What we do
With creativity at the center of everything we do, SkyART provides free, safe, open spaces where young people are empowered, nurtured and connected through art. SkyART offers programs with community partners who align with our mission and core values of Accessibility, Responsiveness, Totality and Stability. Our partners include other nonprofit organizations, public institutions or corporations. Programs offered within the greater community at offsite locations include art therapy programs through Project Impact, Make Your Mark painting activiations and SkyWAY workshops. We aim to reach new communities where we can make a difference through our innovative approach to art programming.
Project Impact (Art Therapy)
SkyART’s Project Impact programs are led by licensed Art Therapists or masters level interns in open-studio style art sessions with small groups of youth who are empowered to heal trauma or explore their identities through visual art. Art can be a powerful tool for healing and communicating. Working with an image can help youth connect without shutting down. Colors, lines and shapes allow young people to express emotions that are difficult to put into words. SkyART works with Art Therapists and art therapy interns from UChicago’s Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice to provide healing creativity to communities of young people who have been impacted by adversity during their childhood. Current community partners where SkyART provides art therapy include Brainerd Park Apartments, a housing complex for families who have experienced homelessness, the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice (IDJJ), the Saura Center, a group home alternative for youth involved in the juvenile justice system, and Family Rescue, a shelter for victims of domestic violence.
Make Your Mark
Make Your Mark is SkyART’s signature collaborative large-scale painting, originally created in SkyART’s studio by young participants who enter the space and affirm their presence by literally making their mark on a collaborative canvas. Participants are encouraged to make as big or small of a mark as they care to without words or symbols. Over the course of a 10-week session, the paintings become one-of-a-kind abstract masterpieces. SkyART uses Make Your Mark paintings to engage communities for one-time events. Over the course of a day, as many as two hundred people have participated in the creation of one Make Your Mark. In Spring of 2019, SkyART worked with Greater Chicago Food Depository staff and volunteers to create a Make Your Mark canvas to mark the inauguration of their newly renovated headquarters. The painting created by GCFD staff hangs alongside two Make Your Marks by SkyART participants. Through corporate sponsorship, SkyART engages with companies to facilitate the creation of their own masterpiece through an engaging, team-building activity.
SkyWAY
In some cases, SkyART may provide ongoing SkyWAY programming at the site of a partner organization. Through the SkyWAY and our Artist in Residence model, we aim to animate the space with creativity, experimentation and free choice. The SkyWAY, our signature studio pedagogy, is centered around a four step methodology. First, connecting: participants and Teaching Artist share a mindful moment, a few deep breaths or a moment of silence. Second, seeing: teaching Artists demonstrate new art forms and expand participants’ definitions of art through exposure. Third, creating: participants lead the art-making, creating their project in their own style with the support of Teaching Artists. Finally, fourth, reflecting: participants and Teaching Artists reflect on what they’ve created and what they see.