Ramp Up Fellowship Pilot
Ramp Up Fellowship Pilot
Embedded Files
Photo: 2022 Ramp Up Fellows participating in printmaking
The Pilot Ramp Up Fellowship took flight from January to September 2022. Supported by grants from the Arts Equity Reimagined Collective Action Grant and a Remake Learning Moonshot Grant, this paid fellowship centered 18-24 year-olds who identify as BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and who reside or grew up in the Homewood and Garfield neighborhoods of Pittsburgh. It was a 9-month full-time position that included paid professional development and hands-on work experience for the fellows via co-teaching in youth-serving programs at Assemble and the Legacy Arts Project.
3 of the 4 fellows identified as LGBTQIA and 100% of the fellows identified as African American. For the spring semester, the fellows experienced up to 20 hours a week of professional development and training with the remaining 20 working in programs. The fellows also had about 5 hours a week to work on their artistic practice. Over the summer, the fellows worked full-time in Assemble’s and the Legacy Arts Project’s summer camps.
Participants experienced professional development opportunities and field trips to sites across the Pittsburgh region and made new connections with makers in Pittsburgh and beyond. Executive Director Nina Barbuto led sessions with the fellows, diving into learning theories and pedagogy from Paulo Freire, Dr. Bettina Love, Dr. Gholdy Muhammad, and more.
Scholar Spotlight: Azadiel and Veronica
Scholar Spotlight: Azadiel and Veronica
Photo: Azadiel during screenprinting workshop
A member of the 2022 cohort, Azadiel Watts, joined the Ramp Up Fellowship to get experience as a teaching artist and has led classes and traveled to different schools across Pittsburgh to help teach.
While participating in the Fellowship, Azadiel developed a Manifesto for teaching:
“Everybody is on a journey. There are a lot of different obstacles and things that people can face on a journey. But the point of a journey isn’t really the destination, it’s more just how you got there. So I focus more on the way I try to teach students, and the connections that I build. I want to make sure that the kids actually have fun.”
The fellowship also influenced Azadiel’s creative process. “I feel like I just think differently when I’m around different people, so that’s mostly how my art changed. I was around a lot of different artistic people who had a lot of different practices, and I was around a lot of different tools like LED lights and robotics…I kind of picked up some coding stuff.”
Photo: Veronica at Assemble
2022 cohort member Veronica Green first learned about Assemble at age 11 after passing Assemble’s space on Penn Ave and walking into a Make and Take event. She started regularly attending programs like Girls’ Maker Night as a student, and eventually became a guest teacher.
Veronica defined “It takes a virtual village” as her Manifesto. She says, “I was aiming to create a safe space for school-age students, and potentially college and beyond…where they could connect with kids of the school.”
In year two of the program, Veronica looks forward to creating with others and establishing nourishing connections. “I think the Manifesto for Teaching is something that even once you start, you don’t really finish. You just keep working on it and keep that with you in your back pocket as you move through life.”
Veronica also observes that the Ramp Up Fellowship has an impact beyond the program itself. “I think the fellowship experience was a really positive change. I was really able to tap into my creative side. A lot of times I do go through phases of creative block, but I feel like the fellowship has given me a toolkit of things that I could refer back to.”
Azadiel was hired as a full-time teacher at the YCreator Space.
Since 2022, Veronica has joined Assemble’s regular staff and now serves as a full-time Off-site Curriculum Coordinator and Teacher.
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