On May 7th, 2026, artworxLA facilitated a wonderful day of arts and community on the Jack London campus by participating in the school’s Peace Conference event. Students, staff, educators, and guests participated in numerous creative projects and future preparation activities: take-home craft workshops, campus beautification tasks, and even a college and career resources fair. To grow the confidence and writing skills that students had been working on with artworxLA, artworxLA Workshop Coordinator Grace Ciacciarelli taught classes on how to make zines and handmade cards.

While the Peace Conference marked a fun and creative start to the summer, artworxLA Teaching Artists Lilia Ramirez and Lizette Hernandez had already been spending the entire Spring 2026 semester bolstering their Jack London students’ self-reflection skills and artistry by leading workshops inspired by our partnership with the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA’s MONUMENTS exhibition. Lilia, a professional muralist, taught Jack London Community Day School students how to create a multimedia mural by painting backdrops and using stencils they cut and spray-painted themselves. Lizette, a prolific ceramicist, encouraged her Jack London Continuation High School students to calm and ground themselves through the meditative act of sculpting with clay; students designed and displayed their finished clay sculptures in a collaborative ‘altar’ to commemorate their personal histories. Together, these students' works served as ‘monuments’ that demonstrated how history has been expressed, altered, and perpetuated through visual art.