Making Art Together How Collaborative Art-Making Can Transform Kids, Classrooms, and Communities

Mark Cooper has been making stunning art with children in school for years. This collaborative work made by kids has been exhibited in major museums (as has his own distinguished solo work), including the Whitney in New York and the MFA in Boston. But Mark counts as his biggest achievement the fact that teachers, who rave about what happens in their classrooms, after Mark does a project with them, feel empowered to recreate the classroom experience again using their own ideas, after he leaves. That's what this book aims to do: paint a new picture of what art-making with kids can do and be, and give adults the tools to bring about collaborative projects of this depth in their own classrooms. The book is meant both to change the way people think about art in schools and to give them the tools to change the way they do it.

Mark Cooper is professor of art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and at Boston College. His solo work has been exhibited in prestigious galleries and museums, and his collaborative work with children has been displayed in the Whitney Museum in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and many other venues.