Sometimes connecting with our community means making connections within our community. This is one of the main goals for the Carter’s community teaching team, which I get to manage. From its beginning, the Carter has had an educational focus aimed to engage students and visitors with the collection and exhibitions, but in recent years we’ve explored ways to look beyond our building’s walls to spread that engagement throughout Fort Worth. One of my favorite examples of this is our collaboration with Artes de la Rosa, one of the Carter’s community partners.

For years, the Carter has hosted art-making activities at Artes de la Rosa’s annual Dia de los Muertos festival, one of many cultural events hosted by the Northside-based organization. With the establishment of the community teaching team in 2019, the Carter has taken a more sustainable approach to strengthening long-standing community partnerships. In more recent years, the community teaching team has worked to develop several new community partnerships focused on K-12 students while continuing to nurture existing partners. Through this focused effort, the community teaching team collaborates closely with the leadership staff at Artes de la Rosa to create ongoing opportunities with their award-winning Artes Academy, which provides after-school and summer-camp programs throughout the year.

Located in the historic Rose Marine Theater, Artes de la Rosa includes Artes Academy, a youth program that allows students to participate in performing and visual arts classes culminating in impressive collaborative productions showcased at the end of each term. Anchored by the rich programming at Artes, the community teaching team brainstorms with Artes staff to identify methods of engaging Academy students with works from the Carter’s collection, as well as ways to involve Carter Community Artists to enhance Artes Academy’s offerings.

Developing the community partnership in this way, we’ve been able to invite artists to work with students on painting and building stage backdrops, creating masks and costumes inspired by the Carter’s exhibitions, and designing the programs for Artes productions using techniques and motifs inspired by the Carter’s collection.

The community teaching team has had the chance to assist Artes students organizing an exhibition of their own work with help from Carter curators and a Carter Community Artist who grew up in the Northside neighborhood. A real highlight was a workshop with a visiting artist from one of the Carter’s exhibitions where students got to visit the Museum, learn about the artist’s process, and then work together to create a large-scale installation outside a local coffee shop around the corner from Artes de la Rosa.

Establishing and growing lasting relationships with community partners like Artes de la Rosa allows for unique, authentic, and meaningful collaborations that enrich the experience of all who are involved while we connect with art and with one another!