This past Thursday, 327 students from eight local scools descended on our studio for the first of four Field Trip Days we’re hosting this Spring. Every year we open our 56,000 square-foot studio to Bay Area students so they can see what industrial arts education looks like up close.
Parents rejoice–our 2020 Guide to Youth Camps is finally here! Browse and register for all upcoming Spring and Summer Youth Camp options.
Printing a 52-page catalog uses a lot of trees. And trees are awesome! So instead of making our traditional catalog, we're moving in a new direction. What would have been our 2020 volume 2 catalog has been reimagined [cue sparkly sound effect].
It’s hard to believe 20 years have passed since establishing our first (and much smaller) studio in Berkeley. We kicked off 2019 with a renewed dedication to expanding class offerings, adding dozens of new options and bringing back several old favorites. We also expanded our Fuego Youth Leadership Program and introduced the first in a three-year OUSD grant-funded partnership with McClymonds High School.
Pablo Cambron-Valdez has been interested in art and sculpture since childhood. He would often make figurines out of clay his mom brought home from work or attempt origami from scraps of paper. But when he took his first Glass Blowing class the summer before high school–a gift he received for getting good grades–he knew it was something special.
Samantha Espinoza first visited The Crucible in 2017 when she brought her high school students for a field trip. As someone who’s made art most of her life, she knows first hand the importance of arts education and the impact educators, specifically, those of color, can have on a student’s creative confidence. It wasn’t long before she connected with staff and soon thereafter became faculty in the Leather, Textiles, and Fine Art Department for youth summer camps.
For the first time in the Fuego Youth Leadership Program’s 10-year history, we invited first and second year leaders to work together for four weeks of collaboration, culminating in the 2019 Fuego Youth Leadership Reception this past Friday.
In our 2018 Youth Impact Report, you can see just how much you made possible—free field trips for youth, over $100,000 in youth scholarships, and much more!
This year, in honor of Fuego’s tenth anniversary, we have expanded the program to be four weeks long, where both years work and learn together.
Erick Dawkins first came to The Crucible on a fourth-grade field trip and has now taken four classes, finding accomplishment making with his hands.