Established in 2004, the Artists’ Connection programs travel throughout the Greater Hamilton area, visiting 36 schools per year and offering visual art experiences to 37,000 individuals annually while making connections to the Ontario core curriculum.

At Dundas Valley School of Art, we feel a multidisciplinary education that includes the arts can encourage children intellectually, emotionally, socially, and physically – stimulating a wide variety of learning styles and increasing a student’s learning potential. By offering the Artists’ Connection programs, we hope to ensure children in our community are given the opportunities to experience the arts and further develop their visual literacy skills.

Teachers can book the Artists’ Connection programs and host the exhibition for one month in their school. An accompanying guidebook for each program provides teachers with different ways to engage their students, offering learning activities that focus on helping students to better appreciate and understand the artworks. Our hope is the exhibition will provide teachers and students with a springboard for conversations, activities and assignments.

Teachers can also take advantage of a unique opportunity to bring one of the featured artists from the exhibition into their classroom. In coordination with DVSA, teachers can arrange to have a chosen artist visit the classroom, share their work and artistic process and engage the students in an art making workshop. These visits are generally 2-3 hours in length.

Currently, five programs are available to reserve:

Artists’ Connection 3 – Exploring and Place 
AC3 consists of thirteen works of art by established Hamilton artists and is an ideal starting place to help students develop their visual literacy and better appreciate and understand visual art. The artwork explores themes of place, voyage, exploration, searching, navigation and the journey of life.  

View the Artists’ Connection 3 Teacher Guidebook

The Artists’ Connection 3 program is made possible through generous funding by The W. Garfield Weston Foundation, incite Foundation for the Arts and ArcelorMittal Dofasco, Hamilton.

Artists’ Connection 4 – Exploring Art Media  
AC4 consists of twelve two-dimensional works of art by established Hamilton artists. Explore these works, created by local artists, made in a wide range of art media including acrylic and oil paints, pastels, collage, block printing, and mixed media.  

View the Artists’ Connection 4 Teacher Guidebook

The Artists’ Connection 4 program is made possible through generous funding by incite Foundation for the Arts, the Edith H. Turner Foundation Fund at Hamilton Community Foundation, ArcelorMittal Dofasco, Hamilton and the J.P. Bickell Foundation.

Artists’ Connection 5 – Indigenous Perspectives
AC5 consists of twelve works of art created by Indigenous artists who reside in the region. The program offers teachers an opportunity to make connections to both the province’s art curriculum and the Ministry’s Aboriginal Perspectives Toolkit.

View the Artists’ Connection 5: Indigenous Perspectives Teacher Guidebook

The Artists’ Connection 5 program is made possible through generous funding by the Creative Arts Fund at Hamilton Community Foundation, ArcelorMittal Dofasco, Hamilton, the Peterborough K.M. Hunter Charitable Foundation and The Winberg Foundation.

Artists’ Connection 6 – Artist as Environmentalist
AC6 consists of twelve works created by artists who reside in the Greater Hamilton region. The artwork in this exhibition challenges ideas and notions around environmental issues and explores how art can be used to make environmental/political statements.

View the Artists’ Connection 6: Artist as Environmentalist Teacher Guidebook

The Artists’ Connection 6 program is made possible through generous funding by the Edith H. Turner Foundation Fund at Hamilton Community Foundation, ArcelorMittal Dofasco, Hamilton, The OTIP Community Fund and Earls Court Gallery.

Artists’ Connection 7 – Sense of Self 
AC7 includes eleven works by established Greater Hamilton Area artists as well as one anonymous work by an Indigenous artist. This program explores the theme of identity through self-expression and also touches on the subject of anonymity in art – how does our understanding of a piece change if we don’t know the full identity of the artist?

View the Artists’ Connection 7: Sense of Self Teacher Guidebook

The Artists’ Connection 7 program is made possible through generous funding by The W. Garfield Weston Foundation, Edith H. Turner Foundation Fund at the Hamilton Community Foundation, Ontario Teachers Insurance Plan, and incite Foundation for the Arts.

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To book an Artists’ Connection program for your school, please contact:

Alicia Orr
Program and Events Coordinator
Dundas Valley School of Art
aliciao@dvsa.ca
905-628-6357 #208

The Artists’ Connection programs are approved by both Hamilton-Wentworth and Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Boards, and at this time, are only available to teachers in the Greater Hamilton region.