LAYC's Art + Media

Students in the Corcoran program with Corcoran photography students.

LAYC offers art + media classes to youth age 12-18, and older if currently enrolled in high school or a GED program.

The program is broken into three sessions – a 10-week fall, 12-week spring and a 6-week summer work program. The classes are held at the art + media house's three-story facility that includes a gallery, fine arts studio, digital media lab, sound room, audio engineering room, darkroom, and classroom space.

Participants are exposed to the experiences of working artists through fieldtrips that go behind the scenes to museums and artists’ studios, maintaining artists’ books, portfolio development and exhibitions at the conclusion of each class session.

The program encourages youth to discover the power of their art as a means of self-expression and as a tool for exploring community issues. The creative abilities of youth are developed through hands-on training in media (photography, radio, video, and music production) and fine arts (drawing, painting, mixed media and murals).

Art+Media programs are led by Marie Moll-Amego. Mrs. Moll-Amego has over ten year's experience directing community arts programs and teaching art to at-risk youth. Before becoming director of the Art + Media programs, Mrs. Moll-Amego worked with youth on numerous LAYC media projects including Que Pasa, a 12-minute documentary about teen life in D.C.; HIV: It's Real, two 1-minute bi-lingual public service announcements; and Kommunity, a documentary photo project. She has also served as an artist-in-residence teaching video and photography, as a youth program director at Video Action Fund and Shooting Back, and as coordinator of the Corcoran Gallery of Art's ArtReach Community Studios program, training BFA students and artists-in-residence to implement arts programs with community-based youth organizations. Mrs. Moll-Amego has designed arts curricula for public schools and served as video production instructor at Bell Multicultural High School in Washington, DC. She has an M.A. from George Washington University in Curriculum and Instruction, with an emphasis in bi-lingual special education, and a B.A. in Psychology from Indiana University in Bloomington, IN.