We have LAUNCHED!!! The Mel & Leta Ramos Family Virtual Education Center is LIVE!!
On November 4 the Crocker Art Museum hosted a launch party to reveal our Virtual Education Center. The guest list was comprised primarily of educators from Sacramento State University and the surrounding unified school districts along with special donors and supporters of our project. The guests were treated to a hosted cocktail social hour and dinner party, followed by an inspirational presentation by Veronica Hicks, PhD who is an Assistant Professor of Art Education at Sacramento State University. Ms. Hicks spoke about the importance and necessity of exposing students to art and recognized the need to support the educators and their commitment to arts education. Her presentation mirrored our mission statement – “to ensure that all youth have access to an arts education by supporting the transmission of the visual arts in all its forms.
The Virtual Resource Center is a free resource for teachers, parents, homeschoolers, and other educators who are looking to integrate art into their classroom, home, or community. The resource section allows for easy access to lesson plans, discussion questions, step by step instructions and materials lists as well as the ability to communicate with other educators to share and exchange ideas. Below is a sample of the lesson plan based on Mel Ramos’ “The Atom” painting which was a gift to the Crocker Art Museum from Wayne Thiebaud…a teacher, a mentor, and dear friend of the Ramos family.
A very special thank you to Kevin Hughey/Hughey Gentry LLP and David Austin/Austin Art Projects for their extremely generous donations which enabled us to reach our fundraising goal to build the Mel & Leta Ramos Family Virtual Education Center.
Visit https://vec.crockerart.org to see our site!
RAMOS FOUNDATION JOINS WITH OTHER ART FOUNDATIONS IN NATIONAL BIPOC FUNDING INITIATIVE
Additionally, in keeping with our intention to work in support of arts education for historically under-represented artists, we recently joined a national consortium to help build capacity to host and support BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) Interns and Fellows as part of the Aspen Institute’s Artist-Endowed Foundations Initiative (AEFI). This Initiative, in keeping with the aims of our mission, joins us with other like-minded artist foundations around the country to seed and grow opportunities for BIPOC students interested in careers in the arts.
Stay tuned for future updates and opportunities to learn how you can support these important projects that will serve thousands of youth over time!
Southern Exposure’s Mission Girls Rock It!
A Ramos Foundation 2020 mini-grant helped to fund several stipends for girls and female-identified youth to participate in SoEx’s long-term and ongoing partnership with Mission Girls, as part of its Community Arts Internship Programs. Approximately 15 youth participated in last year’s program. The Teaching Artist for the project, Paz Zamora, taught multimedia sculpture and collage focused on empowering self-identity and feminist practice to inspire “art as activism.” Artwork from the current cohort of Mission Girls will be on exhibit at SoEx opening on December 14th. Here is a sample of the program’s success:
Relatives With Roots – Arts & Education in the Natural World
Over the summer months of 2021, the Mel and Leta Ramos Family Foundation was happy to help support the activities of the Ojai Valley Green Coalition (OVGC) and its special arts education program for youth, Relatives With Roots. The program was designed by artists and educators and took place in the beautiful open space of Cluff Vista Park in downtown Ojai, California. The Foundation’s contribution supported the purchase of art kits for children ages 8-11 to work in small groups with experienced educators, healers and artists, including renowned ethnobotanist Lanny Kaufer, art instructor, Pacha Maia, and Barbareño/Ventura Chumash elder and educator, Julie Tumamait-Stenslie. Each art kit included a spiral-bound Field Journal consisting of fifteen pages of watercolor paper and fifteen pages of sketch paper, drawing pencils, a pencil sharpener, eraser, and a portable Field Sketch watercolor palette with a refillable water brush for each child to keep. The community leaders and teaching artists for each session facilitated observational drawing, painting and sculpting of the natural world. By engaging youth with the forms and contexts of plants and plant-based knowledge through art, we teach them (by doing) that plant life, the climate, and their own creative expressions are not separate from the world around them. In these ways, arts education takes on qualities of curiosity and caring in relation to all living things.
All images used with permission of OVGC. (C) 2021.
Centre Picasso d’Horta
The Foundation is honored to be recognized by the Centre Picasso Museo in Horta de Sant Joan, Spain for our donation to the museum and education center. A colorful plaque announcing the Mel & Leta Ramos Family Foundation’s contribution was installed on the entrance wall, cementing our commitment to my parents’ dedication of giving locally, as Horta was their home and studio for the summer months since 1972. Leta would invite the local children into her studio and create art projects from recycled objects she collected in her daily activities. Castles were made from paper towel rolls, plastic yogurt cups, decorative foil saved from candy wrappers. Mel and Leta had an open- door policy for the studio in Horta and welcomed artists and visitors to breathe in the creative air which inspired not just my parents and their Bay Area artist friends, but lured Pablo Picasso as well. In Mel and Leta’s spirit of sharing and welcoming, the Foundation will continue to support the local youth and artists with annual donations of art supplies.
Founder/CEO Rochelle Leininger (left) with Museo Director Joaquim Ferràs (right)
October 2022 Alamo Today & Danville Today News
Read the full article by Jody Morgan here!
