High School Program

Step Into Art forged a partnership with Saint Joseph Prep in the spring of 2022 to offer our first program for high school students. This new program features art by contemporary artists Ekua Holmes and Kehinde Wiley, and engages students in art-viewing, art-making, and writing. The program culminates in a virtual exhibition.

Beginning with art-viewing and discussion in the context of an interactive slideshow, students are invited to focus on visual meaning and artistic process as they encounter selected pieces by Holmes and Wiley – works full of symbolism, emotion, and empowering messages. From there, students participate in a month-long series of lessons dedicated to art-making and creative problem-solving. Inspired by the processes and materials reflected in Holmes’ collage art in particular, students collect family photographs and memorabilia as the basis for creating collages of their own. Each student then uses fragments of these archived materials to reconstruct and represent a place of personal significance – whether a grandmother’s house or a mountain range in Japan.

Drawing out the meaning layered into their visual art as they reflect on it through writing, students go on to compose artist statements to accompany their collages. In a virtual exhibition, students display their collages and artist statements along with family photographs. Each ensemble speaks to the individuality, identity, and history of its student artist.