Brick x Brick exhibition and reception

We had a fantastic time!
Thanks to Flagler Arts Space, and our sponsors JP Morgan Chase and the National Endowment for the Arts.
And the great catering from downtown Miami neighbor, Macy's!

Highlights of BxB 2011

Check out some highlights of the creative fun we've had this year. We focused a lot on making art using recycled materials and creating temporary installations in public spaces. A huge number of kids participated in different activities over the course of this year, both at Mater Academy and Girl Power. Overall, we had an awesome year thanks to our sponsor: Miami Art Museum; our funders: JP MORGAN CHASE and the National Endowment for the Arts; our instructors: Nereida Garcia Ferraz, Michael Genovese, Dinorah de Jesús Rodriguez and Michelle Weinberg; and all the awesome kids who participated.

A special thanks go out to Federico and Nicolas Paseiro who took the time out to come down to the gallery and help us install the show. Nicolas Paseiro is also responsible for 90% of the music in the videos on display at the exhibition.

It was an amazing year and we can't wait for the next one!

Please come to our exhibition at Flagler Arts Space, 172 W. Flagler in downtown Miami, opening TODAY June 9 from 3-5PM.

Sneak Preview of Cubic Collaboration exhibition - - - -

Here are a few peeks at the end of year Brick x Brick exhibition at Flagler Arts Space downtown. Brothers Nicolas and Federico Paseiro are making magic with a site-specific string and tape installation. The students were involved in all aspects of this exhibition, deciding what works should be featured and where.

Come to the reception tomorrow, Thursday June 9, 3-5pm, 172 West Flagler, to see all the work plus a video sharing all the projects we worked on this year. Congratulations to everyone from Girl Power and Mater Academy.

A huge thank you to our funders, JP Morgan Chase and the National Endowment for the Arts.

A special thanks to Annie and Tom Blazejack and the artists at Flagler Arts Space for the opportunity to work in their fantastic space! Check out their blog to keep up with their activities.

The public is invited!

Brick x Brick page in Mater Academy school yearbook!

Outdoor painting of the woven mats

The girls at Girl Power had an extremely constructive day! After rapid mat weaving indoors, we brought the work outdoors to our colossal vacant lot studio to paint them using spray paint.

Woven recycled mats at Girl Power

The girls became really adept at weaving cardboard strips into construction mesh - to form surprisingly durable and beautiful floor mats or wall coverings. They are flexible, lightweight - and coincidentally have a brick pattern!

Still life drawing at Girl Power

We got back to basics at Girl Power. Once we made the papier mache bricks, we stacked them to form a tabletop city, and we approached it like a traditional still life drawing assignment. Simple cubes, spheres, columns arranged in space led to some fantastic drawings by the girls. Too many good ones to show here. Just a selection.....

Outdoor Paintings at Mater

We took our clay, some tape, spray paint, paint, glass tiles, and colored chalk and worked on these plywood boards that we found lying abandoned in an empty lot near Mater. We created these lovely paintings and installations and left them there for the community to enjoy.

Listening and Making New Sounds

Brick x Brick artist Michael Genovese shares his work with Miami Art Museum MAM Contemporaries

check out Anne Tschida's article covering a special event organized by the MAM Contemporaries in honor of the purchase of work by Michael Genovese.

Click to read The art of a scribe and the building of a community on KnightArts blog.

Mesh banner at Girl Power

Today at Girl Power, we added color and pattern to our hand-sewn mesh banner via spray paint. We're thinking about layers, about using the spray paint to add pattern using silhouettes from found objects. A vacant lot is a fantastic workplace!

This work will be accompanied by another more rugged banner - perhaps we're creating a backdrop for more 3D works to come. We're starting to think about our installation for Brick by Brick's end of the year exhibition on June 9!

Vizcaya's Gardens

Here some more images from last Friday's visit to Vizcaya.
Enjoy them!

Field Trip to Vizcaya!

We spent an unforgettable day during our "Pink-T-Shirt Invasion" at Vizcaya, where we were lucky enough to meet Ernesto Oroza, the artist who currently has an exhibit there as part of Vizcaya's Contemporary Art Program.









Vizcaya is undoubtedly one of Miami's most interesting locations, and we really enjoyed our visit there. The building is really interesting, as well as the contents of the mansion (we were only allowed to take pictures outside) and the gardens were totally amazing! Some of us walked the maze in the Maze Garden - it wasn't as easy at it looked!

Clay Projects at Mater Academy

We started out by creating our own clay brick factory. We mass-produced hundreds of tiny bricks, then used them to build our amazing projects.

Girl Power works on a mesh banner

Inspired by a construction cover for a building during renovation by Landscape Architect Ken Smith, the girls at Girl Power set to work transforming their own giant piece of mesh. Using found fabric flowers and thread, the mesh banner is a work in progress. Needlework skills are being picked up along the way.

MOBILES at Mater Academy