Since 1988, we've been celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month. While we celebrate the customs,  and traditions that make us unique, it's important to celebrate the people who gave us the opportunities to continue celebrating these traditions. The workshop (4th graders and up) is created to celebrate the courage of the Latino immigrants who have crossed the border, taken or jumped on a "Yola" (illegal makeshift boat) and risked it all to reach the United States. The freight train is a symbol of the act of breaking out of your comfort zone. Discomfort teaches us how strong we really are. The Freight Train to Freedom Workshop celebrates all the immigrants who had the courage to lean into their discomfort. After students complete their train in this step-by-step workshop, they will paint the train and paint words of love, names of our loved ones, encouragement and positivity.

​The entire class can then link all the trains together and display them in a dazzling show of support and way to honor the immigrants who have helped shape and develop the US economy. This workshop is part of the 101 Create Ways to Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, a teacher training designed to give educators some ideas on how to create a more memorable classroom experience. The workshop has over 75 groundbreaking, arts & crafts workshops for students from Kindergarten to Adult. For a complete list, please contact me now. 

The Junior ARTrepreneurs art workshop was commissioned to do a 1-day workshop at Jack & Jill of America. They voted on working on custom hats and everyone got involved! It was an amazing experience and I was able to speak to them about the benefits of creating custom artwork for sale. I wanted to make sure that I enforced upon them that they can turn their hobby into a paycheck. They were extremely excited about the prospects of selling their own artwork. I am looking forward to holding more short term workshops all over Santa Clarita and all over L.A. County. 

I visited the gallery space today and it was inspiring to see. I am looking forward to a great show. Announcements will be made during mass and help drive some traffic to the art show. I will continue to invite local business and media to try and attend. This is the last week, so make sure that you are still creating some art pieces. Create things you enjoy to paint. Think about the audience that will be at the church and the type of work they might be into. Think about the type of work your family and friends are into and make sure you have a little bit of everything! Whether you make 1 sale or no sales, the experience and knowledge you gain from stepping out of your comfort zone is what will give you the advantage. I am super proud of all the students this year. I am excited about Class #2 and am still working out the details for the next class! Stay tuned!

The Art Show will be held inside Slattery Hall #3. When you walk in through main entrance, make a right and walk towards the back (Near the double glass doors) There will be signage to help direct some traffic. It is directly across the gift shop. The show begins at 10:30am - 2:30pm. Please plan on arriving at 10am so that you can set up your table and price your work. Print out some custom order forms and have some change available for those customers paying in cash. You can buy small circle labels at office max and put prices on the work. None of the tables have table cloths, so feel free to bring a table cloth large enough for a 6 foot table and dress it up as you wish. I will provide each of you with a 5x7 table stand with your name on it. 

I am in the process of developing the curriculum for the second Jr. Arts workshop. Class One has been an amazing experience. There will be some changes to the second class. The previous class offered over 4 major projects and there just wasn't enough time to complete them all. This time, I may either extend the class time from 1.5 hours to 2 hours in length, or add 2 additional days. Also, Instead of adding 4 major projects, I will focus on 2-3 major projects. Stay tuned for updates. ​

The crew is all here! Special thanks to the classroom volunteers, Lilian, Paige, Cecilia and Jacki! all of you helped out big time and I sincerely appreciate you spending some of your valuable time with me and the students.