Artwares is a product based vocational art training program. Through the Artwares program, students are joined with professional artists in long and short-term multidisciplinary ceramic art residencies. These residencies provide children within schools, community centers and other educational settings with alternative arts education. The Artwares Program offers art and cultural enrichment services to these youth during after school hours, the time at which these youth need structured activities the most. MOCAH utilizes the Artwares ceramic program model to reinforce our mission of using cultural arts as our medium to enhance creative awareness, social health, and education.

The Concept for Artwares evolved from a reoccurring opportunity presented to MOCAH through the University of Houston’s Graduate School of Social Work (GSSW) to produce centerpieces for their annual scholarship drive. Since 2000 & 2001, we have produced handmade centerpieces for their annual fundraising event. The first year we worked with 10 students from the Davis High School Art Club, lead by student artist Israel Barbosa, to produce tile mosaic candelabras. The following year MOCAH worked with, ceramicist, Elena Cusi-Wortham and Phillis Wheatley High School students to produce handmade and painted ceramic bowls, which held flowers and floating candles. Each year all 40 of the functional works that the high school students made sold out. All proceeds from the sale of these works went towards future GSSW scholarships and to the participating high schools’ art club.

The Success of these initial opportunities spawned the idea to develop and implement long-term residencies whereby students could produce a larger inventory of these functional artworks. In turn, the products are offered as fundraising items for nonprofit organizations, schools and churches.

Objectives

The goals of this project are:
• To provide a creative, non-competitive, learning environment for youth to exercise their imaginations.
• To increase the youth’s practical knowledge of traditional arts and craft techniques.
• To empower the children by teaching them a skill that they can use in the future to provide economic sustainability to themselves and/or their families.