Kuumba Expressions is a visual art workshop program created by Afrika Abney to advance appreciation of the arts and use art as an intervention for children facing academic challenges. Abney has conducted workshops at Culture Coffee Too and Potter's House in 2015-2016. The workshops are designed for youth ages 6-12, including those with disabilities, and teach painting techniques while exposing participants to renowned artists. Goals include learning primary colors, blending, composition, and using traditional and non-traditional materials. The name "Kuumba Expressions" references the Kwanzaa principle of creativity to promote continuous self-improvement through the arts for all children.

1. For Immediate Release
Contact: Ms. Afrika Abney
Visual Art Workshop Facilitator
Kuumba Expressions
(Kuumba Expressions Visual Art Workshops)
Email: kuumbaexpression@gmail.com
Website: http://kuumbaexpress.weebly.com
Kuumba Expressions
(Washington, D.C.) - Ms. Afrika Abney first introduced Kuumba Expressions
Visual Art Workshops at Culture Coffee Too on January 31, 2015. She also
conducted Kuumba Expressions Visual Art Workshops at Potter’s House on May
16, 2016 and May 23, 2016. They were sponsored by Culture Coffee, Potter's House
and Esther Productions, Inc Art Enablers.
Kuumba Expressions was created to advance the understanding and appreciation of the arts as a
vehicle for the development of whole and healthy children and youth. It was also developed to
use the arts as an intervention strategy for children and youth whoare facing academic
challenges. And the arts are fun!
Kuumba Expressions is created by Ms. Afrika Abney and designed to continue the
mission of offering services to a broader group of young people in the Washington,
D.C. Metropolitan region. The art workshops are available to various institutions
including schools. The art workshops in the past helped young people have a
stronger understanding and appreciation for the arts. These art workshops have
also helped to improve their academic achievement.
Visual art workshops were designed to serve youth between the ages of 6 through
12, including those with developmental disabilities. Participants were provided
instruction in painting, using traditional and non-traditional materials, with the
intent of enhancing their own natural artistic talent while expanding their
fundamental information about compositional studies, light and shadow, and
technique. Further, the workshop augments participants' overall education,
particularly their communication skills. Additionally, participants were
introduced to many renaissance artists. Some of them include Romare Bearden,
Jacob Lawrence, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Polluck and Lois M. Jones.
However, during her workshops, Ms. Abney allowed several younger children to participate.
Goals:
 Ensure workshop participants know the primary colors and learn how to
blend them together to create secondary wheel of colors.
 Understand basic materials for painting including brushes, papers, and
canvases.
 Learn how to manipulate such non traditional materials as sponges, twigs,
dies, and sticks.
 Know and understand basic compositional studies.

2. Why Kuumba Expressions?
Afrika Abney entitled her visual art workshops “Kuumba Expressions “using one
of the Kwanzaa principles which is Kuumba.
Kuumba means Creativity: “Commitment, duty, and obligation to the practice of continuous
improvement.”
Kwanzaa was created to introduce and reinforce the 7 Principles and reinforced the bonds of
family and community.The Seven Principles were viewed and still remain the “moral
minimum”set of values which African Americans need to strengthen and make more effective
families and family systems. The values embedded in the 7 Principles of Kwanzaa are
interlocking and align together and synergistically produce an outcome greater thaneach of the
values isolated individually.
The Kuumba/Creativity principle demands that African - Americans strive for continuous
improvement in our personal and family lives. This principle pushes us to achieve at our highest
potential.
Moreover, the Kuumba principle pushes children and adults to strive for continuous
improvement, always looking to do better. This principle is central and essential to the
restoration of academic excellence for African - American youth.
The Kuumba/Creativity principle pushes against a “victimization” mentality. No matter what
the circumstance, how difficult the task, how challenging the outcome, this principle demands
perfectibility in that the failure of African - American adults and children to make use of their
divine and noble talents, to allow these talents to wane and waste away, is an act against the
welfare of black people and humanity and is also one of the greatest harm a people can inflict
upon itself. "
However, Kuumba Expressions does not only serve African - American children and youth, Ms.
Abney’s believes that all children and youth can gain from the experiences by participating in
our programs and workshops.
To learn more about Kuumba Expressions, visit
http://kuumbaexpress.weebly.com