Level 1: Classroom Workshops
artworxLA operates a long-term, sequential arts program that changes creatively links overlooked alternative high school students with professional artists, cultural institutions and communities to imagine, produce, and present new work.
Level 1:
Classroom Art Workshops and Public Presentations
artworxLA students participate in two 15-week workshops series in the fall and spring of each academic year. Professional artists guide students to create art that connects to exhibitions and programs at L.A. museums, theaters, and cultural centers. Each 15-week workshop culminates in our Public Presentations—interactive exhibitions celebrating student artwork at our cultural partner venues.
Are you a student?
Learn about art
discover arts of your time and the past
learn how to turn your creative passions into a career
visit museums across the county
Make art
enter as a beginner—no prior skills necessary
try out different types of art in a supportive environment
be expressive!
Connect with the world
find creative community in LA
display your art in major institutions
gain transferable skills for creative and non-creative jobs
Why you?
you have no choice/need credits
you are curious about art
you seek educational & career opportunities
Student Stories
Anais joined artworxLA programs at Alonzo CDS. After completing her first foundation level workshop with artworxLA Teaching Artist Sol Alvarez, Anais signed up to take part in our Level 2: Afterschool Residencies in Music Production and Leadership. Passionate about fashion design, Anais then registered to be part of our Fashion Residency with Otis College of Art and Design. In December 2018, Anais was awarded a Summer scholarship to USC School of Architecture. Filmed By Erica Eng, this film features a day in the life and Anais and her passion for using her illustrations to create her own fashion brand.
Get to know Anais.
FALL 2022 Workshop Themes
THE ART OF ALLEGORY WITH MOCA LA
Allegory combines the question of what you see and experience with why it is there. Why do artists use storytelling to speak to larger social, political, or spiritual ideas? How do images, objects, and stories hold multiple meanings? Students will investigate these questions through two special exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (MOCA) this fall: artist Judith F. Baca’s collaborative, portable mural entitled World Wall: A Vision of the Future Without Fear, and artist and filmmaker Garrett Bradley’s exhibition entitled Garrett Bradley: American Rhapsody. Responding to these works within their Level 1 workshops, artworxLA students will explore their own allegorical approach to collaborative storytelling through painting, photography, video, and sound, envisioning futures of hope, joy, and agency.
WATERWAYS WITH THE AUTRY
What is your relationship with water? Nearly every major population center on the planet is situated along a major waterway, as our students discover living in Los Angeles County. The special installation Waterways, part of the Human Nature exhibition at the Autry Museum of the American West, will present waterways and maritime cultures as central to local Native California communities, specifically Gabrielino-Tongva, Chumash, Tataviam, and Ajachamen peoples. Through a variety of visual and performing arts activities in multiple media, students will learn about topics including the role of tule and abalone in local ecology and indigenous cultural practices, how water is featured in foundational stories, vessel-making and traditions of travel along water, and efforts to center traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and restore sacred connections to water.
Public Presentations
Teaching Artists
Level 1 Workshops are led by our team of Teaching Artists, creative professionals from a range of disciplines trained in best practices for arts education.
artworx@home online workshops
