6th Grade Program

Step Into Art is a long-established tradition at Mother Caroline Academy (MCA) in Dorchester, Boston’s only all-girls, tuition-free elementary and middle school serving students from under-resourced communities. Since 2008, our sixth-grade partnership program has offered students a year-long arts learning experience that engages them as viewers, artists, writers, and public speakers.  The program culminates in an exhibition of the students’ creative work at Harvard University.

Throughout this unique sixth-grade partnership program, the focus of the students’ learning and creativity is portraiture.  We begin with a visit to one of greater Boston’s world-class museums, traditionally the Harvard Art Museums.  There, students have the chance to view and discuss portraits by a range of artists and to begin thinking about the choices artists make. 

Following the museum visit, the students step into the role of artist, embarking on an ambitious, long-term self-portrait project.  Since 2023, the work of contemporary textile artist Gio Swaby has provided the source of inspiration for the students’ own portraits. Swaby describes her portraits as “love letters to Black women and Black girls.”  Her work not only offers a model of portraiture that deeply influences the students, but Swaby has inspired the girls personally as well, graciously connecting with them through a virtual studio visit as they develop their own artwork.  

Once the students complete their portraits, they compose artist statements reflecting on their choices and challenges, and present these alongside their artwork at our culminating exhibition.  The program builds toward a celebratory exhibition event: 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 exhibitions have taken place at Harvard’s Center for Government and International Studies for 12 years and are now hosted by Gutman Library at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. 

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, by personally connecting them with a renowned contemporary artist, 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.)