God Is An Artist, I Am An Artist (#404)

God Is An Artist, I Am An Artist (#404)

As the art teachers at Pilgrim Lutheran Church and School in Chicago, Suzanne and I share the dream of encouraging our students to see themselves as a reflection of the world’s greatest artist: God. We desire to enhance the art program by expanding our ability to showcase a variety of media, therefore encouraging children to express their inner artist in a multi-faceted way. Specifically, we would love mini art galleries as well as pottery materials to increase capacity to both create and display our students’ diverse work.

We have a focused goal to build artistic confidence in each of our students early on by creating a culture of support and encouragement within the classroom. We want every student to know they were created in the image of the world’s greatest artist: God.

It is important for us to help grow our students’ artistic confidence by allowing them to explore different mediums for expression. Often times, a child’s belief in their artistic ability stems from an ability or inability to draw something to its likeness. We know there are many ways to be artistic, and we want all kids at Pilgrim to have the means to express that creativity with different materials. Our dream is to build a strong pottery program. We would love to have enough clay for our students to truly be able to explore, as well as enough shelves within our kiln to fire a classroom of projects simultaneously to help reduce energy consumption. Currently, we need to run the kiln 3 times to fire an entire classroom worth of projects. That’s a lot of wasted energy!

Suzanne and I intentionally work to build our students’ inner confidence. We believe it’s of the utmost importance to foster an artistic community of trust and support in order for students to feel safe in the vulnerable work of creating art. We teach them to approach both art class and their own creativity with a growth mindset. It’s especially rewarding to hear them encourage one another during our in-class showcases. In an effort to build on this creative pride, we have been trying to showcase students’ work within the hallways and stairwells for all to see. Currently, we struggle with keeping their art attached to the textured walls and do not have a dedicated gallery space. We would love to create a functional space to display student artwork, which would require four large bulletin boards attached to the walls.

It has been a delight to come alongside students and foster both inner personal growth and outward creative expression. We would be so honored to receive funding to further that joy by more appropriately showcasing their inner, God-given creativity.

Fund this Dream for $1,327.60.