Hello, MSA Communities,
A kind MSA parent and MSAF board member gave me this incredible book called Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us. She left me directions to start with chapter 5 on Amplifying Learning then move on to chapter 2, Cultivating Well-Being, and then tackle chapter 3, Restoring Mental Health, explaining that these chapters are especially relevant to MSA. After following her wise counsel, I wholeheartedly agree!
It’s not just me thinking our arts vision is powerful because I love all things creative and I love our artsy kids (and their families) so much. There are brain scans and experiments and experts and big words to prove what I see and experience at school every day.
Experience a little taste of transformative arts MSA style with a video Victoria Salazar, one of our multi-talented seniors in Theatre and Creative Writing, created for her application to USC with a little help with a beat from Evie and encouragement from her class:
As a community, we see how engagement in the arts enhance our lives. Not just the lives of our children but us too. I close this penultimate MSA newsletter of 2023 with the words of Kurt Vonnegut, quoted in Chapter 5 of the fabulous book given to me by an awesome MSA mom:
“Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.”
Thank you for all the ways you continue to support our arts-infused campus. We look forward to art-ing with you soon!
Warmly,
Michelle Cortez