|
Mayor Breed visited [x]space on Saturday, April 20, 2019.
Dear YAX friends!
We had a visit from Mayor London Breed, Supervisor Ahsha Safaí, the San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development, and Excelsior Action Group during a day of youth open studios, filmmaking class, and Sambaxé Dance Company taking over the gallery for Carnaval costume making. Photos by our faculty artist Matthew Brown.
May is the final month of our Spring 2019 session! Everyone (youth, faculty, and staff alike) at Youth Art Exchange is busy putting final touches on artwork and details for our Spring showcase events at [x]space: Youth Digital Music Festival TODAY, May 3 and our Spring Exhibition, “Belonging,” tomorrow, Saturday, May 4. We're excited to celebrate all the work produced by YAX youth. Find out more below.
 YDM: Youth Digital Music Festival 2019
Friday, May 3, 4pm-7pm
[x]space arts hub, 5137 Mission Street
RSVP/share on Eventbrite and Facebook
Youth Art Exchange brings together young musicians from across the San Francisco Bay Area for the 2019 YDM: Youth Digital Music Festival. Join us at [x]space for an evening of drops, loops, and beats by youth from Youth Art Exchange and other Bay Area youth and art organizations! More information about performers coming soon. YDM is supported by The Youth Empowerment Fund.
YAX Spring Exhibition: Belonging
Saturday, May 4, 1pm-4pm
[x]space arts hub, 5137 Mission Street
RSVP/share on Eventbrite and Facebook
Join us at [x]space for our Spring Exhibition: Belonging! Work by Spring 2019 YAX students of all disciplines will be showcased and we will celebrate the end of another successful YAX program. Work will be shown from our Architecture Firm, Industrial + Product Design, Black + White Photography, Fashion Design, Filmmaking, Music Production, and Printmaking classes. Support San Francisco youth artists by seeing and buying their work.
Our programming is made possible by your generosity – all amounts are helpful! Donate to YAX here.
|
|
We have opened applications for our free after school arts programs to San Francisco public high school students! It’s never too soon to sign up for our programs, which are first come first serve and completely free. Our fall classes meet twice a week and we offer these disciplines: Architecture Firm, Industrial + Product Design, Black + White Photography, Fashion Design, Filmmaking, Music Production, and Printmaking. Click here to apply and for more information.
For YAX students participating in our summer arts intensives, remember to come to the YAX Summer Orientation on Wednesday, May 29, from 4-6pm at YAX (29 Howth Street, San Francisco CA 94112).
|
|
Volunteers are vital for us to offer free arts programming for public high school students and the San Francisco community, especially as we have more public events at [x]space, our arts hub in the Excelsior. Volunteers get special access at events, discounts on concessions, and support special projects.
Our Monthly Volunteer Orientation at [x]space is Tuesday, May 7 from 6-7pm (the first Tuesday of every month). You’ll meet staff, and learn about programming and how you can get involved to help YAX. Bring a friend, meet new people, and eat popcorn! All ages welcome.
Our Monthly Volunteer Workday at [x]space is Thursday, May 16 from 10am-2pm to help with installations, gallery prep, and spring cleaning. Sign up to join us or just stop by!
Click here to sign up for our volunteer newsletter, or send us a message using this form for anything specific.
|
|
Upcoming community events in the city – all free and open to the public. Events like this are made possible by your generous donations – give today!
 San Francisco Youth Commission Exhibit City Hall - Room 345 (1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Pl)
RSVP/share on Eventbrite and Facebook
YAX youth artists Valentin Nguyen, Allison Smith, and Vernard Ramirez have artwork showcased at City Hall for the Youth Commission Open House and the following weeks. Are you between the ages of 12yr-23 yr, and want to learn more on how to make an impact in local government? Come chat and celebrate with the Youth Commission! There's a free art show & food will be provided!
 Sambaxé Mixer
Saturday, May 4, 5-8pm
[x]space arts hub, 5137 Mission Street
Join Sambaxé for an evening of fun and raise funds for their Carnaval contingent. Our students are partnering with the dance company this spring!
 New Growth: Shared Stories
Saturday, May 11, 1-4pm
Root Division, 1131 Mission Street
RSVP/share on Facebook
YAX Fashion Design and Filmmaking students will put on a fashion show and screen films at Root Division’s New Growth: Shared Stories, an annual Youth Art Exhibition & Extravaganza featuring hands-on family art making activities, alongside an exhibition of student artwork created from Root Division’s free after-school Youth Education Program. Exhibition dates are May 2-18, 2019. This year’s theme recognizes the power of sharing stories to find common ground and celebrate differences. Presented in partnership with Youth Art Exchange, New Growth: Shared Stories will include complimentary refreshments, interactive creative stations, and live performances by Destiny Arts, Youth Art Exchange, SFJAZZ, and SF Rock Project. Our Fashion faculty artist Francesca Mateo is also the Filipinx Teaching-Artist Fellow at Root Division.
 Green Art Workshop: Green Zines 101 with Jamil Moises Ortanez
Saturday, May 11, 1pm-3pm
[x]space arts hub, 5137 Mission Street
Facebook event
Learn about the history of zines and create your own personal zine! Through community building participants will deepen their knowledge of local social justice histories. Using vintage national geographic magazines and historical images from local social justice archives participants will create their own zines. This workshop is led by artist Jamil Moises Ortanez.
This spring, YAX is thrilled to be partnering with Green Art Workshop, which brings eco-conscious art programs to schools and community centers, to offer workshops at [x]space. All workshops are free and open to the public. They also moved into one of our studios in March! This project is presented by Green Art Workshop and supported by the YMCA of San Francisco, Excelsior Collaborative, and Youth Art Exchange. Read more about upcoming Green Art Workshop at [x]space here.
|
|
 At the end of our spring session we will be saying goodbye (for now) to our two Photography faculty artists, Richard Max Gavrich and Brisa Aceves. Brisa has been our darkroom guest artist for several years and Max has just wrapped up his first year as a faculty artist- but he’s also a YAX alum, so his YAX love runs deep!  We have been so lucky to have their warmth, creativity, and generosity shape our Photography program. We will miss them dearly and are cheering them on in their future endeavors.
We are hiring a photography faculty artist for our fall session – click here for details.
 This summer we are welcoming Alexander Kozachek as one of our ArtBUILD faculty artists for our ArtBUILD intensive, an architecture + fashion design program for rising 9th graders that Alexander will co-teach with our Fashion Design faculty artist Francesca Mateo.
Alexander is an artist and designer who moved to San Francisco in 2016 to receive his MFA in Design at California College of the Arts. He also holds a BFA in Ceramics from Alfred University and studied abroad at the Central Academy of Fine Arts Beijing. Alexander co-founded the design collective Berg., and has shown in multiple gallery spaces under that collective. Before moving to San Francisco, Alexander worked as the Sculpture Technician at the University of Hartford Art School where he managed the wood, sculpture, glass blowing and metal fabrication shops.
|
|
 Our District Street Safety Poster + Transit Campaign Project was awarded $20,000 in the District 7 Participatory Budget voting! Thank you to all D7 residents who voted for YAX! Our visual street safety campaign will focus on 10 strategies for pedestrian and street safety. In partnership with the Office of District 7 Supervisor Norman Yee and Vision Zero partners, our high school youth printmakers and a faculty artist will develop a series of easily read, graphic posters in multiple languages to promote street safety featuring D7 priorities and neighborhood safety concerns to people of all ages and backgrounds. Posters will be developed into a transit campaign that will run throughout District 7 public transportation shelters, buses, and trains. Keep an eye out for the posters!
 YAX is proud to be a longstanding partner with the California College of the Arts extern program. We are honored to have received an award for Partner in Impact at the celebration for externs and partners on Saturday, April 20th. Our amazing extern, Olivia Houghton, a senior studying textile design, received an award for being a Leader of Tomorrow. Olivia has been with YAX for 3 years, supporting our fashion design program and most recently being our gallery assistant at [x]space. She has been an incredible asset from painting murals on our walls, to helping solve some of our “what do we do to set up a new gallery” mysteries, to installing our shows.
 Maria Ulloa, a graduating architecture student on her way to Harvard (!), has been onsite at both our architecture program and at [x]space over the past year. She has worked on design projects like creating site drawings of our space and planning out our storefront tile project. Maria also received a national American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment award for her project with Viviani Isnata called Shore of a Hundred Islands, which proposes a self-sustaining, buoyant community that blurs the line between land and water.
|
|
Our community art show (415) Public Gallery was showcased at [x]space from April 1-21, and we will host it again next April. (415) Public Gallery is an open curation concept. We wanted to break down the walls of exhibiting and experiencing art. At the same time, we wanted to put our belief forward that art builds community and that we all need art. Special shout out to Sofia Airaghi, our Program Manager, who took the lead for the exhibit and transformed our space into something beautiful.
By bringing people together – strangers, friends, community members, and those already connected to YAX, we held a space where people felt connected through their work and through seeing the work of others. We were deeply saddened to hear of the sudden death of one of the artists who participated in collaborative pieces for the show. Datebook by SF Chronicle posted about the artwork of Pablo Ramirez and his partner, Elyse, and their involvement with the show. While the connection to Pablo was brief through (415) Public Gallery, the impact of bringing together people through art is lasting.
|
|
We want you to join our Advisory Board! Our Advisory Board is comprised of individuals with expertise in many sectors, who share their talents and energy with YAX. Our Advisory Board functions as a full working board except in the case of legal functions. To learn more about supporting YAX by joining the Advisory Board, please contact Reed at reed@youthartexchange.org.
|
|
|
We rely on your gifts to provide the best free arts programming we can. Click here to donate today!
|
|
|
Stay connected with us and see what we're up to on:
|
|
|
|
|
