Through multiple artistic disciplines taught by professional artists, Arts For All serves approximately 5,000 children a year who have little means or opportunity to explore the arts.
Welcome to Arts For All
Arts For All offers accessible artistic opportunities to children in the New York City area who face socio-economic, physical, or emotional barriers to exploring the arts. Through Arts For All, professional artists work with youth organizations to build self-confidence, self-expression, teamwork, resilience, and creativity in children.
How You Can Help
Thanks to the support of donors/volunteers like you, we’re able to bring our creative arts workshops to over 5,000 in-need NYC kids every year!
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New Virtual Classroom Video Series! Today we are premiering Lesson #1 of "Art as Storytelling"
In Lesson 1 of "Art as Storytelling," led by Teaching Artist Ciara Ruddock, artists will follow along in deconstructing a painting and creating a painting using colors that symbolize how they feel that day. Artists will then cut up the painting and piece it back together. This lesson will end with an optional poetry exercise.
"Art as Storytelling" is a series of guided visual art activities to encourage emotional expression and explore internal dialogue. Intended to teach the artist how to make art using a story, situation, or feeling that we may be unable to express with words.
Each piece will begin with a grounding body scan, followed by art making, and will end with a series of ways to continue the process - such as adding a writing component, sharing, or simply releasing your work into the world.
Ciara Ruddock is a contemporary visual artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Her primary interest lies in abstraction and gestural expression working in the mediums of painting and drawing. Ciara is passionate about inclusive art education and has worked with museums, schools and private institutions throughout the United States to develop accessible arts programming for children and adults alike.
Through our Artistic Residency Program, AFA’s professional artists teach music, theater, dance, visual art, poetry and film workshops to under-served children aged 4-19. AFA partners with public schools and community organizations lacking funding for arts programming. We work with the needs of our partnering organizations to provide arts programs for the length of time, age groups and artistic disciplines they request.
AFA's Artistic Residency Program is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
AFA's Artistic Residency Program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
AFA's Artistic Residency Program is supported in part by a grant from the Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation.
About Arts For All: Arts For All’s mission is to offer accessible artistic opportunities to children in the New York City area who face socio-economic, physical, or emotional barriers to exploring the arts. Through Arts For All, professional artists work with youth organizations to build Arts For All’s Core Values: Self-Confidence, Self-Expression, Teamwork, Resilience, and Creativity.
#artsforallnyc #nonprofit #workshopwednesdays #teachingartist #art #education #arteducation #socialemtionallearing #SEL #corevalues #selfconfidence #selfexpression #teamwork #resilience #creativity
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Today's "A Day in the Classroom with Arts For All" entry showcases Teaching Artists Briget Villanueva, Brynne O'Rourke & Kalyani Singh's residencies at PS15.
"A Day in the Classroom with Arts For All" highlights the work our teaching artists do with the students in our programs. This featured class recap was written by AFA intern Noor Tannir (Teaching Artist Project / Sarah Lawrence College Masters Program) as she shadowed several teaching artists at their respective schools during the spring of 2026.
To read today's entry as well as future and past recaps, visit: www.arts-for-all.org/category/a-day-in-the-classroom/
#artsforallnyc #nonprofit #teachingartist #art #education #arteducation #dance #movement #corevalues #selfconfidence #selfexpression #teamwork #resilience #creativity
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In Video #1 of The Sensory Museum, AFA Teaching Artist Nicole Hogsett introduces children to the sense of sight and helps them understand how colors, shapes, and observation play a crucial role in visual perception.
This video series incorporates Spanish vocabulary to assist young English Language Learners (ELL) as well as English speaking youth looking to learn Spanish. The Sensory Museum video series is designed to engage elementary students (ages 4-8) in exploring the five senses through interactive and creative activities. Each episode will focus on one of the senses—sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch —using theater, music, movement, and visual arts to enhance learning.
#artsforallnyc #WorkshopWednesdays #nonprofits #art #education #teachingartists #literacy #reading #movement #music #dance #theatre #sensory #sight #hearing #smell #taste #touch #corevalues #SelfConfidence #selfexpression #teamwork #resilience #Creativity
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