Women, Wine & Art Making

The new Women, Wine & Art Making series of adult workshops at CREATE Arts Center have been such a success, thanks to Brooke Baker, a CREATE Arts Instructor, who incorporates the fun of a "ladies night out" with easy-to-learn art projects for all skill levels. Local residents brought their own bottles of wine and enjoyed learning how to create handmade books and greeting cards. 

The next two workshops will be held on December 9th and January 20th from 7-9pm. $30 per person. RSVP by emailing create@createartscenter.org!

Brooke Baker, Art Instructor

Workshop attendees and the cards they made.  Heena Genti, CREATE Executive Director (on  the right)

Cute handmade cards!

Making an Easy Apron

Here at CREATE, we do a lot of painting, which sometimes gets a little messy. A great way to keep your clothing clean is to wear an apron or smock. Here is an easy way to make one out of an old t-shirt! Our executive director, Heena Genti, came up with the idea:

 1. Start with an ordinary t-shirt. Lay it on a flat surface.

 2. Cut from the bottom corner to the inside corner of the sleeve.

 3. Your cut should stop at the inside corner like so.

 4. With a ruler or straight-edge, draw a diagonal line from the collar to where you stopped cutting.

 5. Continue cutting upwards to the collar.

 6. Cut around the collar to form the neckline.

 7. Cut the other side of the t-shirt in the same fashion.

 8. Measure about 2" from the bottom edge of the shirt for the ties.

 9. Cut upwards in a straight line.

 10. Stop cutting about 2" from the edge.

 11. Tie a knot for strength!

 12. Pull both ends of the tie with a few strong tugs. The knit t-shirt material will curl into a rope.

 13. Once your apron is complete, it will look like this!

 14. Happy decorating!

Roll Up Your Sleeves!

Montgomery County is challenging its 25,000 residents to make a difference during Community Service Week! You can help CREATE celebrate the 25th anniversary of Community Service Day by being a part of our “Spruce it Up” team! We are looking for at least 8 volunteers to help us re-paint the classrooms, lobby and hallway gallery space at CREATE. We will also be sweeping up litter and leaves around our potted garden area.

Date: Saturday, October 22, 2011
Time: 10:30-3:00pm
RSVP: volunteer@createartscenter.org
Click here to register for Community Service
Week on the Montgomery County website!
 
 

Get Ready to Swap!

On Saturday, September 24th, CREATE Arts Center in partnership with  Think Outside the Store will be hosting 
Swap-O-Rama-Rama!

With fall underway and winter just around the corner, it’s time to revamp your wardrobe—with your neighbor’s clothes! At Silver Spring Swaporama-rama, area residents bring a bag of clothes to share, and take home as many clothes as they want. The donated items, drawn from closets throughout the community, provide a wide variety of options to choose from. Leftover clothes will be used for clothing art projects or donated to a local charity. 

The event doubles as the grand opening of Think Outside the Store, a new clothing art studio in downtown Silver Spring where area residents can order custom made clothing and accessories, or learn how to make their own! Swappers will have access to the Think Outside the Store sewing room to modify their finds. Sarah Gingold, clothing artist and founder of the studio, will be on hand to provide assistance with sewing, as well as sewing demonstrations throughout the event.

When: Saturday Sept. 24th from 3:00-7:00pm

Where: CREATE Arts Center & Think Outside the Store
816 Thayer Avenue, Floor 1

What to bring: A suggested $5 donation and a bag of your clean, unwanted clothes. 

 See you there!

 

Visit: www.swaporamarama.org for more information

Edible Art

 

Who says all art has to be made from paper and glue? Bakerella.com has tons of edible recipes kids (and grown-ups) can enjoy making together. Check out the homemade gumdrops & cupcake pops!

Summer Food Drive

As part of their community service project, two Bethesda Chevy Chase HS students, Shayna Nash and Thomas Horton, organized a food drive competition between several local summer camps to raise awareness of hunger in Montgomery County. The camp which collected the most items won a free a free ice cream cone from Ben & Jerry's...and the campers from Session 3 won!

Everything we collected was donated to the MANNA Food Bank in Gaithersburg, MD. Thank you to all the campers for all your hard work! We did it!

CREATE News - August 10, 2011

We just wanted to take a few moments and share with you some of the exciting things that are happening at CREATE.

Recently, we were featured on WAMU 88.5's Community Minute. This brief segment in their regular programming was aired throughout the month of July and spotlights CREATE's mission and values. Our Director, Heena Genti, was interviewed for the piece and you can listen to it here:

 

We have also been lucky enough to begin a promotion with 9:30 club that allows us to give free concert tickets to our students. Recently, we gave away 2 tickets to Steely Dan and The Junior League Band. Keep an eye out for future promotions and your chance to be winner!

CREATE will be participating in an amazing 4 day event as a part of the 9/11 Arts Project organized by the Smith Farm Center for Healing and the Arts. We will be hosting an interactive Arts as Healing workshop at Arts on Foot on Saturday, September 10th from 11am - 7pm at 7th St. & F St. NW. More information to follow!

Thai Flower Stringing Workshop – Preparing for the Annual Wai Khru

Time: August 12, 2011 from 6pm to 8:30pm
Location: Thai Institute of Healing Arts
Street: 1211 N. Glebe Road
City/Town: Arlington, VA 22201
Website: www.Thai-Institute.com
Phone: 703-522-8424
Organized By: Thai Institute Coordinator 

Heather Levy, long time Thai massage student and art instructor, will lead participants in a cultural and community gathering to create beautiful flower garlands for our annual wai khru.

Widely popular and highly significant, strung flowers are part of the Thai culture dating back for centuries. Flowers are used in all aspects of Thai culture from religious ceremonies to showing respect to elders especially parents and teachers.

Heather has been making things with her hands since forever. She enjoys using practically any material that includes natural substances from the earth, recycled materials and just about anything that can be found. Heather teaches a variety of mixed media art to children and adults in Maryland and the District of Columbia.

She will teach you how to prepare flowers for stringing to ensure the plants beauty and longevity. Flower garlands will be strung by needle and thread along with several other flower arrangements to be prepared

You are welcome to participate in any or all aspects of this workshop that will include preparing, cutting, stringing, and preserving the flowers.

The Thai Institute of Healing Arts will donate all supplies. Once the floral arrangements are made, participants at the annual wai khru will make a donation for the flowers. The flowers will be offered as part of the annual wai khru the next day. 100% of all proceeds from the flowers will be donated to charitable projects within the Thai community.

Volunteer your time to help benefit the Thai community while learning this unique and time honor tradition of stringing flowers.

~Taken from the Thai Institute of Healing Arts website

CREATE Arts Center & Docs in Progress

Recently CREATE was contacted by a local non-profit called Docs in Progress. Located in Silver Spring, their mission is to give individuals the tools to tell stories through documentary film to educate, inspire, and transform the way people view their world. Docs holds a summer camp to help shape the new generation of film makers and they select local businesses and organizations to create short films.

They contacted to CREATE and asked if a small group of their middle school students could visit our site and make a short documentary. They arrived last week to do a site visit, brainstorm ideas and to get a feel for our space. Then they returned the following day to begin filming. We met with Sam Hampton, Director of Operations, and he brought along 2 counselors and 3 campers - Julia Park, Chelsea Gracyalny, Diana Perez, Madeleine Tell, and Miranda Solomon. 

These ladies chose the shots for the film, along with the concept, operated both sound and video equipment and conducted interviews. All three staff members were interviewed and our campers were more than willing to share their art work too. 

It was a great experience collaborating with another non-profit and we learned a lot about Docs in Progress during our time together. There will be a Film Festival held at the Silver Spring Civic Center on July 28^th, where this film and many more will be screened. More information to follow. 

A big “thanks” to the folks at Docs for choosing CREATE and for being such a blast to work with!  

Celebrate Earth Day with Recycled Art!

Recently our intern, Becky Jacobson, set out to create a piece of art from recycled materials in honor of Earth Day. Below you will find her simple instructions for
creating a journal out of found objects. 

Materials:

1. Cardboard (2 same size pieces) from old note books, pads of paper, thin boxes or packaging
2. Scrap paper from the computer or anything lying around the house
3. Magazines, wrapping paper, old calendars or photographs
4. Scissors
5. Glue
6. Metal fasteners
7. Hole punch

Step 1

Cover both pieces of cardboard with magazines, calendars, etc. - whatever design you like!

Step 2

Put scrap paper in between the two pieces of cardboard.

Step 3

Punch 3 holes in cardboard and paper - make sure the holes line up!

Step 4

Put metal fasteners through the holes and bend to secure.

Finished! 

These journals can be used as sketchbooks, diaries, notebooks, scrapbooks, photo albums, and more! Once you have filled all of your pages you can simply add more paper, creating a brand new journal and continuing the recycling process. 

Happy Earth Day! 

CREATE Arts Center & Liberty’s Promise

Recently, our Volunteer Coordinator, Jamillah Abdullah, visited John F. Kennedy HS to speak to a group of teens as part of Liberty’s Promise community outreach program.

“Liberty’s Promise supports young immigrants in need while encouraging them to be active and conscientious American citizens. Our programs aim to make the immigrant experience an affirmative one for young newcomers while instilling in them a sense of pride and support for American ideals of democracy and freedom.” (Libertyspromise.org)

Many of the students were preparing to graduate and already had college degrees in mind. Jamillah shared with them how art could still be a part of their lives, no matter which career path they chose. 

“Being an artist doesn’t limit you to painting pictures”, she says. 

At CREATE Arts Center, our volunteers, interns and counselors-in-training learn there is a world of opportunity out there for anyone with a spark of creativity.

Here are just a few art-related jobs:

• Art Teacher
• Art Therapist
• Child Life Specialist
• Art Dealer
• Art Historian 
• Gallery Director
• Museum Studies
• Floral Designer
• Cake Decorator
• Event Planner & Decorator
• Interior Design
• Architecture, Design & Drafting
• Jewelry Designer 
• Product Design
• Video Game Design & Development
• Graphic Designer
• Web Design 
• Cards & Stationary Design

• Public Arts Development 
• Performing Arts & TheaterS
• Stage Design
• Costume Design

How to Save Your Clay

Recently, our Family Pottery teacher, Shelly Sarin, asked our volunteers to rejuvenate the dry, hardened clay which her students were unable to use. We decided to document the process, and found it to be pretty easy after all!

Step 1

Break the clay into small pieces, if you can, and place it in a shallow container. Fill about halfway with water and cover overnight. 

Step 2

Clay is porous, so it will absorb most of the water. Once it has softened, it will be too wet to store right away. Spread the clay over a plaster slab to absorb any extra fluid. Press out any lumps.

Step 3

After about five minutes, the clay will easily peel from the surface of the slab. 

Step 4

Roll the clay back and forth and form into a ball. Make sure to clear the slab completely.

Step 5

Wedge the clay on a board for several minutes. Similar to kneading dough, wedging will remove any air pockets. 

Step 6

If you don’t plan on using the clay right away, wrap it in a moistened cloth. Avoid using paper towels, because they stick to the clay and can grow mold.

Step 7

Store your clay in a tightly sealed plastic bag.

Welcome!

Thank you for following CREATE Arts Center's brand new blog! We want to share with our the exciting things that are happening at CREATE. From projects being completed at camp and upcoming events, to tips and advice from our teaching artists. We welcome your comments and we hope you find this blog fun & informative!