I step out of the disrupting circumstances of life to make art. I find making art helps me heal. O.K. you may say. How?
As a child, I gravitated instinctively to art-making and quiet spaces where I would make things with cardboard, glue, rice or shoe polish. These were my art supplies.
As a six-year-old boy they said I was shy, but it was clear to me that I had friends in my mind that wanted to come out on paper as colors, shapes, lines, swoops and swirls. Art, from the beginning, was where I could imagine a nice world. A world where I could wear my Vincent Van Gogh blue swish shoes to the makers studio, play with the blue paint and spread color. Making art that clearly expresses my feelings. I want to tell all my friends I miss them.
Printables you can use as templates to show how you disrupt your circumstances.
Find a CMA Studio Challenge that speaks to you and share your creations on social media by tagging #myCMAstudio.
— Richard Duarte Brown, known as Duarte, is a master artist with the TRANSIT ARTS Youth Arts Program and the Ohio Alliance for Arts Education’s Art in the House Program. For more than 30 years, Duarte has dedicated his talents to helping young people in Columbus, Ohio through countless programs including CAPACITY (CAPA’s Youth Arts Program), the Short Stop Youth Center, the King Arts Complex, Ohio Alliance for Arts Education’s (and formerly GCAC’s) Artists-in-Schools program, GCAC’s Children of the Future, Ebony Boys, Art Safe and VSA Ohio. More than my Brother’s Keeper, Duarte has also worked as a high school art instructor at the Arts and College Preparatory Academy in Columbus. Currently, he serves as a resident artist for Whitehall City Schools and Berne Union Schools in the Village of Sugar Grove, Ohio. His murals can be seen throughout the city, bringing comfort and inspiration to countless viewers.
#myCMAstudio is a digital version of our drop- in program, Open Studio. Which is currently unavailable to the public due to Covid-19, and part of CMA’s JPMorgan Chase Center for Creativity Studio to explore ideas, solve creative challenges, and collaborate with friends and family.
Pick up a Studio in a Box with all the supplies and materials needed to aid you in our weekly challenges or allow our CMA educators to guide kids Pre-K – 8th grade in an online Studio Workshop.
