The Outreach Program offers many different educational programs that are utilized by schools, corporations, and organizations as a way to develop a stronger appreciation for the many artistic cultures in the world and to build confidence in the belief that everyone can create. Below you'll find a listing of some of our most popular programs and services. We encourage you to explore the "artist within" through one of our educational programs. 

The Outreach programs receives operational support from the Winston-Salem Foundation and the Arts in Education Partnership from the North Carolina Arts Council, a state agency. The funds were made possible through the action of the North Carolina General Assembly. The Sawtooth Center Outreach Program also receives major support from the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund and additional support from the Winston-Salem Arts Council, as well as R.J Reynolds Foundation and Integon. 

The Arts in Education Partnership Program is designed to expand cultural awareness and serve the interdisciplinary learning objectives of teachers and students within both public and private schools across the Piedmont. The program enriches the core curriculum and offers an innovative approach to presenting cultural concepts to teachers and students. By combining the work of artists and classroom teachers, a unique learning opportunity is created. 

Over the past six years, SCVA artists, and classroom teachers in elementary, middle, and high school social studies, language arts, math, science and arts disciplines have explored how the visual arts meaningfully serve as a base for interdisciplinary curriculum development. Cross-cultural programs in clay, textiles, paper, surface design, color, printmaking, resist dyeing, iconography, mask making and calligraphy are tailored to meet the North Carolina State legislated learning goals and objectives. Age and skill appropriate curricula includes lecture, demonstration and studio arts experience. 

The Outreach Program is offering a new component to its North Carolina Arts in Education Partnership funded for Corporations and Companies. Adults now have the opportunity to experience hands-on art experience which emphasize Team Building/Team Bonding, Cultural Exchange, and Cultural Appreciation. Our workshops are designed with a specific focus in mind and are geared toward creating an atmosphere of openness, honesty, and creativity which becomes a "safe space" for tackling sometimes tough issues. We believe that one of the most useful tools any professional can have is creativity. By exposing people to various cultures and art from a historic perspective, professionals build the confidence needed to stretch their sphere of decision making tools. These workshops offer participants unique ways of "visualizing solutions," and "painting stress away." 

Staff development workshops can be offered at SCVA or at your school. 
Staff Development Workshops include: Slide/lecture presentation, resource and development material, brainstorming art into the core curriculum, hands-on art experiences for teachers, and artist observation, evaluation and critique. 

We want our presentations to be convenient for you. Time lengths for the workshops range from 90 minutes to 10 hours of instruction. You decide what your staff would like to do, and we'll deliver a custom designed program. A variety of multi-cultural models for workshops are available. Stand-alone staff development programs may be delivered on-site, or at Sawtooth for $3/contact hour of instruction per teacher. This price includes materials. A minimum of 9 participants is needed to contract a program. Please call Sawtooth Center at (336) 723-7395 to book your workshop. 

The following brief overview identifies sample programs and objectives, grade levels, hands-on activities, and learning opportunities in each core subject area. AIE Partnerships include up to ten hours of teacher inservice; an introductory slide lecture for the students served; a hands-on project led by a Sawtooth Center artist; and a final wrap-up with participating teachers. Given the distance traveled, our teams of artists require a minimum of four classrooms per a given community. 

We encourage schools to consider booking all classes at a given grade level, or multiple grades, to minimize scheduling problems. Charges to schools participating are based on $2.00/student per unit plus mileage at $.32/mile for all Sawtooth Center travel. Scholarship and additional underwriting may be available for schools in Alamance, Surry, Davie, Yadkin and Stokes counties. Call Sawtooth Center at (336) 723-7395. 

Grades K-12: Understanding public sculpture and its cultural function. 
Hands-on: Model designing and sculptures of mixed materials. 
Social Studies: Examine how different cultures document events, celebrate group identity, and create landmarks of beauty and utility. Practice mapping skills and discuss cultural concepts. 
Language Arts: Produce a written proposal for a site specific public work, or critical writing about 
a sculpture or a cultural group's design forms. 
Science: Explore material suitability for environments and the impact of weather on outdoor sculpture. Observe and classify materials and understand their properties. 
Math: Produce scale models and render mechanical drawings, understanding how 3-D forms are rendered in 2-D. 

Grades K-12: Understanding paper's many uses around the world. 
Hands-on: "Pull" decorative sheet formed paper with deckle and construct a Japanese bound book for use in journal writing. Develop basic understanding of how paper arts have developed, from parchment to fine sheet forming, contemporary art installation art and book bindery. 
Social Studies: Contrast Eastern and Western traditions in papermaking. 
Language Arts: Record issues in the student's own produced book. 
Science: Examine use of several types of pulps and papers, recycling and environmental issues. 
Math: Refine measurement skills and resolve construction problems in book design. 

Grade K-12: Explore functional woven fibers from around the world. 
Hands-on: Learn about weaving, loom basics, cloth structure, design, and color with hands-on weaving on upright looms. 
Social Studies: Examine ethnic textiles of Japan, Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Recognize patterns and weaves as communicating cultural identity. For older students, study the impact of child labor laws created around the textile industry after the industrial revolution. 
Language Arts: Produce a written project with Social Studies on garments and cultural identity. 
Science: Understand different synthetics; plant and animal fibers and their function in a woven structure. 
Math: Explore math application in loom drafting and weaves while examining patterning. 

Grades K-12: Historic overview of ceramic arts from a global perspective; "Common Ground." 
Hands-on: Produce Japanese tea bowls, figurative Mayan sculptures, or Catawba Animal Pots using hand-building techniques. Discuss function and surface treatment. 
Social Studies: Survey technical and design characteristics of pottery's 50,000 year history of functional, ceremonial, and sculptural forms. Understand relationship between natural resources and design sensibilities. Trace design transmutation between cultures. 
Language Arts: Develop an essay, descriptive writing or critical analysis of a given pottery form or design motif, addressing form and function, design and meaning. 
Science: Understand clay-bodies, and pyro-chemical and physical changes that take place during firings. Recognize elements of clay and sources that determine where clay is found. 
Math: Review basic mathematical concepts in clay patterns, and practical proportions for projects. 

Grades K-12 Colors: Consider how climate and terrain influence a culture's aesthetic and design sensibilities. 
Hands-on: Produce complimentary color weavings of paper to illustrate how perception of a color changes context and relationship. Students produce studies of a "masters" painting, shifting color schemes or values. 
Social Studies: Examine the influence of environment on color (tropical colors vs. muted Inuit earth tones), compare and contrast historic and contemporary arts subjects (Cimabue vs. MTV) to show how technology and symbolic meanings shift over time. 
Language Arts: Describe in an essay how a color makes the student feel (happy, sad, etc.) Tie to symbolist color (slide lecture) and emotional or psychological impact of color. 
Science: Explore color wheels (theory and practice) to understand principles of reflective and refracted light, and optical illusions (Op art). 
Math: Create an equal area pie chart for execution of a color wheel. 

Grades K-6, 8&10: Exploring the many cultures of Native Americans 
Hands-on: Experiment with mask making from natural materials, grinding pigments, and using assemblages of found and foraged materials. (Schools with kilns may make Catawba animal pots or Mayan figures.) 
Social Studies: Compare and contrast the artifacts of Native Americans from Alaska to Peru, discovering design motifs and links between environment, belief structures and their illustration within functional and ceremonial objects. Trace cultural assimilation, as European settlers impact indigenous practices. 
Language Arts: Create writing projects on cultural identity. 
Science: Research elemental mineral pigments and identify found materials from the environment. 

Beginning each October 30, Mexico's three-day celebration, Los Dias De Muertos, the Day of the Dead, can be like a carnival with its costumes, prayer and song. Families reunite in remembrance of those who have died. 
Grades 4 and 8: A closer look at cultural traditions. 
Hands-on: Includes a mola; a fabric picture made by the Cuna people or a mask using papers and paints, and where a kiln is available, a clay animal that can grow a beautiful coat of sprouted chia seeds. 
Science: Sprouting seeds and the growth patterns of plants. 
Math: Concepts of positive and negative space in clay, fabric and paper. 
History: The paths of life and death within one's family. 

Grades K-5, 7(8): Understanding the "visual language" of pattern and design. 
Hands-on: Survey six printing techniques including silkscreen and relief printed design on paper and fabric or try the mask-making unit designed around rites of passage. 
Social Studies: Review how individual and group identity is shown through tattooing, masks, architectural embellishments and surface designed textiles in Africa, Asia and the Mid-East. (Native American cultures may be substituted for this unit of study.) 
Language Arts: Understand practices in oral history and the relationship between cultural objects and their function as the material base from which stories are told. 
Science: Understand properties of oil and water based pigment and their role in resist methods of printing. Form pigments by grinding indigenous materials. 
Math: Explore tessellations and repeating patterns. 

Grades 3 and 7: Understanding the relationships between man and the environment. 
Hands-on: Produce a hot or cold wax batik, using science research drawing of an endangered plant or animal as the subject. 
Social Studies: Explore Indonesian culture and the arts of Bali as a means of understanding cultural dynamics. Examine how cultures, biology, ecology, and indigenous design motifs are interdependent. Note how cultural interaction with Europeans affected the iconography of Bali Batik artists. 
Language Arts: Write an essay about something in the child's life that changed because of an outside influence or circumstance. Critically examine how it impacted behavior. 
Science: Research endangered plants, insects, and animals threatened by the lack of habitat and over-hunting in Indonesia or other cultures. 

Grade 7: Exploring cultural expansion and the art that is created. 
Hands-on: The student will explore Arabic Design of repeating pattern and shape using tessellations, creating a mosaic tile of a complimentary color scheme. Schools with a kiln, or schools that choose to make SCVA an enrichment field trip can use clay and colored glazes. An alternative tile will use paper tessellations based on the form of a square and embellish a pre-baked tile with paints based on the paper design. 
Social Studies: Look at cultural and religious differences, and the spread of Arab symbolism. 
Science: Investigate the different uses of clay, paper and repeat patterns. 
Math: Discuss tessellations and patterning, incorporating basic geometric shapes and their interaction on a flat plane. 

Grades K-12: Recognizing the many cultures contributing to European Art. 
Hands-on: Construct personal reliquaries, pearl bead ornament (mounted or straw design). Use painting and sculpture and craft techniques applying study of patterns and their meanings. 
Social Studies: Trace folk-arts, religious icons and their changing forms and meanings, recognizing where major forms were produced using mapping skills and geography. Investigate politics and their changes reflected in craft and art. 
Language Arts: Describe concepts of sets, positive and negative repeating patterns that serve as symbols in the student's life. 
Science: Review physical properties of wax, water, pigments and craft materials. 
Math: Discuss concepts of sets, positive and negative space, and repeating patterns. 

Grades 3 and 7: Understanding the relationship of people and their environment and how it shapes their art and mythology. 
Hands-on: Create X-ray drawings of animals and stencil hand prints using natural materials, grinding pigment from red and white clay. 
Social Studies: Study one of the last hunting and gathering cultures, how the environment shaped their mythology, and how art is used in the oral history of the aboriginal. 
Science: Research animals from Australia, their relationship to the environment, how the animals of Australia are different and why. 
Language Arts: Create a story or myth about the animal being studied. 
Math: Discuss concepts of set, positive and negative space and repeating patterns. 

Grades 3 and 7: Learn to recognize the indigenous cultures that are disappearing rapidly, and their knowledge and ability to live within the ecosystem of our Earth.
Hands-On: Projects involve construction of musical instruments for rhythmic sound patterns, a basic means of communication for storytelling and social rituals. We offer a rhythm stick and an mbira (thumb piano) to be assembled and embellished, for schools with a kiln or students participating at the Sawtooth Center we offer a clay flute project. 
Social Studies: Study the economic and politics involving the various endangered cultures. 
Science: Discuss ecosystem and symbiotic relationships of man and nature, and production of sound with an instrument. 
Language Arts: Study storytelling and performance skills. 
Math: Discuss auditory and visual patterns of these cultures. 

Please call Sawtooth Center at (336) 723-7395 to schedule your Arts in Education program.

Cultural Discoveries are culturally specific art enrichment workshops that can be integrated with the public school's core curriculum. These programs emphasize hands-on experiences for youth with materials and techniques which enhances classroom studies. Students receive a 15 minute introductory lecture, and then spend 90 minutes in a hands-on workshop. Schedules can be adjusted to suit individual teachers' requirements. Fees range from $4.50 to $6.00 per student. Call Sawtooth Center at (336) 723-7395 to schedule your Cultural Discovery. 

AFRICAN

African Trade Beads
Students work with a special polymer based "clay" to make beads. A short history of trade beads in Africa precedes the project.

African Mask Making
Explore geometric patterning and oral history traditions. Grind commonly found materials such as red clay and charcoal to create pigments, and embellish with leaves, grass and other natural materials.

African Animals
After an introduction to the texture and patterns found in African textiles, pottery and sculpture, create a statue made of clay using subtractive techniques. 

Arabic Mosaic Tiles 
After a brief introduction to geometry and mathematics and their relevance in the art of the Middle East, create geometric designs in clay tiles or from paper to create tessellating patterns.

EUROPEAN

Russian Personal Reliquary
After a brief discussion of Russian icons and shrines, construct a personal shrine that explores family histories past, present and future. Bring a shoe box with a lid and personal mementos to incorporate into your shrine.

AUSTRALIAN

Australian X-ray Drawing
Get a brief history of X-ray drawing that migrated with Australia's hunter-gatherers. Grind clays and charcoal for pigment, and draw an Australian animal on sandpaper using a reed pen. The drawing is then mounted on black paper with a special signature.

ASIAN

Japanese Tea Bowls 
Participate in a brief version of the elaborate and ancient Tea Ceremony following a discussion of its history and meaning, then make a tea bowl from clay.

Eastern Paper Making 
Get a brief overview of the origins of paper and how it is made. Incorporate natural materials into paper pulp and pull several sheets of paper to be used in a composition.

Asian Bookmaking 
Receive a fascinating lesson on Chinese calligraphy and put together a book, for your own poetry, using an Asian binding technique. 

Indonesian Batik 
Get a lesson in wax resist and surface design using traditional tjanting tools and carved wood stamps to create an embellished dyed fabric picture.

Javanese Shadow Puppets
The silhouette puppets tell the legends and history of Java and Bali. Cut your own puppets from paper and fabric, then compose stories for the shadow puppets to perform.

NATIVE AMERICAN

Catawba Animal Pots 
Make a coiled clay vessel using traditional tools and methods, and decorate it with native North Carolina woodland animal features. 

Cherokee Animal Mask
Make a three-dimensional animal mask using natural materials, grinding clays and charcoals for pigments. Masks will be embellished with bark, vines, moss, leaves, and seeds.

Navajo Sandpainting
Get a lesson on the traditional rite of sand painting as used in healing ceremonies. Traditional design motifs are explored using colored sand, glue and sandpaper. Finished work is mounted on black paper.

Hopi Kachina Characters
Beginning with a lesson on the significance and traditions of Kachina dolls, students use paper tubes, feathers, paint, glue and natural materials, to create their own characters.

Mayan Character Figure
Mayan culture is interpreted in clay by modeling a realistic figure. We supply teachers, clay, tools, and a lesson on Mayan culture and their influence in South America.

Hispanic Cultures
Cultures celebated include Mexico's Day of the Dead clay and paper-mache figures, molas (fabric pictures) from the Kuna of Panama, or Carnival masks from Brazil.

For more information or to customize a Cultural Discovery program, contact Sawtooth Center (336) 723-7395. 

The Sawtooth Center for Visual Art partners with other civic, arts, and educational organizations, to facilitate a more in depth understanding of various cultures using visual art and hands-on art experiences as a guide. Over the past 15 years, Sawtooth has partnered with such groups as YWCA and YMCA/SOS(Support Our Students), Happy Hills Garden Community Center, Piedmont Circle Community Center, Bethlehem Center, Boys and Girls Club, Girl Scouts, The Enrichment Center, Forsyth Stokes Mental Health, just to name a few. 

Partnerships can be formed in a variety of ways. We offer staff development sessions, team building workshops, and teacher workshops appropriate for teacher renewal credit* and interdisciplinary curriculum planning, multi-cultural program development, art exposure for youth and teen groups and much more. 

These partnerships have become invaluable tools in establishing meaningful relationships with the people of the Triad. Our Outreach Program continually seeks to illuminate areas of darkness, where no path to creativity has been made and forge new ground in old familiar surrounding. The people who participate gain much from the experience. They gain a new tool, art, and can use it how they will. 

The Sawtooth Center is supported by the North Carolina State Arts Council and The Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County.