Graduates Celebrate a Year in Art

For the past year and a half, I've enjoyed teaching at a school for teens who are trying to get their lives back together; they've dropped out of school, done drugs, got into gangs or any number of things that got them kicked out of the school system.  My job is to teach them art every week while they try and get back into school.  It's my favorite job, and the kids really work hard for me to open up and let their creative juices flow.  This week was the graduation of 11 of the teens, and a bittersweet time for me as a teacher.  It's hard to see these kids blossom over time and then fly away to different schools and different lives.  Here is some of the art they created over the year, as well as our reward recipient -- a young artist who really worked hard and put his own twist on everything he did.