner with the Co-Op on!

The following was the line up for the night. The last two, O, Loveland and Ryan Pickop, will be releasing CD’s in a few months! Get excited and stay tuned for information about those release dates!

I cannot speak highly enough of the artists who performed, as well as the other artists who are a part of the local music co-op. As I have said before, the world needs to watch out for Waco musicians!

Support local artists and organizations who strive to promote arts.

We love music. People groove, jive, shimmy, shake, waltz, cry, raise hands, shout to the melodies, the choruses, the beats. We feel music.

There is quite the debate about music today over what constitutes music–is it good lyrics, complex chord structures, a voice like Adele’s or Beyonce’s? Is it determined by judges panels on reality TV? Is it statistically proven by billboard charts?

I have no answers, but I do know one thing. We like it. I have never met a single person who did not like music, didn’t love music. We feel it. The beat starts and we sway. We respond. It is beautiful.

This Saturday, there is a great opportunity to support local musicians and our great organization by coming to the Waco Music Co-Op/Waco Arts Initiative concert/interactive art event at the Croft Art Gallery in downtown Waco on Austin Ave. at 7:30. While our great local musicians play, we will have different interactive stations for you to respond to the music you hear, creating great and unique pieces of art! Can’t wait to see you, friends and supporters!

Download Waco Arts Initiative’s First ever Christmas Album. Donate amount of your choice and support our programming!

Waco, TX & NYC

What do these two cities have in common?

• Both are the birth place of famous celebrities like… Waco: Jeniffer Love Hewitt & NYC: Woody Allen
• Both have been the film locations of  major motion pictures like ….Waco: Tree of Life & NYC: You’ve Got Mail
• Both have been the setting of acclaimed literary works…Waco: Sironia & NYC: The Catcher in the Rye
• Both have had recent athletic successes like…Waco: when RGIII won the Heisman & NYC: when the Giants won the Superbowl
• But most importantly both have arts organizations which provide arts access to individuals facing adversity…. Waco: Waco Arts Initiative & NYC: Gifted Hands!

If you live in New York and have always wanted to be a part of something like Waco Arts Initiative, here is an opportunity. Gifted Hands is looking for story-tellers to help evaluate the organization and make it the best offering for its participants!

Click Volunteer Blurb if you want to get involved!

Maggie with one of our Waco Arts Initiative students!

Waco Arts Initiative is so happy to announce its new Program Coordinator, Maggie Emerson. Maggie has been volunteering with Waco Arts Initiative since it officially began in 2008. Thanks to the Waco Family Health Center’s HealthCorps program, Maggie is funded for the entire next year to run holistic arts education programming for the youth of South Terrace. Working alongside Hillary Train of Baylor University’s Interdisciplinary Core, Maggie will be taking students through a timeline of art. Her curriculum is primarily inspired by renowned professor, Dr. Jeffrey’s, Master Works of Art Class. Through exploring the influence that art has had throughout history, children will be learning to tell their own stories as they learn the story of the world.

This year Waco Arts Initiative will be focusing on story-telling as a means of evaluation and program enhancement. For the past few days, we have been celebrating Waco Arts Initiative’s 5th birthday and the story which began in 2007 when a few college students decided to walk across the street and meet their next door neighbors. South Terrace is located less then a mile away from a thriving academic university. The Waco Arts Initiative narrative was birthed out of a desire to live beyond the walls of academia during college. By fighting the human tendency to be insular, the section 8 neighborhood of South Terrace provided these students the opportunity to break out of a single-minded paradigm. By investing in the lives of children and families, all WAI participants are able to enter into a world without creative barriers or the boxes we so easily put one another in when we isolate ourselves. Waco Arts brings people together to do art and in turn, everyone involved experiences human dignity through the act of creation.

To get involved e-mail: Maggie@Wacoartsinitiative.org

Watch our Happy Birthday Video