Melissa Neal Melissa Neal

ArtEsteem ArtMobile at the Lunar New Year Bazaar

The Lunar New Year Bazaar is an annual Oakland event. Through the ArtEsteem ArtMobile, AHC was able to be out in the streets, connecting with the community directly during the celebration.

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AHC was excited to participate in the 2020 Lunar New Year Bazaar. Through the ArtEsteem ArtMobile, we were able to be out in the streets, connecting with the community directly during this annual celebration. The Lunar New Year Bazaar is a free annual event hosted in the heart of Oakland's Chinatown to celebrate the Chinese New Year. There is a cultural entertainment stage with live performances and over 80 vendors selling traditional new years decorations, flowers, candies, and gifts.

According to Chinese zodiac, 2020 is the year of the Metal Rat. AHC was able to customize an art project for the event; a temporary 5’ x 15’ mural featuring a metal rat, dragon and red Chinese lantern symbols. There was also face painting and coloring book activities for youth. 

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The holiday is traditionally a time to honor household and heavenly deities as well as ancestors. It is also a time to bring family together for feasting. The main Chinese Lunar New Year activities include: putting up decorations, eating reunion dinner with family on New Year's Eve, fireworks, and gifting red envelopes filled with money.

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The ArtEsteem ArMobile is a fully-equipped mobile art classroom, and an extension of our award-winning arts education program, ArtEsteem. The vehicle has allowed us to extend our services outside the classroom and directly into the neighborhoods that need access to arts education. Since the launch of the ArtEsteem ArtMobile, we’ve been able to participate in over 41 community-based events, offering customized projects involving table crafts, painting, drawing, large murals, face painting and much more. With our knowledgeable staff and on-board sound system we can make your next school event, festival or private party one to remember!
Click here to book.  - Jamie Sanitate, ArtMobile Manager

Check out the ArtEsteem ArtMobile in action at festivals, schools and
community-led conferences.

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Amana Harris Amana Harris

Maze Cut Bookmaking: Honoring LGBTQ and Black Communities

The celebration and honoring of the LGBTQ community and Black community has been stiched into our art project this week at Tenderloin Community School (TCS) in San Francisco. Along with their mentors, our participating students learned and celebrated the LGBTQ and Black community during regular school hours. ArtEsteem stopped by TCS to support in the capturing of that knowledge and materialize it
into a book for the students to keep and share.

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The handmade book integrated modern and classical symbols from all over the world that represent various gender identities. In addition, in honor of Black History Month students familiarize themselves with the classical Adinkra symbols from Ghana that centered around respected characteristics like strength, knowledge, honor, etc.

Mr. Eddie and Ms. Nan assisting students in the bookmaking process.

Mr. Eddie and Ms. Nan assisting students in the bookmaking process.

In all, it was a fantastic day of learning, celebrating and honoring the LGBTQ and Black communities in addition to learning a new art medium that will not be forgotten shortly.

-March 14, 2019

Three students pose with their freshly-made books.

Three students pose with their freshly-made books.

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Amana Harris Amana Harris

Learning Fabric Arts with the ArtMobile

This week we took the ArtMobile across the Bay for Art Week at MLK Middle School! We facilitated fiber art classes for 3 days to over 400 students. Working with fiber arts is a unique experience, and the students were able to let their creativity soar.

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Our projects involved bold designs, and we spoke about symbols relating to Black History Month, in addition to icons of peace and personal development.

Thanks to everyone at MLK Middle School for hosting the ArtMobile pop-up. The ArtEsteem ArtMobile is a fully equipped mobile art studio available for schools, festivals and community building events. To learn more, click here.

- February 27th, 2019

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