Art Buddy Spotlight: Reginaldo Reyes, Mentor

Reginaldo (Reggie) Reyes is a Senior Design Manager for In Store Marketing at Target, and has been an Art Buddy for two semesters. In addition to volunteering as a creative mentor, he is always on the lookout for art materials and supply donations that kids and mentors can use to create unique and imaginative costumes during each semester of Art Buddies.

How would you describe Art Buddies to someone who has never heard of the program?
It's an amazing opportunity for a creative professional to put their skills and vision to use to help unleash students' minds.

What has been your most memorable experience as an Art Buddy?
When my first buddy shared with me his vision for his costume, I was amazed how he articulated a fire king and his inspirations of a phoenix.

Why did you decide to become active with Art Buddies?
I wanted some balance in my career and had an opportunity and the time to be active with the program. I'm so happy that I did, as the program gives me joy just to see how these kids' minds work.

What advice would you give to rookie Art Buddies?
Be open. Let loose. Go with the flow. Don't seek perfection.

Define what one-on-one mentoring means to you and how it can impact the lives of children.
Mentoring provides opportunities to share your life and experiences with a mentee, and help them see the world in a different light.

How do you feel the after-school combination of creativity and mentoring helps children with school work?
I think it frees up their minds to try things differently as they approach problems and situations. It also gives them something to look forward to after school.

Tell us about a unique or interesting experience with your Art Buddy that inspired you.
The simplest vision can lead to incredible thinking and stories. My Art Buddy's costume this year is a penguin, and it was chosen not for being cute, but being a leader of the pack, and focuses on family. Who knew what could come from penguin beginnings?

While you were sharing knowledge with your Art Buddy, did you ever find they were teaching you something equally important? If so, what?
Yes. Being resourceful with the things that you have.

Have you gained new friendships or expanded your network with adult Art Buddies during the program?
Yes. I've connected with people that I've known or worked with as well as new people that I look forward to catching up with.

What are some of your favorite costume creations, and what inspired your Art Buddy to choose that costume?
I've only participated in one full session, so I would have to say that was one cool costume that my Art Buddy created. My favorite piece was the staff that we created out of gift-wrapping tubes that we made look like a fire staff as part of his Fire King outfit. His emblem was the phoenix that we created as part of his breastplate.

Photo courtesy Mike Habermann

Art Buddies accepts mentor applications every fall and spring. Learn how you can volunteer with Art Buddies at http://www.artbuddies.org/volunteer/.

10 Lessons the Arts Teach

At Art Buddies, we use the power of creativity, self-expression through artistic methods, and one-on-one mentoring to change children’s lives. The significant impact of the kind of arts learning provided by Art Buddies is highlighted here by the late Elliot Eisner, acclaimed professor of Art and Education at the Stanford Graduate School of Education:

1. The arts teach children to make good judgments about qualitative relationships. Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it is judgment rather than rules that prevail.
   
   
2. The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution and that questions can have more than one answer.
   
   
3. The arts celebrate multiple perspectives. One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.
   
   
4. The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem solving purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity. Learning in the arts requires the ability and a willingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.
   
   
5. The arts make vivid that fact that neither words in their literal form nor numbers exhaust what we can know. The limits of our language do not define the limits of our cognition.
   
   
6. The arts teach students that small differences can have large effects. The arts traffic in subtleties.
   
   
7. The arts teach students to think through and within a material. All art forms employ some means through which images become real.
   
   
8. The arts help children learn to say what cannot be said. When children are invited to disclose what a work of art helps them feel, they must reach into their poetic capacities to find the words that will do the job.
   
   
9. The arts enable use to have experience we can have from no other source and through such experience to discover the range and variety of what we are capable of feeling.
   
   
10. The arts’ position in the school curriculum symbolizes to the young what adults believe is important.

SOURCE: Eisner, E. (2002). The Arts and the Creation of Mind, In Chapter 4, What the Arts Teach and How It Shows (pp. 70-92). Yale University Press.
Available from NAEA Publications. NAEA grants reprint permission for this excerpt from Ten Lessons with proper acknowledgment of its source and NAEA.

To obtain a digital version of this document, please visit www.arteducators.org/advocacy.

Visit Blick to support Art Buddies this season

This holiday season, Art Buddies is partnering with Julius Jr. and Blick Art Materials in the national Donation for Imagination campaign! As a charitable partner of this giving event, we’re excited to offer a unique opportunity for you to donate art supplies for Art Buddies, and receive a special discount for your own Blick purchase. Visit Blick Art Materials in Minneapolis, Edina, or Roseville, MN between Dec. 2 and Dec. 24, 2014 to participate.

GIVE: Purchase any new art material as designated for Art Buddies at local retail locations, and receive 20% off that item!

& GET: Receive 20% off your next purchase, valid 12/26-12/31/14!*

See your local store for more information and your in-store coupon. Visit this link to learn more about the Donation for Imagination campaign: http://www.dickblick.com/stores/promotions/DFI14

*Standard exclusions apply. See store for further details.