ART@NIGHT

(Duration: 00:16:17)

How do you make music with plastic bottles, a toothbrush, a deck of cards and a kitchen scrub cloth? Or how do you make a photograph of your friends using a flashlight and a five-minute exposure time? This is not a document about your average art program for kids. Rather, ART@NIGHT the documentary takes its name from one of America's most innovative contemporary art programs. And using a combination of live-action footage and fun photo-animation techniques, what emerges is a high-energy, ground-level look at the experiences of elementary school kids in the process of exploring and discovering new ways to perceive and re-create their world.

Director & editor: John Scott. Animation & photography: Mary Kocol. Music composer: Ken Ueno. Executive producer: John Ruggieri. Quicktime video courtesy Peter Bullis, video editor, Brickyard VFX.

In 1994, John Ruggieri founded Abstraction Made Elementary, an artist-run nonprofit organization featured in Newsweek and the Boston Globe that for many years provided portable contemporary art programs for underserved youth, linking accomplished artists, children, and their shared community in education, exhibition, and public art programs.

John has returned to being a professional artist, re-energized by his experience with the natural creativity of children, his collaboration with accomplished artists, and the generosity of the many individuals and sponsors who supported AME. John hopes to archive the AME website on johnruggieri.com in the future.