Dragonfly Community Arts is proud to sponsor and fund the annual youth mentorship program at Art Bias. The program is a partnership with Sequoia High School in Redwood City, Calif., and provides eligible high school students with the opportunity to learn new art mediums and work with established artists at the Art Bias studios in San Carlos, Calif.

“The cool thing about this mentorship is that it last the whole year with the same small group of kids and it’s in depth and hopefully very life changing," said Terra Fuller, executive director of Art Bias. “Basically, the idea is to give them access to professionals in the art world and help them cultivate their creative confidence and to put them in touch with a creative and supportive diverse community of artists.”

Over the year-long mentorship, students meet weekly with their mentors and take part in hands-on art making, portfolio development, artistic field trips, an end-of-the year gallery show, and much more. Just some of the art mediums the mentors have been exposed to include painting (cold wax, watercolor, oil pastel), fashion illustration, weaving, felting, Chinese brush painting, portraiture, printmaking, and graphic design/mixed media.

Yunan Ma, one of the youth mentors, said she has seen first-hand the student growth over the year-long program.

“After just one month, I can see huge improvements in the youth, in terms of their knowledge about weaving techniques, and how they use these techniques to create something beautiful they like, yet each of them is so different,” said Ma.“ In the last session, I was so proud to see the students confidently playing with the fibers and different stitches to transform their inspirations to wall arts. I was surprised to know that they had a high standard with the outcome and they were all very persistent about their designs.”

The success of the program is also being noticed by others in the community. In fact, the mentorship was awarded a prestigious recognition by the Sequioa Unified School District Board of Trustees.

Mozelle da Costa Pinto, art instructor at Sequoia High School, has also seen the positive change in the student mentees.

“I can literally see the positive impact this Art Bias program/internship opportunity has given each of them,” she said. “It is so cool. Thank you to all of the artists who have enriched these young artists’ lives.”

Dragonfly would like to thank everyone who put together this amazing opportunity, including Terra Fuller, executive director of Art Bias, and Christle Waters and Mozelle da Costa Pinto, art instructors at Sequoia High School. We will continue to bring you updates throughout the year on the journey for the students and their amazing mentors.  

‍

‍