Making Art and Art Therapy Accessible to Underserved Populations
ARTsmart Exhibition
For more than 15 years, LMU’s College of Communication and Fine Arts’ (CFA) Summer Arts Workshop has offered art therapy to local underserved schools. Kids benefit by using art to explore their thoughts and beliefs and find their voices; LMU students gain valuable experience and service hours required to graduate by designing curriculum and facilitating programs. When COVID-19 forced all in-person programming to shut down, the Summer Arts Workshop had to reimagine its offerings.
Thanks in part to a gift from the Max H. Gluck Foundation, not only was the Summer Arts Program able to expand its programming throughout the year, but also CFA’s ARTsmart Community Service-Learning Program and Community Dance Project received funding boosts, as well.
“Funding from the Gluck Foundation means recognition and joint effort in serving diverse youth populations, using art and artistic expression as a means of tapping into their critical potential to both express inner thoughts and experiences, and make manifest diverse ways of seeing themselves and the world,” said CFA Dean Bryant Alexander.
Augmenting the Summer Arts Workshop with several mini-workshops was critical during this time of virtual learning, benefiting both participants and graduate students. Art therapy workshops provide a tremendous opportunity for LMU CFA students to develop and teach their own curricula, often deepening their desire to become lifelong servant-leaders and teachers.
“The Gluck Foundation has allowed us to stay connected to these kids throughout the year in mini-workshops as opposed to once a year,” said Jessica Bianchi, clinical assistant professor of Marital and Family Therapy/Art Therapy. “The communities we serve are Latinx and Black populations, which are being hit the hardest right now with COVID-19, anxiety, isolation, and political stress. We have the opportunity to provide much-needed mental health support that these communities so badly need and their leadership have asked us to provide.”
The virtual setting also allowed the workshops to be held at Central Juvenile Hall High School, a place previously inaccessible due to visitor restrictions. Since the students have been participating in the art therapy workshops, the principal has called the difference he’s witnessed in them miraculous.
The Gluck Foundation finds the partnership with LMU helps advance its goals. “The primary mission of the Max H. Gluck Foundation is to promote and provide art education to underserved communities,” said Chairman Dr. Jon Kaswick. “By definition, underserved communities are those that have been denied those resources previously provided by public education and government. Our foundation and similar nonprofit institutions are essential to fill this void. We embrace the opportunity to do so."
To support programs in the LMU College of Communication and Fine Arts, contact Melissa Mooney, director of development, at Melissa.Mooney@lmu.edu or 310.338.5975, or visit here.