Teen Studio After School (Spring)

Have your own art goals? New to making art?

This class will allow your art practice to grow in any direction you’d like. If you don’t know which way you want your art to go, don’t let that stop you, we will explore many different possibilities and get inspired by various artists and styles!

In this supportive studio environment, the class will focus on drawing, painting, and printmaking, as well as the possibility of mixed media and combining digital and traditional media to explore visual storytelling. Teens will learn, practice, and experiment with different artmaking tools, processes, and techniques and improve their technical, representational, and conceptual skills. Through weekly assignments, participants will be supported in pursuing their own personal art goals and interests in specific media, or artistic aspects they want to learn and develop by the end of the class.

Our Kala instructors work closely with participants to create a space for creativity, inquiry, self-expression, reflection, and collaboration. All levels are welcome. Our young artists will be free to explore various issues and themes relevant to their lives and communities. While at Kala, they will have the opportunity to connect with Kala’s Residency Program artists and visit Kala’s Print Studio, Digital Media Lab, and gallery exhibitions on view.

Visit Learn More- Program Info to learn more details, including class notes, safety guidelines/COVID-19 protocols, enrollment info, school breaks, tuition assistance, and payment and cancellation policy.

Spring Session: Original Dates are Mar 15- May 17, 2023 (9 weeks); Ongoing registration until full
Schedule: Wednesdays, 4- 6:30 pm
Grades: 6-12th

Break Dates (Berkeley Unified School District Calendar)
April 3-7: Spring Recess

Not sure if you’d like to register yet? Sign up for a Trial Day/Drop-In now!

10% multi-session / sibling discount. Monthly payment plan options available, and tuition assistance.

Tuition: $490
Location: Kala Gallery and Classroom
Instructor: Yael Levy & Erina Davidson
7 Classes
Wednesday, March 29, 2023 — May 17, 2023
4:00 PM — 6:30pm
Materials fee included with tuition

About the Instructor:

Yael Levy is a mixed media artist, storyteller, printmaker, and art teacher based in Berkeley, CA. She draws, paints, collages, and writes. She often self publishes her work, and sometimes prints and binds it by hand. She loves playing with forms and format and mixing digital and tactile techniques. Most of Yael’s work is based on her own experience as a brown, bi-racial, bilingual, and bisexual woman. She also enjoys telling others’ stories, making up imaginary creatures, and just painting images of beautiful nature. She believes the creative process to be its own reward and the act of making an incredible tool for healing and growing. Born and raised in Israel, Yael first moved to New York City in 2002 to attend the Art Students League of New York, later completing a BFA of Illustration from Parsons The New School for Design(2011). After four years doing design and illustrations for The Unemployed Philosophers Guild, she moved to California to pursue an MFA in Comics at CCA (2017). In recent years she’s been a Teaching Artist with Kala Art Institute, Richmond Art Center, and JCC of the East Bay and ran workshops for various Zine Fests. Her work has been published by The Nib (2018), Birdy Magazine(2019), Forward Comix(2017 & 2020), The Baylies(2021) and SAW(2021). www.leahyaellevy.com

Ellena Ruiz-Lindsey is a painter living and working in the Bay Area. She received her BFA in Painting (Honors) and a Certificate in Women’s Studies from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Ellena works in oil, acrylic, and watercolor, drawing from each process’ unique material potential. She builds upon her abstract paintings like bodies and lived experiences, layered and scarred to evoke generational trauma and systematic violence. Ellena harnesses color and painting’s association with intimacy to explore discomfort and unease through figurative narratives. Both threads of her work are derived from direct experience, filtered through queer theory and a Chicanx lens. Ellena currently teaches youth art workshops throughout the Bay Area with Junior Center for Art & Science, and Kala Art Institute, introducing youth to various materials and techniques and weaving nature and the environment in their work.