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Programs - Visual Arts

Program Mission: HOLA's Visual Arts and Culture Program encourages youth to channel their energy and emotion into creative endeavors in the visual arts, developing their powers of self-expression, instilling self-confidence, and fueling their interest in learning.

HOLA's Visual Arts and Culture Program provides quality programming to inner city youth who have little or no access to such classes inside or outside of school.  HOLA's facilities include three art studios, a fine arts library, music rooms, and a dance studio.  HOLA's visual arts curriculum is designed and delivered by professional art instructors, college professors and passionate volunteer artists who combine their efforts to provide intensive arts education for at-risk youth.  Current class offerings include ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, comic book drawing and print making. Each year, over 150 youth participate in the Visual Arts and Culture Program. 

Program Goals

  • Foster commitment to project/goal completion
  • Accelerate and sustain proficiency in the visual and performing arts
  • Encourage self-expression and improve self-confidence among underserved youth
  • Promote post secondary education and arts-related employment opportunities.
   
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How can you  support HOLA's Visual Arts Program?

Volunteer: We always need tutors in Math, English, Science and Speech to work one on one with our art students.  If you are interested in volunteering, please contact Maria Galicia at mgalicia@heartofla.org 

 


 

Nara Hernandez

Fine Arts Director

Nara comes to HOLA via a circuitous adventure that began when her family left Mexico City after the 1985 earthquake. She made it to Long Beach and from there to UC Santa Cruz where she received her BA in Art History and Visual Culture. Her love of museums, art, and education led her to the San Diego Museum of Man and the Autry National Center. From Los Angeles, Nara returned to Mexico City to work at the Museo Nacional de Antropología, and then to El Museo del Barrio in New York, and to Washington, D.C. as a Smithsonian Fellow.

A few years and a master’s degree from Brown University later, Nara found herself back in Los Angeles where she recently worked on the Siqueiros Mural Center with the Getty and the City of Los Angeles.

Nara, a trained ballet dancer and avid photographer (she studied photography at RISD), feels that art education is a positive catalyst for today’s youth and the communities they live in. She is excited to bring experience and desire to HOLA, helping to give local youth an opportunity to explore themselves and their place in the world through creative expression.