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With A Friend Like This…
Speaking boldly before Philadelphia City Council 9th grader Aniyah Comer exclaimed, “Art Helps us be our best selves at school.” Her statement and dozens of others from students were clarion calls to decision-makers to preserve the arts in our schools. Tim Gibbon, our Picasso Project Director, guided these youth to find their voice and have an impact.
“To say that Tim Gibbon is a friend of the arts in an understatement. He is a superhero and supporting the arts is his super-power. Tim is not just a friend to the arts he’s an arts superhero.” High praise from Marita Fitzpatrick, the lead art teacher for Bodine High School in her enthusiastic letter urging the Pennsylvania Art Education Association to select Tim Gibbon, our Picasso Project Director, for its esteemed Friend of Art Education Award. It worked, he won and it’s official this week.
We are interrupting the relentlessly troubling news cycle to laud Tim for this well-deserved recognition.
Sally O’Brien, the English Teacher at Kensington High says it best: “When our school building shut down last March—amid the backdrop of a global pandemic, social unrest, and economic insecurity—it was hard for many of my students to envision a brighter tomorrow. Thankfully, in that dark moment, the Picasso Project and the arts provided a guiding light to help my students move forward.”
Sally proudly points to the help from the Picasso Project, to launch “Imagining Our Future Through Visual Poetry and Book Arts,” which provided a positive outlet for students to express their complex emotions and process the traumatic events of that moment as we scrambled to move our classrooms online. Students reflected and wrote movingly about their lives and their hopes for the future after graduation.
Now, more than ever, students need access to the arts to engage in school, express themselves, and move toward a positive future. Help us say thank you to Tim and continue access to the arts by donating to PCCY’s Picasso Project so that students can continue to unleash their creativity and make it through this crisis. Picasso supporters Patty and Stephen Segal understand, and will match every donation, dollar-for-dollar, we raise up to $10,000 for this school year.
Leslie Marie Grace, herself an award winner for Pennsylvania’s Best Elementary Arts Educator in 2016 working at Nebinger Elementary, nominated Tim for this prestigious award. “I cannot imagine a more deserving person who is truly more than a friend to art education,” said Grace in her nomination.
“Tim is a force of nature who works endlessly to provide opportunities in the arts for students across Philadelphia. Part of what makes Tim such an amazing advocate and friend to art education is that he also teaches teachers and students how to harness the power of advocacy at local, state, and federal levels through testimonials, legislative visits, letter writing, and social media campaigns. Not only is he an outstanding friend to art education, he is a champion for it.”
Take it from Tim, “When we find our schools’ arts budgets repeatedly threatened by potential budget cuts, I am proud to fight, advocate, and organize with all my might. Because all students deserve access to the arts.”
Tim embodies the mission, purpose and way of working that makes the Picasso Project unique and so effective. Send Tim a note of thanks and congratulations at timg@childrenfirstpa.org and remember to donate to support the Picasso Project.
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