FSU Art BA ’19 Natalia Martinez will be joining the ArtistYear fellowship in Philadelphia, the first national AmeriCorps organization that enables artists to dedicate themselves to a year of service to their country.
From Natalia: “I will be moving to Philadelphia this July to work for the ArtistYear Fellow program. During this year, I will be teaching art and improving their programs at a Title I school! I am so excited to make a difference in the lives of students! I will be receiving a monthly stipend to be able to live in the city for the duration of the year and will be given another stipend when i am done! If I apply to get an MFA, some universities will match or double the stipend in scholarships. It is going to be an amazing year of meeting new people and experiencing new things!”
ArtistYear’s mission is to develop, support, and place recent higher-education arts graduates across artistic disciplines at low-income schools as dedicated teaching artists, to ensure every under served student in America has arts education through a national service arts corps.
Despite the proven socio-emotional benefits of arts education for low-income youth, there is an “Arts Opportunity Gap” across the US. There are about 1 million higher-education arts graduates across artistic disciplines entering the work field annually; many find that their training, workforce skills, and desire to creatively contribute to communities does not align easily to the constantly shifting cultural sector.