Summertime Rejuvenation
The 26th Annual Institute for Creative Teaching

"This was probably one of the most meaningful professional development opportunities I've had in my entire career."  - Denver Public Schools Music Teacher

This comment from a participant at this year's Institute for Creative Teaching wasn't the only one of its kind. Our annual week-long professional development institute in aesthetic education and arts integration sparked remarks such as this from a number of attendees. 

Fifty educators from across the state came to Graland Country Day School to participate in arts workshops with Think 360 Arts' professional roster artists and delve into the theory and practice of integrating the arts into the classroom.
 
Participants danced, created papier mâché animalitos from recycled materials, developed theatre pieces and crafted their own poetry and musical beats. The inspiration, collaboration and innovation that took place each day was remarkable. Thanks to our wonderful faculty and staff, the 26th Annual Institute for Creative Teaching was a great success. Now these hard-working, dedicated teachers will go out to impact thousands of students through the arts integration practices gained from this professional development opportunity.

A special thanks to our amazing faculty, Molina Speaks , Tony Ortega , David Reuille , Mare Trevathan , Dr. Bruce Uhrmacher, Shannon Burgert, Donna Goodwin and Michael Medina, and to Graland Country Day School for hosting the 2015 Institute.  Also, a big thank you to City Pop Gourmet Popcorn, Einstein Bros. Bagels, Starbucks, Jason's Deli and Chipotle for providing coffee, breakfast, lunch and snacks to our participants.

Creative Learning Labs
Coming Fall 2015 

Our new artist training series is comng this fall! Creative Learning Labs are 2 ½ hour professional development workshops on a variety of topics pertinent to the needs of teaching artists and arts education providers.

For more details, including pricing and registration, please click HERE.

Our first workshops will be on Tuesday, September 22:

AM SESSION (9:00-11:30 am)
Social Media and You: How to Stand Out from the Cat Videos,  led by Chris Jones from Location3 Media

PM SESSION (1:00 pm to 3:30 pm)
Into the Wild: After School Programming,  
led by Joey Pace from the Office of Children's Affairs and Michelle Shedro & Caitlin Lindquist from Think 360 Arts
Congratulations to Our Monthly Awards Winners

Think 360 Arts recognizines an Outstanding Educator  and Outstanding Teaching Artist from our in-school programs each month.

Selected educators were exceptional to work with and showed enthusiasm for arts in education. Selected artists demonstrated innovation and outstanding student engagement in their program curriculum. 

 
May's Recipients
  • Educator: Kai Miller at Breckenridge Elementary School 
  • Artist: Peter Davison 
June's Recipients
  • Educator: Elizabeth Reed, Summer theater program held at Jefferson High School
  • Artist: Jesse Wilson
CAP Grant Final Reports 
 
This past spring marked the first cycle of the Colorado Arts Partnership Grants, which were presented by Think 360 Arts and Colorado Creative Industries to help Colorado schools fund inventive arts education projects with community artists. 

Nineteen schools from nine Colorado counties were awarded a total of $37,500 in grants for projects covering a multitude of artistic disciplines. It was exciting to see the final reports come in and read all about the innovation and collaboration happening in schools throughout the state. Murals were created, dances choreographed, art pieces displayed, instruments played, and theatre performed. 

Three programs that really caught our attention were Air Academy High School's Australian Dream Time Totem project in collaboration with Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, Burlington Elementary School's Meet the Instruments assembly, and Eagleview Middle School's Art Day.

With the help of five artists, Air Academy High School (AAHS) students were able to create 35 Aboriginal Dream Time Totem sculptures for permanent display both at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and the senior courtyard at AAHS. Nearly 700,000 visitors will see the student's final works of art annually at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. 

Burlington Elementary's geographic location limits the amount of outside exposure to the arts they can afford to give their students; with the money they received from the CAP Grant, the school brought the arts to the students. Three artists fr om Color ado Music Festival & Center for Musical Arts arrived at the school with  variety of musical instruments and set up music stations. After a performance from the artists, the students were divided into groups to go "meet the instruments".  A majority of these students had never had the opportunity to see, hear, and touch any of these instruments, but this program afforded them this special opportunity.

Eagleview Middle School decided to host an Art Day for over 350 students. Artists from the local and state art communities came for Art Day to teach small-group seminars to 6th - 8th graders in a variety of artistic fields: dance, yoga, architecture, graphic design, watercolor, puppetry, broadcast journalism and public speaking, improvisation, lyric writing, African drums, charcoal drawing, culinary arts, magic, and photography. Art Day not only immersed the students in the arts, but also exposed them to the various career opportunities available in the arts.

To read all of the final reports and see more photos of CAP Grants in action, visit our website HERE.

Check our website and look for e-blast updates about the next cycle of CAP Grants. The application window has not yet opened, but applications will be due on October 2 by 5pm.
New Blog Coming to Think 360 Website in August!

Keep any eye out for the new Think 360 Arts Blog, featuring guest bloggers on a variety of arts and arts education topics each month.

Know someone who might be great guest blogger for Think 360 Arts? Contact 
Artist Updates for July & August
Check out what our Teaching Artists are up to outside of Think 360 programming.

Tony Ortega's exhibition, "Hybridity", featuring new pastels, hand colored etching and acrylic paintings, will open at The William Havu Gallery on Friday August 14 and runs through September 19.

 

Curious Theatre Company is presenting a new play festival, Curious New Voices, featuring 7 short plays written by high school/college playwrights. Boldly imaginative, relevant and incredibly curious!

August 2 and 3 at 7:00 pm.

 

Michael Stanwood is having a busy summer with over 25 library shows, the Mid-day Music Meditation at the Boulder Library, and doing music therapy at Denver Health.  

 

The Colorado Chamber Players will perform with Denver School of the Arts student, Colton Trigg, at 12pm on July 23 at Children's Hospital in Aurora. The short concert is free to all. Colton is the winner of the CCP's Haydn prize. 

 

Lauren Kearns has a piece on display at Out of Round, a juried show sponsored by the Arvada Ceramics Guild.
 

Pam Faro will be performing "Folktale Heroes!" at Storytelling at Riverside Library in Evans, CO on July 22 and "Uncle Olaus Survives the Titanic" at the National Storytelling Conference in Kansas City, MO on July 31.

Mare Trevathan is performing in "Wittenberg" at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival through August 8.

Bob Campagna is teaching photography and design for the 17th year at College for Kids in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He also recently released his book "Northeast Iowa", a 90 image collection of black and white photographs spanning a 25 year time frame.

 

Bonnie Phipps was just inducted into the Autoharp Hall of Fame. She received the honor at the 25th annual Autoharp Gathering in Newport, Pennsylvania.

 
Maeve Eichelberger has a show, Ru-ral-hood, at Next Gallery in Denver running though August 2. The show is a collaboration with her father, Doug Eichelberger. They have created works with plexiglass and found materials from their ranch in Larkspur.

 

Taiko with Toni will be performing at the History Colorado Museum on July 18, at the D.L. Parsons Theatre in Northglenn on July 30, and at the Auraria Campus/CU Denver on August 31.

 

SETH has a very busy August ahead, including featured appearances with his band, Art Compost & the Word Mechanics, at Ziggies Poetry Fest (Aug. 2) and Denver Poets Day (Aug. 30). For more details visit www.wagingart.com.
 

Robert Bell will be back in the studio for the next couple months creating a new body of abstract works on wood panels based on a steel piece he created in 2007. Look for a show to open in the fall.  

Jennifer Ghormely

is presenting a number of workshops in July and August, including Mixed-Media Printmaking in July & August at Art Students League of Denver and multiple workshops at Breckenridge Arts District. She has exhibitions opening in August as well: Print & Process at Art Gym, August 6 - September 12, Interstitial Identity group exhibition at PlatteForum, August 13-28, and ArtCrank! at Breckenridge Arts District on August 19. 

 

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer is leading a class, Putting the Polish on Your Poems, at Ah Haa School of the Arts in Telluride from July 28 - August 25 along with A Four-Day Art & Writing Retreat for Women from August 13-16. She will also be at Ziggies Poetry Fest in Denver from July 31- August 2.

Think 360 Teaching Artists in Schools in July & August

 

donnie betts at Rise Up Community School

Eric Dallimore at Rise Up Community School

Jo Fitsell at DA-ARTT

Molina Speaks at The Studio School and Rise Up Community School

Andrea Moore at Creativity Challenge Community

 

 

Parents:  Interested in seeing your child's school on our list? Tell your school administration or classroom teacher about us. We work throughout Colorado and are always looking for ways to expand our programming.