New Urban Arts is a nonprofit arts organization that provides after school arts mentoring and studio space for high school students and emerging artists in

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...

. In 2017, students at New Urban Arts came primarily from four Providence schools:

Classical High School Classical High School, founded in 1843, is a public magnet school in the Providence School District, in Providence, Rhode Island. It was originally an all-male school but has since become co-ed. Classical's motto is ''Certare, Petere, Reperire, ...

, Central High School, the Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center
the Met
, and Providence Career and Technical Academy
PCTA
. The organization focuses on helping students develop a life-long creative practice, a summer arts inquiry program, and a leadership program that allows student participants to drive the direction of the organization. Each year, New Urban Arts serves 700 high school students, 25 emerging artists, and 2,000 visitors to the studio.

History

Originally called "Project New Urban Arts," the organization was founded in October 1997 by four college students (Jullia Kim, Malaika Thorne
Marcus Civin
an
Tyler Denmead
and ten high school students from Brown University, the

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...

, Central High School
Mount Pleasant High School
and Hope High School. In 1998, Tyler Denmead was awarded a prestigious Echoing Green Fellowship to launch New Urban Arts as a nonprofit, and he became the first executive director. New Urban Arts began in a loft above Grace Church in

downtown Providence, Rhode Island Downtown is the central economic, political, and cultural district of the city of Providence, Rhode Island. It is bounded on the east by Canal Street and the Providence River, to the north by Smith Street, to the west by Interstate 95, and to t ...

and then moved to 743 Westminster Street in Providence in 1998. In 2011, New Urban Arts announced a capital campaign and purchased, renovated, and moved to its current space at 705 Westminster Street. In 2016, with support from th
Rhode Island State Council for the Arts
New Urban Arts renovated 705 Westminster Street, adding space and accessibility for a total of 6,000 square feet.

People

Notable alumni, staff, and former staff members of New Urban Arts include: * Animator

Monty Oum Monyreak Oum ( ; June 22, 1981 – February 1, 2015) was an American web-based animator and writer. Oum attracted attention within the gaming community after releasing an animated video in 2007, titled ''Haloid'', where characters from the ''Halo ...

(New Urban Arts alumni) * University Lecturer of Arts and Creativity in Education at the Faculty of Education,

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

, Tyler Denmead (New Urban Arts co-founder) * Professor and Chair of Art,

University of Nevada, Las Vegas The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) is a public land-grant research university in Paradise, Nevada. The campus is about east of the Las Vegas Strip. It was formerly part of the University of Nevada from 1957 to 1969. It includes th ...

, Marcus Civin (New Urban Arts co-founder) * Artist and 2019 RISD Museum Fello
Dana Heng
(New Urban Arts alumni and resident artist) * Musician and member of band Javelinbr>Tom Van Buskirk
(New Urban Arts resident artist) * Singer, songwriter, and poet

Jamila Woods Jamila Woods (born October 6, 1989) is a Chicago-based American singer, songwriter and poet. Woods is a graduate of St. Ignatius College Prep and Brown University, where she received a BA in Africana Studies and Theater & Performance Studies. He ...

(former New Urban Arts volunteer) * Downtown Boys, punk band (New Urban Arts mentors) * Rhode Island community advocate,

Marvin Ronning Marvin Ronning (December 18, 1961 – November 7, 2022) was a community advocate and the director of the Rhode Island Free Clinic (RIFC). Advocacy Education Ronning was a guest lecturer and mentor at several universities. He served as an advis ...

(former New Urban Arts board member) Executive Directors: * Tyler Denmead, 1998–2007
Tamara Kaplan
(Interim Director), 2007–2008
Jason Yoon
2008–2012
Elia Gurna
2013–2014
Daniel Schleifer
2015–present

Programs

Central to New Urban Arts is the Youth Mentorship in the Arts program, which pairs adult artists with small groups of students for after school art making. Artist mentors include both volunteers and staff, known as resident artist mentors. New Urban Arts supports volunteer artist mentors through a Professional Development Program and the students through leadership programs (the Studio Team Advisory Board), postsecondary advising, and tutoring. Summer programs include paid internships, arts inquiry explorations, an Untitlement program that explores identities, and open studio time. In 2017, New Urban Arts and Central High School began a collaboration calle
NUA Knights
which includes arts programming at the school. During the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, New Urban Arts arranged for the delivery of arts supplies to students and mentors.

Awards

In 2009, New Urban Arts received a Coming Up Taller Award presented by Michelle Obama at the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...

. These awards "recognize exemplary arts and humanities programs which foster young people's intellectual and creative development." Another national award came in 2008 (followed by renewals in 2013 and 2018) when the

Rhode Island Department of Education The Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) is a state agency in Rhode Island that oversees the elementary and secondary education system from pre-Kindergarten through high school. It is headquartered in Providence. RIDE works closely with the ...

named New Urban Arts a 21st Century Community Learning Center. The Initiative for Nonprofit Excellence of th
Rhode Island Foundation
and Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island awarded New Urban Arts a Best Practices Award in Board Governance in 2013.
Emily Ustach
Deputy Director, was named a National Institute on Out-of-School Time Fellow for 2017–2019.

Influential Ideas

The ideas and practices developed in New Urban Arts over more than twenty years have been very influential. In a recent book, ''The Creative Underclass: Youth, Race and the Gentrifying City,'' founding director Tyler Denmead provides an ethnography of New Urban Arts in the beginning of the twentieth century and ties student expectations to local and national public policy initiatives.

Susan Smulyan Susan Smulyan is professor of American Studies and former director of the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage at Brown University. A graduate of Yale University, Smulyan's research focuses on U.S. popular culture ...

, a Brown University professor and former Board Chair at New Urban Arts, writes about the organization and what it can teach the new academic field of

public humanities Public humanities is the work of engaging diverse publics in reflecting on heritage, traditions, and history, and the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of civic and cultural life. Public humanities is often practiced within feder ...

in an essay in an anthology, ''Doing Public Humanities''. Staff and mentors have written hands-on essays, most recently Deputy Director Emily Ustach who describes “Flexibility and Fidelity in a Drop-In, After School Art Studio Program” in ''Afterschool Matters.''{{Cite web, last=Conley, first=Elyssa, title=Afterschool Matters {{! Flexibility and Fidelity in a Drop-in, Open-Door Art Studio Program {{! Afterschool Matters Summer 2020, url=https://niost.org/Afterschool-Matters-Summer-2020/flexibility-and-fidelity-in-a-drop-in-open-door-art-studio-program, access-date=2020-09-02, website=niost.org, language=en-gb

References

Arts organizations based in Rhode Island