Shopping for Good

Get some holiday shopping done early and support a good cause at the same time – the Sidney Borum Health Center in Boston’s South End, which serves young people often left behind by traditional health care.

Bid on gifts from Dec. 1 (6am) to Dec. 7 (8pm EST).

We’ve donated an exciting new workshop: Burning Art & Design onto Wood, with talented pyrography artist Cecilia Galluccio. Starting bid: only $30, a third of the $90 list price!

Here’s the direct link.

Other items include gift cards (as good as cash), sporting events, performing arts tickets, collectors’ items and more.

It’s another idea from Eliot School student, supporter, and Beth Israel Deaconess CEO, Paul Levy.

Open Studios

Although it keeps threatening to rain today, crowds keep passing through the Eliot School, and yesterday, a quintessentially beautiful fall day, our building was streaming with people.

It’s always an exciting weekend for us, as many of our teachers have work on display and so many people pass through our doors – really hundreds in the course of an hour.

We’ve had about two dozen artists in the yard and indoors, showing their art and their crafts. Friends have crossed paths, money has changed hands, artists have met their audiences. Three of our teachers – dollmaking, spinning, and gilding – have demonstrated their crafts to rapt passersby. And many people have signed up for classes.

If you haven’t been, there are still 3 hours left as it’s only 3 o’clock still on Sunday afternoon.

Photos by Charlie Rosenberg.

Eliot School’s school programs

With Labor Day around the corner, it seems we may partner with a dozen schools this fall, providing art and woodworking for after-school and – new for us – during the school day.

Now that we have a blog, we’re ready to boast about some of the outstanding work done with our school partners last spring.


In Roslindale, Irving Middle School students worked with Mitch Ryerson to design an awesome bench, then built it with Mike Molinari. Frank Pettorossi helped behind the scenes. Ellen Pierce worked with elementary school students to create the tiles that decorate their wave-shaped facades. For a couple of spring weeks these gorgeous, colorful benches flanked our front door. One now sits outside the Sumner Elementary School; the other, outside the principal’s office at the Irving School. Check them out!