Our Mission
To provide access to art for people of all abilities and circumstances and a creative home for the community where all feel welcomed, included, and connected.
A letter from the Founder/Director
January 2, 2025
In 2025, we look forward to new creative adventures at the ART for ALL studios and other locations in the community.
While, like others, we teach art skills, we are committed to bringing those skills to the social practice of community art making, developing personal practices related to being in the community and working creatively. Practices that change people’s lives and change our community for the better. In addition, AfA is dedicated to including people who often feel shut out of cultural opportunities for various reasons, including disabilities, lack of finances and feeling insecure about making art.
Several of us on the AfA team have been attending the Building Community Book Club at Fowler Library. The books and discussions have informed our thinking as we develop programs and projects. We have found these three books especially helpful and inspiring:
· Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World, by Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, lays out the depth, breadth and critical nature of the Loneliness Epidemic.
· Project Unlonely, by Jeremy Noble, founder of the Foundation for Art and Healing, discusses exciting art projects and programs demonstrating the healing power of the arts.
· This is Your Brain on Art, by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross, goes into the clinical research on the positive effects of creative work on brain health, overall physical health and emotions.
In October 2024, I led a three-part series called Your Brain on Art at Concord's Council on Aging, based on the last book above. Each session included a lecture, group discussion and an art activity.
Please look for the series and others like it in our programming for 2025. Wishing you all much creative joy and an abundance of connections!
Margot Kimball
How it began
Art for All began in January 2019 as Art Gym, a community art outreach organization to bring people of all abilities and circumstances together through making public artworks. Our first weekly class was Wonderful Wednesdays with Minute Man Arc for Human Services, and our first public artwork was a mural, “Music in the Village,” that is on the side of the ice cream shop, Reasons to be Cheerful.
Today
Art for All has made seven collaborative public murals in West Concord, held hundreds of free and low-cost workshops, put up over 100 exhibits and displays in local venues, and, through the Yard Signs Repurposed Project, in people’s yards. We collaborate with dozens of local businesses, cultural organizations and town programs. Our Art for All Abilities program has met weekly for over five years. About 30 people are central, actively volunteering at ART for ALL, and another 30 are in the wings. Thank you!
Vision Statement
To provide a creative home for the community where all feel welcomed, included, and connected.
Our Values
Connection. We believe that art fosters human connection and that everyone deserves to feel valued, appreciated, and accepted.
Community. We believe in the power of community and trust that art can build the bonds of community through shared creative experiences.
Diversity. We seek to bring together people of all different economic and racial/ethnic backgrounds, varying levels of artistic training, cognitive profiles, gender identities, and sexual orientations.
Access. We aim to serve communities that may not have access to art in another capacity.
Wellbeing. We believe that making art can improve mental health, quality of life, and personal growth.
Environment. We are committed to adopting environmentally sustainable practices when available.
Art. Art makes life better, fuller, and richer simply with its presence. Art can be enjoyed by everyone – regardless of whether you assisted in its creation or simply experienced the end-product.