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Recent Arts and Education Projects

Air Water Light Project, 2005

Beginning in the winter of 2005, The Touchstone Center will initiate its Air Water Light project with the East Village Community School. Working with two classrooms within the school, for ten sessions, in conjunction Julie Kirkpatrick, the art teacher at the school, the Center, under the direction of Richard Lewis and Claudia Keel will explore, through art and writing, each of the elements of air, water and light – with a particular emphasis on their poetic and imaginative qualities. The residency will begin with a performance for participating children and teachers of In the Space of the Sky by the Touchstone Center Theatre Ensemble consisting of Harry Mann, Clea Rivera and Richard Lewis. The end of the residency will consist of an exhibition of the children’s art and writing as well as the creation of booklets of the children’s original writings given to each child.

The Tree of Knowing Project, 2003-2005

Beginning in the Winter of 2003, the Center will initiate its new thematic project, The Tree of Knowing. This project will explore the concept of knowledge existing throughout the natural world, with a particular emphasis on the growth and life of a tree as a source of knowing.

The first of a series of eight workshops (with two classes a 3rd/4th and 5th/6th grade) based on this theme will take place at the East Village Community School in February 2003. The Center's staff, Claudia Keel and Richard Lewis, will work directly in collaboration with Julie Kirkpatrick, art teacher at the school. As a starting point for the workshops there will be a reading of A Tree Lives, a poem by Richard Lewis with painted visualizations by Noah Baen and music by Harry Mann.

The Bird of Imagining Project, 2001-2002

In the fall of 2001, the Center concentrated its arts and education work on The Bird of Imagining project. This project involved the creation of a steel sculpture, The Bird of Imagining, by Kathy Creutzburg based on a poem by Richard Lewis. The sculpture was designed so as to contain over 200 wooden feathers, painted by all the children attending the Children's Workshop School on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The painting of these wooden feathers, which was done under the direction of Claudia Keel, took place in the two art rooms of the school, over a period of five months in a series of four workshops for each of the classes in the school (Pre-K to the 5/6th Grade). The finished sculpture, dedicated in June of 2002, was placed in Sauer Park, a city park a block from the school and is scheduled to be on display until June 2003.

In October of 2002, an exhibition entitled The Bird of Imagining was on display through December 29th at the Children's Museum of the Arts. This exhibition highlighted the artwork of children from New York City Public Schools, who participated in The Bird of Imagining project in previous years. The exhibition also marked the publication of The Bird of Imagining by Touchstone Center Publications (see Publications for further details).

As of June 2001, the Center concluded its four-year thematic program, Speakings: The Many Voices of Language that took place at PS 20 in Manhattan, and IS 227 and the Townsend Harris High School in Queens. The overall intent of this theme was to explore, with children and teachers, the variety and subtlety of language-making taking place both in ourselves and the natural world. The following is a historical overview of this project from its beginnings in 1998 to 2001.

Speakings: The Many Voices of Language 2000 - 2001

In the Fall of 2000 through the Spring of 2001, the Center concluded its thematic program, Speakings : The Many Voices of Language at PS 20 in Manhattan and IS 227 in Queens. The overall focus in each of these schools was to culminate the Center's work in relation to the gardens it had built collaboratively with school staff and students.

At each school, a project centered around the imaginative life of the garden, was brought into being. At PS 20, students and teachers were involved in a project entitled The Imagining Garden, in which every student in a third and fourth grade class, created, through art and writing, their own imaginary gardens in individual cardboard boxes. At IS 227, a sixth and seventh grade classroom worked on a project entitled The Celebrating Garden in which students created masks and rituals centered around how the various natural elements found in their school garden come back to life in the Spring.

An additional school, PS 134 in Manhattan, also participated in a project entitled The Listening Garden, in which students from a third and fourth grade classroom used their school garden to create a group of original wall hangings of original art and writing exploring, through attentive listening and observing, the life and growth of their garden through different seasons of the year.

Touchstone Center artists participating in the final year of the Speakings project were Richard Lewis, Claudia Keel and Noah Baen.

Speakings: The Many Voices of Language 1999-2000

PS 20 (Manhattan)

In January 1998, The Center began its residency working with all the First Grade classrooms of PS 20, an elementary school on the lower Eastside of Manhattan. Built into this residency was the overall plan to continue work with the same group of children through the third grade.

As part of the Speakings theme the first year of the residency was focused on the "language" of butterflies, succeeded in the second year and third year by an exploration of the "language" of flowers and trees respectively.

In the summer of 1999, staff member Claudia Keel painted a large outdoor mural on one of the corners of the schoo, based on the art and writing of the children who had participated in the Speakings project during the first two years of the Center's residency. During 1999-2000, Ms. Keel began construction of a flower garden adjacent to the mural. In June 2000, each of the five Third Grade classes planted a group of sapling oak trees in the new garden as a tribute to their three-year participation.

Artists of the Touchstone Center participating at PS 20 were Claudia Keel, Sarah Cooke and Richard Lewis.

IS 227 (Queens)

In January 1999, The Center began its residency by working with four sixth grade classrooms at IS 227 (Louis Armstrong School) in Queens. The first year of the Speakings project emphasized the many ways the natural world speaks to us. The result of this thematic exploration culminated in each student making two clay tiles expressing, through words and images, their individual "listenings" to nature.

During the summer of 1999, around a large mulberry tree on the school's grounds, staff member Noah Baen built a series of cement blocks where each of the tiles was mounted. In and around the mounted tiles, a garden was begun – planted in large part by students of the school in the fall of 1999.

During the second year of the project, the Center, beginning in January 2000, worked with three additional sixth grade classrooms, depicting through writing and art, the emergence of the universe and our earth's nature. A group of large murals created by each class expressing their collaborative vision of this early life were installed in the garden and formally dedicated in June, 2000 to the memory of Lewis McNeece, a member of the faculty of the school who died in the fall of 1998.

Artists of the Touchstone Center participating at IS 227 were Noah Baen (assisted by Noon Gourfain) and Richard Lewis.

Townsend Harris High School (Queens)

In February 1999, the Center began its residency by working, on an after school basis, with a group of students at the Townsend Harris High School in Queens. These students, chosen by members of the faculty of the school, concentrated their efforts, as part of the Speakings theme, on exploring the nature and origin of language. Each student, after a number of in-depth conversations and reflections on the emergence of language, made a series of tiles, under the direction of staff member, Elizabeth Crawford. These tiles, in conjunction with Ms. Crawford, were eventually designed and formatted by the students into a mural which was mounted in the hallway of the school and officially dedicated in the fall of 1999.

Artists of The Touchstone Center participating at Townsend Harris were Elizabeth Crawford and Richard Lewis.

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