Outreach

Outreach

Education > Outreach

The Pastel Society of America's

New York City High School Education Program

by Jeff Webb, PSA

"Children represent a large portion of our nation, but they are 100% of our future."

Kenneth P. Moritsugu, M.D., M.P.H

Acting Surgeon General, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Jack DeMartino, an art teacher at Washington Irving High School (right around the corner from The National Arts Club), is an extremely gifted painter with an enviable reputation, but the medium of pastel is not as familiar to him as the other painting disciplines, and he wanted his students to have the experience of contact with a professional pastel artist. This was a generous and caring gesture on his part and a tribute to the reputation of PSA.

I have had the good fortune to be the PSA artist who worked with the high school students in Jack DeMartino's class at Washington Irving High School, and the experience has changed me as well. As the arts have taken a back seat to academic subjects, there is always talk of phasing out art education. The PSA program was inspired to show support for our arts educators in their daily concerns to affirm the importance of the arts in the development of the young. I see students who are "the salt of the earth." They come to Washington Irving from all over the City of New York, with eager minds and rich talents. They are not merely automatons spewing memorized data but individuals with inquisitive and exciting minds that want to learn. These are not kids from affluent neighborhoods, but students from large, hard working families struggling to get by. They are full of motivation and they inspire me. This year, we added another high school to the program, Marta Valle Secondary School (south of Houston St. and just north of Delancey). The art teacher in this school, Joan Meyer, is also a very skilled and acclaimed painter. Her situation is especially typical of N.Y.C. high schools, for there is only one art teacher in the school and that is Ms. Meyer. Hers is a daunting task.

Her student body is very diverse, and they have art for an extremely small part of their education. In this time period, she has managed to instill a passion for the arts in their lives, and I believe my contact has enriched their experience. I applaud Flora Giffuni for implementing this valuable program. Perhaps through our efforts we can highlight the problems with art education in New York. The art teachers themselves are stellar individuals who are dedicated to opening up the world of art for their students. Can you imagine how empty our lives would be without art? Do you realize that everything around us made by human beings has had an artist's hand in it at some time? Why does art education have to fight and struggle to survive? Our children are 100% of our future.

The Pastel Society of America, under the leadership of founder and first president, Flora B. Giffuni, PSA, launched a new program in 2005 to bring PSA teachers into N.Y.C. public schools as visiting artists, giving instruction free of charge to inner city school children. This program has been an enormous success. The program could not have been realized without the dedication and cooperation of the high school teachers, who encouraged this opportunity for their students.

The Pastel Society of America’s New York City High School Education Program

Pastel Society of America

America’s Oldest Existing Pastel Society