Community Outreach
Artist Tania Sen Works with Students to Create a
Mural for
Central School, Warren
In its ongoing effort to bring visual arts and artistic collaboration into the community at large, SAA helps match area nonprofits and schools with artists for various types of visual arts projects.
In the Fall 2009, SAA partnered with artist Tania Sen and the Central School in Warren, NJ, to create a permanent mural for the school’s library. Over a 6 weeks period, Sen and six teenage volunteers met once a week for 2 hours and created a colorful, eye-catching, permanent mural for the Central School library. The mural includes a variety of characters drawn from popular children's books set against a waterfront promenade filled with kites, stacks of books and distant boardwalk roller coaster and amusement piers. Students at Central School were asked for opinions about what to include in the mural.
The six teenagers who volunteered their time to assist with the project represent Pingy School, Warren Middle School, St. James School, Bernards High School and Bridgewater-Raritan High School. "Each student brought different strengths and experiences to the task. They helped each other and learned from each other," Sen said. They also learned from working with Sen who showed the students how to work with various tools, add perspective and shading in addition to how to tackle a piece as large as a mural and work on a cinder block surface.
Tania Sen is a professional artist whose works have appeared in area exhibits including the one-person show "Icons" at the Somerset Art Association in 2008.
Four of the six teenage volunteers who helped to create the mural
Mural detail
Partnership with Visiting Nurse Association of Somerset Hills
Provides Visual Arts Activities for Alzheimer's Patients
Through a grant administered by the Somerset County Cultural & Heritage Commission and Friends of Somerset County Cultural & Heritage, Inc., SAA received funds in 2009 to engage seniors in the visual arts who are in the early and middle stages of Alzheimer's Disease.
For the project, SAA partnered with the Adult Day Center of the Visiting Nurse Association of Somerset Hills, a non-profit organization developed to meet the increasing needs of the growing elderly population in our community. The Center provides a place during the day where older adults needing supervision and socialization can find an experienced, warm and caring staff to tend to their needs while enjoying a day filled with life enriching experience.
Held on three separate days in the spring, each session was led by an SAA instructor. Anne Kullaf gave an artist demonstration and generously donated afterwards her finished painting to the Adult Day Center, Nancy Ori spoke about photography and showed slides of her work and Billie Marie Aber supervised the creation of a hands-on art project.
The program's objectives were to engage senior citizens in the visual arts in order to;
- Stimulate and expand their interest in the arts and encourage life-long enrichment
- Encourage participation in the creation of art by emphasizing hands-on learning and the nurturing of skills based on individual learning styles and abilities
- Create opportunities for socialization and community building
- To raise awareness of and advocate for the benefits of making the arts accessible to individuals with disabilities
Partnership with Bedminster Township to Provide
Visual Arts Enrichment to Seniors
In 2008, SAA Faculty member Billie Marie Aber met with 20 Seniors of the Bedminster-Far Hills Senior Citizen Organization at the Clarence Dillon Public Library in Bedminster to teach them how to make a one-color watercolor seascape using wet-on-wet and dry brush techniques. The workshop was generously sponsored by the Bedminster Township Recreation Department under the aegis of Robin Ray.
Partnership with The Child Care Division of Catholic Charities
to Provide After School Visual Arts Enrichment
In 2009, the Somerset Art Association partnered with The Child Care Division of Catholic Charities to provide a visual art enrichment program at Vanderveer Elementary School in Somerville, NJ and Weston Elementary School in Manville, NJ. Both schools are designated as Family Friendly Centers funded through the NJ Department of Children and Families Division of Prevention and Community Partnerships. The enrichment program was funded by the Somerset County Cultural & Heritage Commission. A total of 135 students were served.
Partnership with Ridge High School, Basking Ridge to Promote the Work of Emerging Artists and Writers
Delight & Decay: Rendering Words and Forms
A second Community Outreach Program Delight & Decay: Rendering Words and Forms took place last year. It was a collaboration between creative writing and the visual arts. Basking Ridge AP Studio Art Seniors and Writers at Ridge High School spent a day at the Reading Terminal Market and the Eastern State Penitentiary sketching and capturing their impressions in prose.
Community Outreach Partnership Projects
The Somerset Art Association’s community outreach partnership projects are a new initiative to share the visual arts with other Somerset County non-profit organizations and schools. Partnership projects are designed to provide exposure to the arts and enrich the lives of their constituents by involving them in the creative process.
It is expected that the organization will achieve an artistically enhanced environment and, through its involvement in the planning and completion of the project, attain a greater appreciation of the visual arts.
SAA’s faculty, member artists, and volunteers facilitate each project, tailoring it to the specific needs of the partner organization. SAA will provide the artist(s), instructor and design. The partnering organization is to pay other associated costs of the project.
To inquire about a possible partnership project for your non-profit organization or school, please call SAA’s Executive Director Robyn Tromeur at 908-234-2345.
Carrier Clinic Partnership Project
Teen Artist Molly Kunzman created this mural using paint and collage elements for the Carrier Clinic in Belle Meade, New Jersey. The mural is located in the facility's new Teen Library, the first of its kind in a psychiatric hospital. As one of New Jersey’s largest, not-for-profit, behavioral healthcare organizations, the Carrier Clinic’s is dedicated to providing the best care and treatment to teens and adults struggling with emotional and behavioral distress and addictive and psychiatric disorders. Holistic Art Educator and SAA Faculty member Jane Kunzman supervised the project.
