Happy Holidays from the Education Team

From record-breaking attendance in our museum programs and residencies to the launch of Memory Lounge, we have several reasons to celebrate a year filled with arts education experiences. In fact, we have 12 of them:

Twelve months of creative aging programs;

Eleven partners and artists who brought hands-on experiences to the Community Art Studio at the Scottsdale Arts Festival;

Ten Wolf Trap teaching artists;

Nine art-making robots built in a Cultural Connections artist residency;

Eight exhibitions in the Young @ Art Gallery and the ArtReach Space;

Seven thousand dollars raised in the Alli Ortega Empty Bowls program;

Six Kennedy Center teaching artists who delivered professional development workshops for teachers;

Five hundred hours of art instruction for teens in our Visions program;

Four matinees at the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts;

Three Memory Lounge events;

Two new museum programs; and

One artful community.

We wish you a happy holiday season and look forward to an exciting 2018.

Thank You for an Incredible Year

The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA) wishes to thank everyone who has contributed to the Museum’s very successful year. The summer exhibitions, driven by the incredible public excitement around Ocean of Light: Submergence – A Squidsoup Project broke all attendance records in the history of SMoCA with 50,832 visitors. This installation also drove a 344 percent increase in web traffic and generated 1,789,979 impressions on its social media platforms. The current exhibitions — Repositioning Paolo Soleri: The City Is Nature and Marking the Infinite: Contemporary Women Artists From Aboriginal Australia — have garnered an extraordinary reception from the media, including local, national and international publications: ArtForum, Architectural Digest, Les Echo (France), Wallpaper (London), Modern Luxury, Phoenix Magazine, The Magazine (Santa Fe), blouinartinfo, Hungertv,, Dezeen, Phoenix New Times and Java Magazine. This is exceptional media recognition for the innovative work SMoCA does.

All best wishes for the New Year and don’t forget to make SMoCA a big part of it!

Thank you for helping us make 2017 an exceptional year for public art in Scottsdale!

Scottsdale Public Art engaged the public in a variety of educational and interactive art experiences this year. Featured programs included Creative Residencies, Exhibitions at Scottsdale Public Libraries, IN FLUX, PlatFORM, ART at the QuARTer, our record-breaking, interactive art event, Canal Convergence Water + Art + Light and more. These projects would not be possible without your appreciation and support. Thank you Scottsdale!

As we move into 2018, Scottsdale Public Art will continue to fill the Scottsdale Waterfront with engaging public art with two exciting, new temporary installations: Reflection Rising by Patrick Shearn of Poetic Kinetics, and PRISMATICA by RAW Design.

Reflection Rising is a suspended, lightweight kinetic sculpture made from 50,000 colorful ripstop nylon streamers attached to monofilament that stretches from the Marshall Way Bridge to the Soleri Bridge. This temporary public art installation is becoming one of Scottsdale Public Art’s most popular temporary public artworks to date. Our first video ofReflection Rising has already achieved more than 14,000 views on Facebook, and counting. PRISMATICA is a series of 25 kinetic, glowing prism sculptures placed throughout the Scottsdale Waterfront and is a big hit at Scottsdazzle, the City of Scottsdale’s holiday celebration.

Reflection Rising will remain on view through March as the first installation of Canal Convergence I Water + Art + Light, occurring Feb. 23-24 and March 2-3. Stay tuned for more information about Canal Convergence 2018 and its not-to-be-missed large-scale public art installations, workshops and performances.

ARTrageous Gala Artists Reach Our Community

Nothing leads into the holidays more powerfully than hundreds of young people brought together by music. Scottsdale Arts recently had the opportunity to present two amazing performance/master classes through its Education & Outreach programs.

The artists performing at this year’s ARTrageous Gala graciously agreed to present a week of outreach activities in schools and senior communities. These performances were well-received, especially those offered to students and faculty from an area middle school and a number of high schools.

Three hundred and fifty students at Cocopah Middle School were treated to an interactive performance by jazz great Chris Brubeck, violinist Nick Kendall and conductor Peter Jaffe. Many Cocopah Middle School students are involved in an arts curriculum including band, orchestra and choral singing.

Two hundred music-focused students from Desert Mountain, Saguaro, Chaparral, Pinnacle and Shadow Mountain high schools crowded into the Performance Hall at Scottsdale Community College to listen and learn from three distinguished artists: Chris Brubeck, Joel Brown and Peter “MadCat” Ruth. At one point, six violin students were invited to take the stage, and a spirited jam session ensued.

Scottsdale Arts is pleased to make events like this happen and invites you to join us by making a gift in support of these arts education experiences by going to Donate.ScottsdaleArts.org and on the drop-down menu selecting “Scottsdale Arts Education & Outreach Programs.” You will be making a gift that has true impact and that makes a difference.

All of us here at Scottsdale Arts wish you an art-filled holiday season and thank you for making the arts accessible for our community.