AAHP DIRECTIVES for OUR ARTISTS and CREATIVES
AAHP PRACTICE DIRECTIVES for ADULT PRACTITIONERS
March 2020
3.24.20
If you didn’t read our previous statement from last week, please scroll down.
Here we go again. It was not a question of, if but when. As expected, “influencers” online are urging you to take advantage of self-sheltering by “picking up a new hobby.” The intention is good-hearted, and geez, we do need solutions for living well right now! But this solution is not the solution we need now.
I plea with our practitioners that you run for the hills when you hear such things. As always, pursue your practice as a practice. That is, as a set of ideals, ideas and operational norms that help you set goals larger than you, and that also get you there.
We all have a lot of serious problems to solve right now. But in the meantime, please do NOT allow your creative practice to devolve into arty-fartsy activities, let alone hobbies meant to serve you as “therapies” or “distractions.” Creative artistic action is not a means to an end; it is an end in itself. And through art, design and other constructs, creatives have been generating experiences that amount to some of the highest achievements of the human mind. As artists, we have no business delegitimizing creative artistic action into some form of self-soothing distraction. We must let creative force rage, so that we build our worlds anew.
I ask that parents of young AAHP practitioners do their best to translate this call to action into behaviors, attitudes and words that our child practitioners can access while ensconced at home, so that the good work we have been building through studio practice does not collapse now into nonsense.
As for Aaron and me and the AAHP team, we are mobilizing to create a worthwhile and powerful presence online for all our practitioners, so that we indeed continue deepening our operational knowledge of the artist’s craft, and keep understanding why it is that we aspire to art, design, and other forms of understanding problem-solving through construction. Don’t lose the faith! Don’t abandon the cause. —A.E. Soto-Canino, AAHP Chief Instructor
This week, the AAHP Senior Staff also made contact with our first practitioner through video conferencing! That was Ella F., as she celebrated her 10th birthday this weekend! It was sooo cool to see Ella live onscreen! And she’s also excited to serve us a beta-tester as we put things together for our younger practitioners!
Many thanks to the parents of child practitioners and to the older practitioners who have been sharing with us their creative output at home!
Throughout this week, we will feature the work of our special artists on the front end of the website. Look for these wondrous works!
March 2020
3.16.20
Good day! This is Ana and Aaron at the Academy of Art of Highland Park, your other home as artist! We miss you!
We are working behind the scenes to see you again soon through online channels!
We have the brains, the experience, and the resources to create meaningful and creative experiences for you. We promise to help you continue to develop your craft command as artist, designer, and creative builder.
We need ideas from all our adult practitioners as to what you want to experience through your online AAHP. Please send us your emails titled ONLINE IDEAS starting now! We will continue building together this house and home for artists, as we’ve done for 22 years.
AAHP PRACTICE DIRECTIVES for TEEN PRACTITIONERS
April 2020
4.16.20
Good News!
We could all use wonderful news. Here is one such bundle. It is my great pleasure to announce that 12th grade members of our Portfolio Prep Program (P3)—those planning to enter college in Fall 2020—have now secured admissions to some of the very best and highly competitive art, architecture, and liberals arts colleges in the nation! All their hard work across the past four years have paid off beautifully. They have secured what is often a young person’s first, self-driven success in matters that will shape the rest of their lives. Though the Senior Staff will be honoring each one of our 12th graders in turn, I will take this opportunity to publicly congratulate them! You’ve always made us proud!
While keeping the students themselves anonymous, so as to protect their privacy, the AAHP will post, in May 2020, actual admissions records that name our P3er’s 2020 schools, programs, and scholarship awards. These records will again reveal the enduring power of P3 as a major resource serving strong and committed students, and directly helping them secure admissions to their top college choices, as well as coveted scholarships.
COVID-19 Impacts for Current P3ers.
Though the P3/2020 college admissions are now in the clear, there are many matters now affecting the college admissions process cross the USA for those seeking to enter college in 2021.
New developments appear on the horizon every day. For example,
–upcoming, in-situ SAT test days have been postponed
–according to media coverage this week, some colleges have postponed their use of SAT scores at least for Fall 2021 admissions. Meanwhile, student organizations are lobbying for widespread freezes on standardized testing, and possibly across longer spans. See https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/14/us/coronavirus-colleges-sat-act-test-trnd/index.html.
–the Advance Placement (AP) Tests, which do include art subject matter as well a portfolio work, is now being shifted online, with new directives for all students.
Due to all these new developments, we invite and urge our current and prospective P3ers and their families to stay informed about college admissions protocols now, and for the foreseeable future. Another top resource is the College Board, which administers SAT and AP tests. Please access their responses to, and directive for, COVID-19 at https://www.collegeboard.org/
We have also supplemented the AAHP’s own timeline for college prep for high schoolers with the timeline created and posted online by the KhanAcademy.org. Though there is some overlap between these two timelines, please do not choose one over the other, as the differences they present do matter in critical ways to any P3ers college planning and prep. For the Khan Academy’s college timeline, please see
What Now for College Portfolios?
No one seems to know exactly what the consequences of the COVID-19 crisis will mean for current high schoolers who, only four weeks ago, needed to seriously consider building a portfolio, whether as core to one’s college application (as when seeking admissions to art, design and architectural schools), or as part of supplementary materials (as welcomed and even solicited by many liberal colleges).
In the meantime, we at the AAHP will presume that portfolios will still be sought by colleges, and that students such as our P3ers will still need to complete them, at least to the extent that remote schooling and other conditions allow. What that means exactly at this time also remains unclear.
What Can P3 Do Right Now?
In addition to guiding our P3ers towards emerging information sources, we can help our P3ers immediately with access to the following:
–photo records of work completed at the AAHP
–AAHP letters of recommendation
–AAHP letters of certification acknowledging the student’s employment/volunteering with the AAHP
–any other matters we can resolve remotely
For current P3ers, we will address matters in grade order, addressing first the needs and issues of current seniors, then juniors, then sophomores, and then our current first year high-school students. Exceptions apply when any P3er approaches us with set deadlines imposed by a third party.
What Will We Do in May
By May 1st, we expect to issue program guidelines for any current P3er who is a high school junior, and whose portfolio and other application content we would—at least in ordinarily times—ask to see complete by late summer 2020, and for use during the fall 2020 semester and/or
the 2021 spring semester college application deadlines.
We presume that we will soon interact more formally with Junior P3ers, including teaching, through remote video classes.
We will slate guidance for all other P3ers as soon as the juniors’ spring and summer crunch have been stabilized.
Please contact us at aahpp3@gmail.com with your ideas, questions, and suggestions.
March 2020
3.24.20
If you didn’t read our previous statement from last week, please scroll down.
Here we go again. It was not a question of, if but when. As expected, “influencers” online are urging you to take advantage of self-sheltering by “picking up a new hobby.” The intention is good-hearted, and geez, we do need solutions for living well right now! But this solution is not the solution we need now.
I plea with our practitioners that you run for the hills when you hear such things. As always, pursue your practice as a practice. That is, as a set of ideals, ideas and operational norms that help you set goals larger than you, and that also get you there.
We all have a lot of serious problems to solve right now. But in the meantime, please do NOT allow your creative practice to devolve into arty-fartsy activities, let alone hobbies meant to serve you as “therapies” or “distractions.” Creative artistic action is not a means to an end; it is an end in itself. And through art, design and other constructs, creatives have been generating experiences that amount to some of the highest achievements of the human mind. As artists, we have no business delegitimizing creative artistic action into some form of self-soothing distraction. We must let creative force rage, so that we build our worlds anew.
I ask that parents of young AAHP practitioners do their best to translate this call to action into behaviors, attitudes and words that our child practitioners can access while ensconced at home, so that the good work we have been building through studio practice does not collapse now into nonsense.
As for Aaron and me and the AAHP team, we are mobilizing to create a worthwhile and powerful presence online for all our practitioners, so that we indeed continue deepening our operational knowledge of the artist’s craft, and keep understanding why it is that we aspire to art, design, and other forms of understanding problem-solving through construction. Don’t lose the faith! Don’t abandon the cause. —A.E. Soto-Canino, AAHP Chief Instructor
This week, the AAHP Senior Staff also made contact with our first practitioner through video conferencing! That was Ella F., as she celebrated her 10th birthday this weekend! It was sooo cool to see Ella live onscreen! And she’s also excited to serve us a beta-tester as we put things together for our younger practitioners!
Many thanks to the parents of child practitioners and to the older practitioners who have been sharing with us their creative output at home!
Throughout this week, we will feature the work of our special artists on the front end of the website. Look for these wondrous works!
MARCH 2020
3.16.20
Hey! This is Ana and Aaron at the Academy of Art of Highland Park, your other home as artist! We miss you!
We are working behind the scenes to see you again soon through online channels!
We have the brains, the experience, and the resources to create meaningful and creative experiences for you. We promise to help you continue to develop your craft command as artist, designer, and creative builder.
We will start with P3ers and go on to engage with all other teen practitioners immediately after that.
We need ideas from all teens as to what you want to have through your online AAHP experience. Please send us your emails titled ONLINE IDEAS starting now! Thanks for your input!
AAHP PRACTICE DIRECTIVES for CHILDREN
Parents please “translate” these messages for your child as needed!
March 2020
3.24.20
If you didn’t read our previous statement from last week, please scroll down.
Here we go again. It was not a question of, if but when. As expected, “influencers” online are urging you to take advantage of self-sheltering by “picking up a new hobby.” The intention is good-hearted, and geez, we do need solutions for living well right now! But this solution is not the solution we need now.
I plea with our practitioners that you run for the hills when you hear such things. As always, pursue your practice as a practice. That is, as a set of ideals, ideas and operational norms that help you set goals larger than you, and that also get you there.
We all have a lot of serious problems to solve right now. But in the meantime, please do NOT allow your creative practice to devolve into arty-fartsy activities, let alone hobbies meant to serve you as “therapies” or “distractions.” Creative artistic action is not a means to an end; it is an end in itself. And through art, design and other constructs, creatives have been generating experiences that amount to some of the highest achievements of the human mind. As artists, we have no business delegitimizing creative artistic action into some form of self-soothing distraction. We must let creative force rage, so that we build our worlds anew.
I ask that parents of young AAHP practitioners do their best to translate this call to action into behaviors, attitudes and words that our child practitioners can access while ensconced at home, so that the good work we have been building through studio practice does not collapse now into nonsense.
As for Aaron and me and the AAHP team, we are mobilizing to create a worthwhile and powerful presence online for all our practitioners, so that we indeed continue deepening our operational knowledge of the artist’s craft, and keep understanding why it is that we aspire to art, design, and other forms of understanding problem-solving through construction. Don’t lose the faith! Don’t abandon the cause. —A.E. Soto-Canino, AAHP Chief Instructor
This week, the AAHP Senior Staff also made contact with our first practitioner through video conferencing! That was Ella F., as she celebrated her 10th birthday this weekend! It was sooo cool to see Ella live onscreen! And she’s also excited to serve us a beta-tester as we put things together for our younger practitioners!
Many thanks to the parents of child practitioners and to the older practitioners who have been sharing with us their creative output at home!
Throughout this week, we will feature the work of our special artists on the front end of the website. Look for these wondrous works!
MARCH 2020
3.16.20
Hi! This is Ana and Aaron at the Academy of Art of Highland Park, your other home as artist! We miss you!
The good news is that we are going to work with you online, through your computer screen. And soon!
It’s going to be as fun as always. We will go on helping you to grow your superpowers as an explorer, discoverer, designer and builder! There can be no stopping you as a creative thinker and doer!
AAHP PRACTICE DIRECTIVES for SPECIAL NEEDS STUDENTS
Parents please “translate” these messages for your child as needed!
MARCH 2020
3.24.20
Hi! This is Ana and Aaron at the Academy of Art of Highland Park, your other home as artist! We miss you!
The good news is that we are going to work with you online, through your computer screen. And soon!
It’s going to be as fun as always. We will go on helping you to grow your superpowers as an explorer, discoverer, designer and builder! There can be no stopping you as a creative thinker and doer!