Bio

Angela Black is a professional artist, educator, and advocate in the arts sector, practicing in NB for over 15 years. Angela has also dedicated herself to establishing a permanent art workshop, Open Your Art, located in The Charlotte Street Arts Centre. She currently offers arts programming for all ages and is dedicated to providing quality arts education in a truly inclusive and accessible setting. Angela has had a personal calling to work with adults and youth with Trauma related challenges and those with cognitive and physical disabilities. Angela has extensive experience as an arts advocate, establishing arts sales platforms for emerging artists who she mentors, and developing exhibition committee guidelines for The Charlotte Street Arts Centre as part of her volunteer service. Angela has also been involved with Craft NB, Arts Link, and has presented talks to post-secondary students at STU and NBCCD on social impact and the transformational teaching/learning approach. Recently, Open Your Art has gained accreditation to host internships for university students from both UNB and STU.

Residency Project

Angela has always leaned toward work that supports mental health and provides opportunities to engage community members in inclusive and accessible creative spaces. In this residency, Angela intends to work from known protective factors for youth, a sense of self-acceptance and a sense of belonging as an overarching theme. She intends to utilize expressive creative opportunities as a tool to bolster personal voice, and as a means to promote greater community engagement. When youth are provided opportunities for autonomous creative expression in an inclusive peer support setting, what emerges can become a vehicle for positive social impact, an offering. Angela asks youth, what matters to you? Beyond a nurturing a greater sense of self, of belonging, and community offerings via creative expression, Angela also seeks to map community assets with youth in an effort to assist orienting oneself, physically, in a community. Opportunities to explore the region have become a highlight of Angela’s work with youth, trips to art galleries, libraries, historic sites, local festivals, accessible nature walks, guided tutorials on public transit and trail systems. Part of developing a sense of community involves feeling confident navigating the spaces we share and knowing where to find places and events that inspire and connect.

Teaching Experience

Angela has had extensive experience teaching arts education in both the private and public sectors including Open Your Art, NBCCD, UNB-CEL and design works, the Estey Art Initiative, the Charlotte Street Arts Centre, Riverside Montessori Learning Center, Multiple public schools, Opal 3, Veterans for Healing Inc., the Fredericton Regional Resource Centre, and programs/talks/workshops for all levels of government, municipal, provincial, and federal. Angela has presented arts curriculum in the following formats: daily and weekly arts programming, one-day events, professional development for schoolteachers and service providers, tourism events, conference and festival programming, and grant projects relating to the public school system.