Visit to Robert A.M Architects

Two BAC participants, Eddie Paulino and Edwin Velasquez, have a great interest in pursuing a career in architecture. We are both students at In-Tech Academy 368 and are taking part in the Dreamyard BAC program. For one of our trips, our instructor decided to take us on a visit to Robert A.M Stern Architects, LLP. There we met Peter Morris Dixon, the Director of External Communications, or basically, the head of the marketing department. Dixon guided us around the firm where we saw architects working on current models. The architectural models impressed us tremendously, because of all the art and patience involved in the process. We were also able to talk with some of the architects, and they explained to us how they loved their jobs and that they had planned to work in an architecture firm since their childhood. This trip changed the way I thought about architects and architecture. Everyone always told me that architecture was all math, and thanks to technology and programming, it's still math. However, architecture isn't just math, so they were proven wrong. At Robert AM Sterns, I was able to experience that architecture is about the art of building structures, creating realities, and making an idea come to life.

BAC Participant Highlights

My name is Evelyn Pazmino and this is my artist statement about my sculpture titled “Do You Live On The Right Side?”

My concept was to create a dollhouse that speaks about the issue of domestic violence because this is what people in the Bronx go through. By dividing a dollhouse in half, I juxtaposed two realities (What Do You See And What Is Really Happening?)

I made the right side of the dollhouse depict a family suffering from domestic violence. The left side is inhabited by the “ideal family”, (the TV or Hollywood family), where everything is always wonderful and perfect. The whole point of my piece was to put the audience in a difficult position, where they were forced to pick which side of the house they are closer to. This could either relieve them or fright them, and I think that made my piece very powerful.



The BAC Program taught me that I could place my audience in difficult positions or situations through my work and make change. Art is everywhere and people should give more credit to artists that help make our world a better place. I learned to connect with issues and concepts by looking at artists work and seeing how curators at NYC museums brought forth their work within a context; for example, I visited the Whitney Museum of American Art and experienced the Kara Walker Exhibition. It enlightened me on how African American people, and women more specifically, have been demeaned throughout the years in this country. It also helped me to see the entire world in a new light.

Evelyn Pazmino, BAC Participant 2007 - 2008

Frida Kahlo

This is Frida Kahlo!!!! A Mexican Artist.

One artist that has grabbed my attention is Frida Kahlo. Born on July 16,1907, in Mexico. After an accident on a bus on September 17,1925, which caused her ribs, back, pelvis and collarbone to break, she began to paint self-portraits. She did this while in bed, in order to help pay for all of her medical bills. Although she was in bed for most of her lifetime, recovering from surgeries in a plaster body-cast, she continued with her life as an artist. Later on she started to walk again after a year of rest. She met her husband Diego Rivera and went to New York for sometime. Frida Kahlo didn't like New York at all because it was so different from Mexico. She was living in an apartment which usually caused her to see many things, which she painted eventually.

I like this piece because it shows how the United States of America is different from Mexico. And I also like the fact that she saw this when she was taking a bath, and ended up painting something she saw in her head.

This is also another piece showing New York, and in the middle you can see Frida Kahlo's dress. The buildings in the back cover the entire background, which made me understand that New York City has many people living there.


This painting has Frida and her husband being held by a lady, half light green (good) and the other half dark brown (bad). I think this painting shows the child Frida always wanted, and how that baby was going to have both Frida and Diego's DNA. But for some reason that baby was never going to be born and there was something, someone holding the baby back from being born. That someone, I think, is the face behind Frida.

Silent Auction

In May, 2008, DreamYard hosted their annual benefit at Roseland Ballroom in Times Square. BAC participants helped coordinate the silent auction at the event, and shmoozed the crowd. Forty art works created by DreamYard students were sold, and the proceeds went to fund DreamYard's future art programs.

The crowd admiring all the beautiful art works up for auction

Do I hear $100, $200, $300?!

Charlene Dubin's Animal drawing!!!

BAC Silent Auction Coordinators: Edwin Velasquez, Amber Ade, Charlene Dubin, Evelyn Pazmino and That Guy

2008 Spring Exhibition

On May 28, 2008 the B.A.C opened their exhibition titled What Do You See And What Is Really Happening? at Haven Arts Gallery in the Bronx. The installation explored the media, the home, and the education system. Questions of truth and fiction were addressed in this multi-media installation with interactive ballot boxes, found objects, photos, a classroom reconstruction and large-scale drawings.

A video clip of "Whose Your Daddy" by Edwin Velaquez

That Guy teaching the class (gallery attendants) opening night

Charlene Dubin standing in front of her installation of drawings

BAC Participant Highlights

Consumption Is My Obsession, Digital Prints, 9X12”, 2008

As an artist I admit that I haven’t been exposed to the artwork of others. However, this changed once I joined the B.A.C Program. B.A.C has expanded my horizon and now art has more than one definition to me. Previous to the program, art was something that had to be an eye-pleaser. I eventually got to see that art goes way beyond that. Art is about making a statement in the most creative way. I’ve realized this by being exposed to such artists as Cai Guo Chang, Kara Walker, Lorna Simpson and Barbara Kruger.

I’ve also experienced that which the professional artist goes through, by exhibiting and curating shows. We were granted opportunities, exhibiting our artwork at the Haven Arts Gallery. We also juried, curated and led docent tours for DreamYard’s annual student art exhibition at Sotheby’s in January 2008.

These opportunities not only make a benefit to my future, but it also adds positive things to my character as an individual. It gives me pride as well as showing me how to handle my responsibilities. Public speaking made me proud as well as helped me develop more leadership qualities. The B.A.C. Program not only reassured me that I could have success at a young age, but the implications of that.

Amber Ade, DY Prep, B.A.C. Member 2007-2008