Totally Cool Totally Art

About Totally Cool Totally Art

February 14, 2023 – February 28, 2023

For more than 20 years, Mexic-Arte museum has partnered with Totally Cool Totally Art to curate and host an exhibition to celebrate the artworks created by youth in Austin area REC centers.

A reception is held for all students, families, instructors, coordinators, and facilitators to recognize the artists, artwork, and institutional support. Students get to learn about each other’s work, receive awards, and see their work displayed in a museum space. This exhibition is one of Mexic-Arte’s favorite ways to be a platform for the youth and encourage them to pursue the arts.

Totally Cool Totally Art (TCTA) has been developing teen creativity and confidence since 1996. TCTA is unique in that their classes are completely free to Austin’s teen community. Their mission is to help give teens new experiences, build respect and trust, and improve their skills in creative expression, communication, teamwork, and art appreciation.

This collection features some of the work from the first half of the 2022-2023 season. You will find digital art, animation, paintings, spray paintings, sculptures, and short films.

Painting

Students learn simple yet effective painting techniques from art history and experiment with how to apply them in ways unique to their own story and self-expression. With paint, pencil, spray paint, wax, and paint pens, used on canvas, cloth, plexi glass, masonite and wood, this class is all about exploration.

Instructed by Jonas Petkus and Jenny Shin

Digital Art

Armed with iPads and Apple pencils, teens dip into the world of digital painting, graphic design, and animation. Techniques like claymation and stop motion are practiced to create short movies in groups or solo. The course ends with the opportunity to create a T-shirt and a temporary tattoo of the students own design.

Instructed by Santiago Alarcón and Alex Bugg

Sculpture

This class is for students who love the process of making things with their hands. They experiment with a variety of materials to explore form and function in the third dimension. Resin, clay, foam, cardboard, wood, and paint are the primary materials used to create these works of art.

Instructed by Octavius Coleman and Miguel Santana

Film

Students pick a film or TV genre that inspires them to tell their own hilarious, spooky, and dramatic stories. They get the opportunity to practice all steps of production; writing a script, setting up the camera, lighting, sound, acting, editing, until an original short film is ready to premiere.

Instructed by Sergio Gonzalez and Grey Ellis