Tony Di Giacomo:

I’m joined by Carol Ward, the director of the Larchmont, New York branch of the One River School of Art and Design offering arts education for people of all ages and skill levels through their unique customized project-based curriculum. One River Schools are transforming art education through their classes, camps, exhibitions, and more providing their students with fun dynamic opportunities to be creative and engage in personalized learning experiences. Thanks for joining us today, Carol.

Carol Ward:

Of course, thanks for having me.

Tony Di Giacomo:

So I’d like to start off with a brief overview of your background and what drew you to working with One River?

Carol Ward:

Sure. So my background is a couple of different things. I have my undergraduate degree in art history. I’ve got one Master’s in museum education and then my other master’s in art history. So I was one of those kids at an early age that knew that I wanted to focus something to do with art history. And I was fortunate enough in my undergrad, which was at Mary Washington college in Fredericksburg, Virginia to have really amazing mentors and decided to go into the museum and nonprofit arts world first off. So I worked at the Bruce museum in Greenwich, Connecticut for a while in the education department. The majority of my career prior to One River was at the Morris Chanel mansion in Washington Heights in New York city. I went from being director of education there to deputy director. And then the last four years of my time, there was as executive director. So leading the whole organization, which was amazing and have great stories from there. And then for the last three years, I’ve been here at one river, which is a really great culmination of the business side of my brain and me doing some retail and for-profit organizations before I went into museums. And then the nonprofit side of thinking about museum education and arts education and curatorial and community outreach as well.

Tony Di Giacomo:

So One River provides you with an opportunity to bring to bear all of what you’ve learned in the art world and help share that with students. And I’d be curious to learn more about One River School’s approach to arts education and really what makes your variety of classes so unique?

Carol Ward:

You know, we really view it as we’re transforming art education. So a lot of extracurricular art programs out there are either geared toward very young children or maybe some older citizens and go literally from pre-K all the way up to adults. My youngest student is just three and I think my oldest student is probably in their eighties and then there’s everyone in between. And what we really try to do is encourage people to go on their own art journey. So we have a curriculum that we follow. We have different prompts that we encourage our students to follow, but within that, they really get to make their own as well. So we might be talking about charcoal drawing and creating a still life from that. But the thing I love about our curriculum is at the end of that project, there’s 12 very different versions of that prompt.

Tony Di Giacomo:

We find, even though you work with a broader range of students than perhaps we do at Novella Prep for students in middle school, through college, we find that by encouraging students to deeply explore their interests early on, allows them to be able to conceptualize the ways they can manifest those passions into a future college, major or career. I’m wondering how you’ve come to understand the advantages of learning through the arts and creativity for today’s young adults,

Carol Ward:

Especially now as we’re going through COVID anything that’s creative is of the utmost importance. And we have a lot of, especially our teens going through a lot of things right now, they were going through things before COVID and COVID has just manifested a lot of feeling isolated and they’re in front of their screens all the times. So much of the artwork that we’re seeing from our students is really them getting all that energy and all those thoughts out that they can’t verbalize sometimes pre COVID same thing. The teenagers are really using their artwork to make a statement on what’s going on in the world, whether that’s black lives matter, gender equality, whatever, their niche of choices, and then also finding their personal kind of artistic voice themselves. And a lot of our students are looking to do this as a career and go to art school and go to college for the arts. And so it’s our hope that we’re guiding them along the way

Tony Di Giacomo:

That made me think a little bit about some of our students who maybe aren’t considering a pathway into the arts and we’re big fans of early engagement and enrichment activities. And we’ve seen this benefit students in a number of ways. Sometimes students, whether they’re struggling in school or not might find a creative outlet, a stress release, whatever it may be, but also some hidden talents that can be turned into skills and where that goes. We don’t have to have this construct of identity foreclosure, something we’ve been exploring lately. This idea that I’m on a track, I have to do that thing and I can’t veer elsewhere, or the skills I’m amassing are. So I can do X and thinking of things in too narrow of terms. So whether it’s coding, whether it’s foreign language, whether it’s music and whether it’s arts, we don’t see these things as you can only do it if you’d like it or are good at it, that it might be good for all students. And so I’m curious to know for those students who have not expressed an interest or a career or who aren’t planning on necessarily studying it, or aren’t even thinking about it like that, how does the arts programming a One River offers help students simply just learn a new lens of exploring life and a medium of art and all that brings

Carol Ward:

Before I go into that. So many people feel like I need to be quote unquote, successful at what I do. And there’s all these stigmas about you can’t be a successful artist or how can you make money being an artist? When I went into art history, I remember distinctly I was at a restaurant with my parents and we knew the wait staff there. And they’re like, what are you going to major in, in college? Oh, I’m going to do art history. Can you make money in that? Yes, you actually can. Cause there’s so many careers. So I think that’s something that we try to bring out to our students is that there’s a lot of different pathways to success if you want a major in the arts. And then to the other part of your question is I think we really view ourselves as a community resource.

Carol Ward:

And so that means that sure, there’s advanced teens that want to go to art school and we’re going to help them create a portfolio and all of that jazz. But there are people who don’t know what they want to do yet. Obviously younger students, but even teenagers, that it might be relaxation for them that they’re super stressed in school. They’ve got a lot going on and this is their hour and a half to just chill. We make a really great fun environment. People have made friends here. And so I think that’s part of the enrichment as well. And I don’t think you ever want to eliminate anything for someone let’s try music, let’s try art, let’s try coding and see, you know, what sticks you might like it. And you might not.

Tony Di Giacomo:

We found the same thing and people’s priorities can shift. Our interests can shift. And sometimes only later in life, when we look back and see how things in aggregate prepare us for where we are, it might be that they don’t make sense at the time, but they will later. But a lot of times if you follow what you like and are good at, that’s a good way to start in terms of, for students as a way of thinking, but also sometimes just simply engaging, especially in the physical world. We’re during a time when so much is digital, it’s nice to be able to do that. One river school seems to have a genuine interest in engaging with their local communities, particularly given the large age group of people you work with. What are some of the ways you do this and why has this ever been so important?

Carol Ward:

I think I definitely view us as a community resource. I actually grew up in the town over in Mamaroneck. And so I knew the local community pretty well when I opened the school in 2000 late, 2017, early 2018, and the community has really embraced us. And I think that’s the most important thing, whether it’s the local chamber of commerce, the mayor PTA’s and local mom groups, we are a for-profit organization. And so we really need people to believe in what we’re doing, become members and help us keep the doors open. That was something that was really important during COVID is building that trust with people saying we’re going to go virtual. We’re eventually going to come back in person. And we have all these really concrete safety procedures in place. So please come back and join us. And we had the busiest summer in our summer camps in 2020 than we’ve ever had.

Carol Ward:

We had over 500 summer campers, which was amazing and very thankful that we had that. And then on top of that, we’ll work with local malls and other organizations to bring our art outside of the walls. We always work with either local emerging artists or fairly contemporary in the, I would say tri-state area to showcase their work here in our gallery. And then also in the partnerships we do. And then we really built up a great relationship with rich Hill mall and Yonkers to do exhibitions there. A lot of retail organizations are struggling and have a lot of empty storefronts. So we’ll bring our students are to them. And then that way the mall looks fuller and then we get more outreach that way as well.

Tony Di Giacomo:

We touched upon this earlier, but you know, the pandemic has certainly had an impact on both arts and education. And you know, it’s certainly shaped some of the ways we approach student engagement here at novella prep. And I’m wondering how one river schools have adapted. And particularly as we approach summer vacation and students like ours are looking for engaging and enriching activities to do what can they consider doing

Carol Ward:

Back when everything started? We had to do a major pivot. Obviously we were fully in-person. And so last March through June, we went full virtual. Me and my staff were still here, but all our students were via zoom, which was different for everyone. And how do you create art when you’re not in the same room with someone? And so what we’ve done is kept that virtual experience and then brought back our in-person experience. So as people are starting to think about this summer, depending on their comfort level, they can do classes and camps with us online still, or they can come back and do in-person classes and camps with us as well. And we’re keeping all our safety procedures. We make sure that people are wearing masks. We take temperatures, we’ve limited the size of our camps and our classes and not because it’s just my voice and having to promote to everyone that’s listening to this. But our summers are always really special. Summer camps are half day. They’re all very focused on different seams and it’s a really great special energy in the summer, no matter what. And like I mentioned last summer felt even more special because it was the first time that some of these kids were out of their house. And I think we’re going to have a similar situation this summer as people become more comfortable coming back in person.

Tony Di Giacomo:

I think it’s very special for families to know the variety of different activities that students can engage in here in the tri-state area and locally in Westchester, and really considering arts as not simply a supplemental thing for students who have expressed interest in it, but one of the activities that can be very helpful for all students, anecdotally, a recent student of ours we’ve found who was struggling in school a little bit. We were teaching them enrichment and study skills as our program does. And we saw a lot of wonderful gains there, but along the way, noticed a sketch off to the side on his desk. And that led us to an, a discussion about arts. And he’s been able to then start engaging with one river. And I feel that it’s important for parents to pay attention to such cues for those who overtly expressed an interest, but also as something to consider because at the end of the day, even if it’s not going to lead to a career, it can just be a fun and very interesting and enriching. So anyway, with that, thank you so much for joining us today and let us know where can people learn more about

Carol Ward:

So they can physically come by and we are open for tours. So we’re at 2081 Boston Post Road in Larchmont, New York. And then you can give us a call (914) 893-6111 or everything is up on our website, which is larchmont.oneriverschool.com.

Tony Di Giacomo:

That’s great. Thanks so much, Carol. Appreciate you joining us today.

Carol Ward:

Of course. Thanks again for having me.

Tony Di Giacomo:

That’s all for this episode of a novel take. Thanks for listening. Remember to subscribe for more discussions on the latest education headlines, key topics and expert interviews. As always, you can learn more about us at novellaprep.wpengine.com and find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @novellaprep. I’m Dr. Tony Di Giacomo, bye for now.