Over the past twelve years ArtiCulture has reached thousands of members of our community with accessible arts experiences. ArtiCulture is a 501(c)3 non-profit arts organization based the heart of the diverse Seward neighborhood in Minneapolis, residing in a 3,000 square-foot space with 3 classrooms. Our mission is to educate, enrich and nurture through the visual arts. We are dedicated to arts programming to further experiential arts experiences to new audiences. We do this though classes, public art opportunities, partnerships, and artist residencies in the schools. Additionally, we have a small retail space that is solely dedicated to selling original work of local artists. Our contracted instructors are all professional artists with extensive teaching experience that share our vision.

Held to high standards of arts education, ArtiCulture has a well-established on-site education program that runs throughout the year for all ages and abilities from 12 month old toddlers and children to teens and adults. From the strong pedagogy of this core programming, stems all other programming—with involvement in requested outreach projects as well as programming initiated from within. Our educational programming structure in conjunction with community organizing and partnerships, goes to the heart of our goal to make arts accessible to all.

Our educational philosophy differentiates between the creative process (the act of creating) and sequential learning (following directions with the focus on an end product). Too often arts education is the latter, which employs the left logical/sequential brain hemisphere, while process engages the creative cognition of the right brain. We offer lectures to educators and parents descibing that process is where learning and growth takes place while the end product, if there is one, is not the goal but the outcome of process.

Funded partnership projects enable us to go to the heart of creating opportunities for marginalized populations such as at-risk youth, people with physical and mental disabilities, people with mental illness, children with autism, and using art as healing with people in alcohol and drug rehabilitation. Our community projects often incorporate teens to integrate arts learning with life skills, community activism and leadership while addressing neighborhood issues such as graffiti, traffic slowing, beautification, and neighborhood livability and engagement. Here's an example of one of our community projects:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BwfSoX94n7KFNDExOGJjOGItMzlhNC00OTEyLWJjMDUtZDQyYTZhNzRjNmZh

Your contribution helps to support:

• Scholarships
• Purchase of art supplies
• Keeping our tuition fees affordable
• Sustaining accessibility to marginalized populations
• Community activism through the arts
• Our teaching artists
• ... and more ...