Whitney Young's fine art program provides ballet, yoga, music, tap dance, Congolese dance, self defense, Capoeira, computer science and graphics, visual and performing arts and woodshop for the development of its students. The WY Cultural Center is a further extension of our already established art and humanities program.

With the huge budget cuts, layoffs and school closings, art programs in the public schools and youth centers are the first things to be cut out. Private lessons are out of the question for most families. No other center provides an art program with the variety and expertise as Whitney Young. Instead of cutting out these specialists, we want to expand our program.

We see the Cultural Center as a place where artists can work in collaboration with Whitney Young. Rents for studio or gallery space in SF are exorbitant. The Art center has becomes a place where local artists can come and use some of the rooms to practice their music or dance or display their work in exchange for performing or setting up direct service classes and demonstrations for the children and communities we serve.

The Cultural Center also has a full kitchen for cooking and nutrition classes for the children and families. We have a baby grand piano set up in one of the rooms of the Culture Center Mansion for lessons, recitals, rehearsals, etc.

San Francisco is a city where artists come from all over the world. We want the WYCC to become a thriving center reflecting the wonderful diversity of the city and making a significant difference in the lives of the Whitney Young children, the community artists and the community as a whole.

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About the Curator:

Since 1987, Rik Livingston has been a professional Painter/Sculptor, making his living primarily from the sales of Fine Art. He has taught at the college level (The San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco Academy of Art) as well as classes for younger students. His early comics work, originally published in numerous alternative comics and newspapers, has been collected as "Mr. Verlin's Zono Comix", available from Amazon.com. He self publishes "Bad Cat", available through Last Gasp.com.

For 14 years now, he has spent just a few hours a week with the kids at WYCDC, Inc. teaching them different forms of art. Recently, he was involved in setting up computer graphics labs for all three sites, has published small press booklets of the kid's comics and was named the Visual Arts Director of WYCDC, Inc. He curates the Whitney Young Cultural Center Mansion. For more information on Rik, visit www.zonoart.com.