ArtForce

ArtForce began in 2014 when leadership from both Arts for Learning and Ivy Tech discovered a mutual interest in providing a unique summer arts experience for teens. This program is a three-week summer intensive held on the Central Indiana Ivy Tech campus and is co-taught by a professional teaching artist with Arts for Learning Indiana and a member of the Ivy Tech faculty. Additional guest artists and speakers come from both organizations and the broader Indianapolis arts community. Monday-Friday, the students work on projects in a variety of art techniques, both solo and collaborative, and sit in on college level art classes. They go on a field trip explore an arts venue in Indianapolis. All of this works to build on their portfolios, give them opportunities to learn how art can be a career and an avocation and create their own arts micro-community. Students are also offered a sizable stipend along with opportunities for creative work outside of the camp. The summer finishes with a display of artwork created by the students. Students receive a stipend upon completion of the summer intensive based on their attendance and participation. Throughout the rest of the year, Arts for Learning hires previous student participants to work at special events side by side with our administrative staff, or with our professional teaching artists. Students are also offered a sizeable stipend along with opportunities to be hired for work outside of the camp.  

The theme for Summer 2023 is “Creative Entrepreneurship” and we will seek to use wood burning, paint, and printmaking to dig deep into our individual journeys. How do you define boundaries? What constitutes an immigration journey to you?  When you think of family, do you think of your blood relations or do you include valuable ties to friends and community? 

Instructors Hector del Campo and Nasreen Khan will use a variety of artistic mediums and techniques to translate transgressing and holding boundaries, into maps of our lived experiences.