Jamal Thorne (right) with student.

Throughout the semester, the Department of Art and Design’s 2D Fundamentals: Surface and Drawing class has been collaborating with Artists for Humanity, one of CAMD’s valued community partners that employs underserved teens to explore their creative abilities. The CAMD class has taken numerous trips to the organization, which is located in South Boston, where the high school students teach Northeastern students about technique and how to improve their painting skills. At the same time, the Northeastern students take the lead on sharing their conceptual knowledge about color relationships with the high schoolers.

The partnership between Northeastern and Artists for Humanity is an exchange –  in addition to the Northeastern students making site visits, the Artists for Humanity teenagers make trips to Northeastern, where they have the chance to do college-level work, explore the college campus, and interact with professors.

“All of the students involved in this partnership, both from Northeastern and Artists for Humanity, are extremely talented,” explained Jamal Thorne, Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Art and Design and Instructor for 2D Fundamentals. “This exchange of ideas and skills is an opportunity for everyone to strengthen their artistic abilities while using art to make our community a better place.”

This semester, the art focus in the 2D Fundamentals class, which teaches the basic language of visual arts and attracts a diverse group of students from various disciplines and class years across Northeastern, has been color relationships in painting. The class, at its foundation, is service-learning oriented and attracts students who are interesting in doing something positive for humanity.

“It is amazing to see how the work of our Northeastern students comes alive when interacting with these high schoolers,” continued Thorne. “Collaborating with artists you do not regularly get to work with pushes everyone outside their comfort zones and produces stunning results.”

Now that the semester has come to a close, to give the young artists from Artists for Humanity an opportunity to showcase their work, Northeastern Crossing will be hosting a pop-up exhibition on Thursday, April 27 from 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. The event is free and open to the public – stop by!