As a boy growing up in India, Adarsh Alphons was expelled from school for doodling.
“I didn’t know how else to express myself,” he says. He eventually found a new school that allowed him to pursue his art — and his grades went up.
Years later, in 2011, Alphons drew on his childhood experiences when he founded the nonprofit ProjectArt. As an adult in New York City, he had worked at an art school that closed after the Great Recession. He wanted to continue teaching art to kids but didn’t want to be tied to a curriculum.
ProjectArt offers free after-school classes for kids living in underserved neighborhoods across the United States. The lessons are taught by emerging artists in public libraries. Supplies are provided free of charge, courtesy of one of the organization’s corporate partners, Blick Art Materials.
While the children learn how to paint and do collage, woodwork, and more, they also learn collaboration. Resident artists receive studio time in the libraries’ community rooms, filling normally little-used hours with shadow puppet shows, installations, and general beautification of the space.
After getting its start in New York, ProjectArt expanded to Miami and Detroit in 2016. It now holds classes in Chicago, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New Orleans as well.
Chire Regans, who creates art as VantaBlack, is shown here teaching at the Culmer/Overtown Branch Library, in Miami. Regans, who is from the area herself, focuses on community and social justice. Her art calls attention to black women and victims of gun violence.
“Residencies are so competitive for artists, so we are able to give more artists space to be in the city of their choice and create artwork that is social- and community-oriented,” Alphons says.
For the children in the program, he says, creating art can be a way to build something beautiful and put aside their worries. “There’s something cathartic to it, something meditative about it.”
