Lila Brehm and Tina Kelley

1/29/2022 3:48 pm

This is a story about friendship, sewing, and the love of the written word.

This is a story about the mentorship of a student which led to winning a writing contest.

This is the story about the bond between Lila Brehm, a Tuscan 4th grader and Tina Kelley, a freelance journalist and former Tuscan parent.

Like many of our recent lived experiences, this story begins with the pandemic. Through local initiatives, Tina and her neighbors, which included the Brehm family, took part in an effort to sew masks for the first responders and the SOMA community. Taken aback by the experience, Lila wrote a poem - entitled “Persistent” and included below - about first responders and shared it with her fellow sewers.

“She was the age that I was when I fell in love with writing,” Tina tells us. Tina has celebrated a successful career working in New York as a journalist and writer, which included publishing four books of poetry and reporting for the New York Times for many years. She was immediately in awe of Lila’s passion for writing.

For Lila, writing is an opportunity to be creative and express her thoughts, something she really enjoys. She says that she likes creating a world that others can relate to and get lost in.

So when Lila’s 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Donatelli, came upon a writing contest being promoted by The Hutch, a children’s magazine published by author and illustrator Peter Reynolds, it was a no-brainer that Lila should put a submission together. And working with Tina was a natural decision. The pair had many phone calls on their shared love of writing, and taking the sage advice that Tina gave her, Lila crafted her submission.

The contest, which focused on compassion, saw Lila first learn from Tina how to conduct an interview, and then using what she learnt, she interviewed Tina over the phone, recorded and submitted it to the magazine. The interview was about Tina's work with neighbors sewing masks for the community. [Unfortunately a digital copy of the interview is not available but you can see a picture here].

Lila says: “The best piece of advice that Tina gave me was to expect some failure when entering writing contests. That’s real life!”

But Lila was successful and her piece was published in June 2021. And she won the contest. Part of her prize was being invited to the magazine's launch party hosted by Peter Reynolds.

Tina says: “This is such an important age to encourage kids to pursue the things they love, and Lila was so devoted to her writing, that it was such a pleasure to work with her.”

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Persistent by Lila Brehm

If your hopes get down, if you feel small and that hill is too big to climb,

I want you to know,

Thank you. Thank you for every little thing you do.

You do your kind deeds without even knowing that you're doing them.

You have empathy for every person on this earth.

Thank you.

You are as brave as a lion leading it’s pack.

We need you every day, every hour and every minute.

The warmth of your kindness reaches the distance of the sun’s rays.

You are always there for us whenever we need you.

Thank you.

You are a first responder and you are persistent.

11/14/2021 5:24 pm

Barbara Bickart is creating community through art making. Her latest session for Fire in the Belly Artmaking, where all of the workshops are process-based, is about to come to a conclusion, and after eight weeks, a collection of 5th graders will have designed, crafted, and built their own miniature treehouses, just one of the workshops offered this Fall.

“Over the course of the workshop they are developing the skills to create structures from their own imaginations and they problem solve all over the place in order to do that. They are figuring out their strengths and weaknesses, and they are working around those,” she explains. “Holistically, it has been an amazing thing to watch.”

In the ‘Building Miniature Treehouses and “Bundle Houses” workshop, each child gets a 12x12in pine wood base and pieces of 2”x4” lumber, the feet, to make it stand up. Barbara then teaches her students how to safely use tools to saw, drill, and nail pieces together to help build their treehouses. The rest, she says, is up to them.

“Their joy, curiosity, and ingenuity is the best I can ever hope for with process-based learning. This is where the kids are really excited and enthusiastic,” she says. “The kind of community and cooperative, communal problem solving is happening in the workshop. Kids are working together to troubleshoot. There is group attunement, and the kids are enjoying being a part of a team at the same time that they’re totally focused on their own projects.”

Building treehouses is just the latest iteration of what Barbara has on offer for students. The summer saw Fire in the Belly Artmaking become a hive of creativity for students from first grade all to the way up to high school. The summer sessions for middle school students were particularly poignant as they explored the intersection between art, expression, and social justice. Asking her students to work together to tackle a social issue - in this case the group chose LGBTQIA+ rights - students had to convey a message through the use of a print on a t-shirt.

Barbara says: “They came up with some amazing designs. I felt excited and good about the substance they were able to tackle through the use of visual language. I’d love to have the Printmaking & Social Justice as an on-going staple of my workshop offerings. That’d be really exciting, especially with the older kids.”

Barbara, a Tuscan parent, started Fire in the Belly Artmaking as a way to give kids access to a creative space where they could learn new skills and find new ways for self expression, while exposing them to big art ideas and art history. “Kids are so smart and get really frustrated by art workshops that teach “down” to kids and expect so little of them when it comes to the world of Art and Ideas.” She ran her workshops from her garage-studio through the pandemic, and her workshops proved so popular, she now has sessions for parents. She and Katey Darago, another Tuscan parent, have collaborated on some of the workshops for parents.

But what makes Fire in the Belly Artmaking so fantastic is that Barbara injects her own creativity into the sessions that she provides. So, she is about to launch a three-week upcycled fashion and mini-me puppet workshop starting November 29 which she has never tried before with Fire in the Belly Artmaking. For parents, on December 2, she is trying out a print making session using upcycled materials. And for her winter session, she is currently working with the PTA to figure out a way to provide after school classes for students and is considering offering a Walking Train from Tuscan to her studio one afternoon per week for that session, which starts in mid-January.

Barbara is also looking for ways to give back to the community. One initiative she can now offer is a Fire in the Belly Artmaking scholarship. The scholarship would be offered to one student per workshop, awarded on a first-come-first served basis and would be dependent on whether she meets the minimum number of students (six).

She is also trying to find a way to set up a gallery in Maplewood, where her students’ work can be on display for the wider community to come and experience. “My bigger vision is that I want to be able to get a venue and fill a room with the [students’ art] to have a show,” she says. “My whole career trajectory has been about making art, and making art makes community where bigger ideas get exchanged and talked about. That goal is always in the back of my mind.”

Find out more information here: https://www.fireinthebellyartmaking.com/

And here: https://www.instagram.com/fireinthebellyartmaking/

10/24/2021 6:40 pm

Driving around Maplewood, you may come across an interesting sight: groups of kids singing and dancing on driveways and front lawns. This is the genius of Becky Fisher, who started Little Apple Arts after her day job on Broadway got temporarily shut down due to the pandemic.

Becky was in the NYC production of Come From Away when everything went into lockdown, but the Tuscan parent says that the spirit of the show, which is about helping others and using kindness, will stay with her forever and got her thinking about what she could do next.

“It drives me every day to think of what we can do for each other just by being good friends and neighbors,” she says.

And spread the love she did. Drawing on her own love of musical theatre, coupled with 20 years of experience as a professional actress, she set up Little Apple Arts, a musical theatre program aimed at elementary school-aged children in SOMA.

At first, she had to get creative with how to set it up. Once it was deemed ok by the CDC to have gatherings of people, maintaining social distancing, and with masks on, she realized that holding the classes outdoors would work just fine. “Once I realized that it would be ok to be outdoors and masked, I thought to myself ‘If we can sing, dance, act and play and do it outdoors, then what a great way to get the kids together outside in the fresh air for some fun.’ I was inspired to spread the love,” she says.

The vision has been a huge success. Her first session had 90 kids and 17 classes, which she mostly taught herself. Since then, Little Apple Arts has reached over 300 kids, most of whom have stuck with the program since the start. She teamed up with her friend (fellow Broadway actor and NJ mom) Paige Faure who teaches and choreographs, and as SOMA interest expanded, so did the team. Broadway conductor/Music Director Garrett Taylor and other NJ Broadway moms, Kathy Voytko and Megan McGinnis were also brought on board. “It has been such a great way to use our skills and our passion to share what we love while Broadway was shut down,” Becky says. “I am lucky to have a team of such wonderful human beings as well as talented artists.”

The classes were held on the chilliest of winter days, on the most sweltering summer afternoons, and everything in between. The classes have gained so much popularity within our community that her next session of Backyard Theatre, which launches on November 8, is already sold out.

She created summer camp sessions, which saw 5-12 year olds create mad lib musicals, sing summer hits and pay tribute to NYC. Her upcoming November camp will focus around The Nightmare Before Christmas – also sold out – and will encourage creativity in the kids who attend through acting and singing, dancing, crafting, and artistic expression.

Most importantly, fun is at the heart of the purpose of Little Apple Arts.

“These kids have all gone through an extraordinary few years, and they have gained such independence. We want to keep the fun in their lives and encourage them to play and express themselves. ” she says. “This [Little Apple Arts] is fun with a purpose.”

As we move closer to being indoors together again, Becky has once again adapted her program, and in addition to seeing singing and dancing children on driveways and in front yards, you may stroll past The Woodland and hear renditions of ‘It’s a Hard Knock Life’ or St George’s Church and notice quite a lot of fun happening in Parish Hall. There is still the option to have outdoor classes, but the transition into indoor spaces means the program can continue to grow and include more kids. “The backyard classes are such a wonderful way to create with friends and I am thankful we can offer a covid-safe way to play. We also want to bring kids together to meet new friends so, with kids back in school, we are slowly transitioning to multiple ways to play!”

Interested to find out more? You can check out the website: www.littleapplearts.com; follow them on Facebook: www.facebook.com/littleappleartstheatre; or check out them out on Instagram: www.instagram.com/littleappleartstheatre.

As for when Becky is going to launch adult classes? She laughs and says that we’ll have to wait for now while our kids have all the fun!

*Photos by Live Love Lens Photography