It was a proud day the morning of November 17, 2016, as I stood around my colleague’s computer screen with a group of Armory friends watching our First Lady Michelle Obama honor one of our own teens with the most prestigious award the nation gives for an outstanding after school program. My eyes and heart filled with tears of joy as aspiring seventeen-year old photographer Dalon Poole received the award on behalf of the Armory Center for the Arts for the 2015 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award. In that moment, I found myself reflecting upon my own journey, the last twenty seven years of service in arts education, and what brought me to the Armory in the first place, and most importantly what has kept me inspired for all these years.

I remembered back to when I was his age, and how little access I had to arts education when I was a teen in the late 70s. I thought about all those endless hours of painting on my bedroom floor, a closet teen artist, wishing I had someone to talk to about ideas and about my art.

While watching Dalon, I found myself reflecting upon my commitment to training teaching artists and classroom teachers to effectively provide meaningful arts experiences to children, teens, and adults because I believe in our common purpose at the Armory. I, too, share the mission that the arts have the power to transform lives and communities. I, too, believe that the arts are an essential component of a well-rounded human being and a civil community, and that every individual has the right to express the deepest part of themselves through creating and presenting their own voice in the world. I, too, have found my life’s work at the Armory, and we are honored that the White House has officially recognized our work in Art High programs.

All of the Armory’s programs embrace the belief that arts education is not a luxury. It is a necessity. A key objective of the our mission is to provide engaging, quality art classes and art experiences for socioeconomically disadvantaged youth, a demographic that traditionally has limited access to the arts.

Throughout the Armory’s history, two tenets have been a constant–engagement of professional artists with the community as educators and as practicing artists; and innovation and leadership in responding to the artistic needs of the community, in particular those segments of the community that have traditionally been underserved.

Studio courses at the Armory’s main site and at community partner sites include drawing, painting, ceramics, letterpress, screen printing, digital media, videography, dark room photography, stop motion animation, graphic design, recording studio, aerosol art and group produced public art, among other media. Our school programs place artists in K-12 classrooms to bring standards based, art-integrated curriculum to future generations of problem solvers and innovators by refocusing core subjects through the lens of hands-on art making.

The Armory has years of experience working with, and reaching out to, underserved, at-risk, and in-crisis populations of students. With equity in mind, our community programs provide free, year-round arts education to socio-economically disadvantaged youth, families, and seniors transitioning from homelessness, at accessible parks, libraries, schools and community centers in low-income neighborhoods, juvenile halls and probation camps, serving over 6,500 participants annually.

Our Art High faculty is committed to having a positive impact on every student through mentorship in after school art classes, portfolio reviews, career days, collaborative public art projects, and teen art exhibitions. Since 2006, this initiative has proven to be a highly effective model by fostering a deeper engagement of students in their own education and in their communities. Each year, the Armory provides teens with at least 60 Art High courses totaling over 1,000 hours of sequential arts instruction.

Art High aims to increase artistic and individual growth by empowering teens to develop transferable skills that promote positive self-image as well as meaningful expressions of themselves, their cultures, and their communities. Regular engagement with the arts increases civic participation, improves academic achievement, and better prepares youth for college and future employment.

It is a fact that learning through the arts positively impacts cognition and understanding. Numerous studies underscore the impact that the arts have on learning in four key areas: cognition, creativity, communication, and culture.

Building upon this premise, the Art High program will continue to provide access to meaningful learning opportunities for teens like Dalon Poole so that this generation of young artists has a place they can go to express their ideas and display their unique vision of our world.