Bio: Xander Weaver Scull is a printmaker who has been using stencils for fine art since 2011, when he studied how to use visual art for social and environmental justice messaging at Hampshire College. He has spent nearly a decade working on a series highlighting and honoring threatened, endangered and recovered species. His work is created as an attempt to engage with children and adults about protecting and healing the planet without using fear and apocalyptic framing. He has spent years exploring the process of making his own paints and inks from natural found materials. As a teaching artist, Xander has worked with Artist Teaching Art in Marin and ArtSeed in SF. He is currently working as a nature educator with
Vilda, a non-profit that takes kids outside and teaches them about local plants, animals, ecosystems and much more.

ArtSeed Statement: For me what makes ArtSeed so necessary and important of an organization is the deep commitment to providing resources to nurture creativity and self-expression, make space for play, fun, mess and “non perfection” and also take art seriously and use it as a way to explore and process major social and environmental issues facing our youth and world. I first began working as a teaching artist with ArtSeed in the spring of 2015, when Josefa contacted me after seeing an art exhibit of mine that utilized homemade paint from natural materials to create images that highlighted endangered animal species. We worked together to create a lesson plan to take into schools across San Francisco to teach students about local threatened and endangered species in our area (such as the Mission blue butterfly), while using homemade earth paint as the medium the students used to create the artwork. I found this work incredibly fulfilling and meaningful. It led me to spending the next year working with ArtSeed in schools, and supporting the organizations transition to working with students in other spaces outside of a school environment. In this current time of the pandemic, the educational system has suffered greatly, resulting in even less arts education than what limited funding there was for it under “normal” circumstances. I am eager to support ArtSeed how I am able at this time, since my proximity to San Francisco is not a factor when working with and teaching students online.

Lesson Plan