Education


Making arts education more accessible to children and adults.


We care so much about Arts Education because we care about  people.
Arts education plays a major role in human development. According to research published by Americans for the Arts, arts education can help develop imagination, cognitive skills, critical/analytical thinking, language, social skills, focus, listening, sense of time and place, tolerance and more.

Learning is life-long. We offer opportunities to children and adults who want to learn more about art/life/themselves through the hand-on experiences of producing art in various media including but not limited to two and three dimensional design, jewelry, quilting, sculpture, drawing, pottery, printmaking, painting, photography, collage and graphics.


Children’s Programs

* After School Programs are planned in collaboration with schools, libraries and other community centers.

*The Performing and Visual Arts Workshop (PVA Workshop) at the St. James School

*The Accelerated Learning Academy, Inc.

*SHAPE Community Center 

ARTSummer 2016

After-School Students from SHAPE

The Collective works with 10 to 12-year-old students enrolled in the after-school program at SHAPE Community Center from 4 to 6 p.m. on Fridays.

Foster Elementary School

Third and fourth graders at Foster Elementary School are exploring the visual arts during The Collective’s two-hour volunteer weekly Friday morning lessons.  The children are developing their skills and confidence and discovering their talents during these relaxed and pressure-free sessions.  The Foster Elementary classes are only one of the several schools and centers where The Collective teaches art education.

Academy of Accelerated Learning, Inc.

Tuesday and Thursday classes are being offered to third and fourth graders after school at the Academy of Accelerated Learning, Inc., a charter school.  Eighty children participate weekly.

After School Classes at Yates High School

Performing and Visual Arts Workshop


Adult Programs

Quilters meet weekly at The Collective to share stories, techniques and design ideas.  Both novice and experienced quilters are welcome.

The Collective’s Quilting Project helps preserve the legacy of African American quilting through workshops, art fairs and festivals that bring thousands of visitors to Houston and the Third Ward.  Before 1830 Abolitionists working hard to end slavery held grand fairs to raise both awareness and money for their cause.  Quilts sold at these fairs were usually fine quilts with beautiful applique.  Anti-slavery poems and sayings were on the quilts with the goal of showing the terrible plight of the slaves.

There are stories that certain quilts were used as signals along the Underground Railroad to help the slaves in their flight to freedom.  The idea that a log cabin quilt would be hung on the line of safe house was one.  More recent stories tell of certain quilts guiding slaves to safety.

Please call 713.523.1616 for additional programming information.