A message from Executive Director Dr. Kimberly Keith
It’s Spring at Hilltop Artists and we’re blossoming while the challenges of the past two years become compost – teaching us lessons and providing nourishment.
We’ve germinated new ideas, synthesized learning, grown through adversity, and cross-pollinated partnerships and projects.
Artists Therman Statum and Nate Watson work with Hilltop Artists students at Pilchuck Glass School, May 2022.
I’m running out of gardening metaphors, but suffice to say that our current crop of students are flourishing and our programs are bearing fruit. (I still had more metaphors left!)
Our students returned to in-person learning last fall and most had never worked with glass. As a result, our Team Production program had very few experienced artists.
Now, at the end of the school year, we have a full complement of skilled Production students – with more young women, nonbinary youth, and diverse students than ever before.
Our glass programs are fertile ground (wink) for creative expression, comprehensive skill building, and establishing friendships.
Student Destiny creates a glass house with artists Therman Statum and Cedric Mitchell.
The increased student diversity, their growth of social and emotional skills, as well as the mushrooming (ahem) of our positive organizational culture, is largely due to a continued investment in JEDI training and the application of a JEDI lens to all of our work.
JEDI is an acronym for Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion and I’d like to share examples of how it shows up in our work.
JUSTICE
Justice can be seen as we make a conscientious and sustained effort to remove barriers and hold space in the glass field/community for Black and Brown students and artists. Glass has been overwhelmingly white and male since the 12th century, and continues to be one of the most expensive and exclusive art mediums.
Student Eddie assists visiting student artist LA during the Hilltop Artists GAS Conference party.
By developing relationships with Crafting the Future, Better Together, and Glass Impact, we have been able to support staff, students, and alumni with new and more opportunities.
For example, In May, ten of our African American artists (six middle schoolers, two high schoolers, and two alumni) went to Pilchuck Glass School for two days to blow glass with the African American artists’ collective Better Together.
This summer, nine students will receive full residency scholarships to the Appalachian Center for Crafts and Corning Museum of Glass.
Also in May, over 20 youth and instructors from Glass Impact member organizations around the country came to Tacoma to attend the Glass Art Society (GAS) Conference; all participated in demonstrations and panels along with more than 15 of our own Hilltop Artists’ students.
EQUITY
Equity motivated us to host the visiting youth at the GAS conference. Providing accommodation and support helped everyone feel welcomed and cared for; for most, this was their first conference and we wanted them to feel a part of it from the beginning.
Equity is evident in our tuition-free programs – no one has to pay, so money doesn’t create a barrier to participation. This extends to the free glass fusion workshops we now offer at Tacoma Public Library branches in the South End.
DIVERSITY
Diversity is celebrated in our exhibition GATHER: 27 Years of Hilltop Artists (on view at the Tacoma Art Museum through September 4th). Many of the artists in GATHER are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) and all are Hilltop alumni; seven of the artists are staff at Hilltop Artists.
In addition to expanding who works in the medium of glass, this exhibit expands who is accepted in the rarified museum space and into the canon of fine artists. This exhibition is making history.
INCLUSION
The staff celebrates Dr. Kim’s 5th anniversary with Hilltop Artists.
Inclusion can be seen in all of Hilltop Artists’ operations. As of May 2022, we became a majority minority staff (9 of 17 staff members are BIPOC).
We partner with Tacoma Public Schools, the Out of School and Summer Learning Network, the Youth Serving Agencies Network, Glass Impact, the Arts and Culture Coalition of Pierce County, and with these partners we conduct many free community programs and projects.
Blowing glass is a team building activity with inclusion at its core – students develop a shared verbal and non-verbal language which promotes social and emotional learning through focused, collaborative activity. Over 600 students benefit from learning and engaging in this process each year.
Using a JEDI lens to interrogate our work is key to ensuring student success and the success of Hilltop Artists. This work is complex, intersectional, and necessary. Doing extensive JEDI training over the past two years was a silver lining of the pandemic.
Hilltop Artists will continue cultivating talented students, propagating innovative programs, and sowing the seeds of community well-being. Healthy flora need water, fertilization, and love in order to grow, and we need your support to help our garden flourish.
Donate today and help us reach our Summer goal of $50,000.
Give generously so we can continue to nurture and grow even more blossoms in our hot house, er hot shop. (I guess I have an almost endless supply of garden-related metaphors!)
Sincerely,
Dr. Kimberly F. Keith
Executive Director
