6th Grade Program

Step Into Art is a long-established tradition at Mother Caroline Academy (MCA), a tuition-free, private school in Dorchester for girls in grades three to eight from limited financial means. Since 2008, our sixth-grade partnership program has engaged students with modern and contemporary portraits from the Harvard Art Museums – paintings by artists ranging from Pablo Picasso to Vincent van Gogh to Jackson Pollock to Kerry James Marshall. In recent years, we have expanded the program repertoire to emphasize works by contemporary Black artists, especially Kehinde Wiley and Roxbury-based artist Ekua Holmes. A new program for the 2023-2024 will engage students with the extraordinary textile portraits of artist Gio Swaby, whose solo exhibition they will have the opportunity to see at the Peabody Essex Museum.

Now 15 years strong, our sixth-grade program with Mother Caroline uses art-viewing as a starting point for intense, long-term projects that engage students in art-making and writing, enabling them to build valuable skills of observation, interpretation, problem-solving, and self-expression. Drawing inspiration from the great works of art they engage with as viewers, students create personally-expressive portraits of their own, compose artist statements reflecting on their portraits, and present their work at a culminating exhibition event.

The program builds toward this celebratory exhibition: students rise to new roles as public speakers as they discuss their artwork and writing with visitors and share the pride of their creative achievement with the larger community. Our culminating exhibitions have taken place at Harvard University’s Center for Government and International Studies (CGIS) for 12 consecutive years, through February of 2020. Since the pandemic, we have found new, meaningful ways for the students to share their work – through virtual exhibitions and, from 2022 forward, through a spring exhibition that transforms the school’s old chapel into an art gallery and brings the school community together for a joyful celebration.

By involving Mother Caroline sixth graders with special resources and experiences at Harvard, by exposing them to models of excellence in art in Boston-area museums and beyond, and by giving them the chance to share and celebrate their work with the larger community, this Step Into Art collaborative program helps nurture students’ aspirations for the future.

(View the students’ artwork and writing on our Exhibitions page.)