WHAT IS MIP?

Founded in 1996, the Meridian Interns Program (MIP) is a paid internship for low-income teens from all over San Francisco in which Artist Instructors integrate art-making workshops with training in job-related skills. The Society for Art Publications of the Americas applies for support to sustain the MIP which uses a designated studio in its non-profit Meridian Gallery as a base for experiential work in the arts. Youth are taught by a team of five artists. Conceived as a natural offshoot of the programming of Meridian Gallery, MIP transforms the knowledge and energy of the people and resources associated with Meridian Gallery into a unique educational experience, providing approximately 34 youth each year the chance to work with and learn from professional interdisciplinary artists.

The Meridian Interns Program provides these youth, aged 14 to 18, for nine months, in the school year and summer, with real work in the real world, a paid training in all the transferable job skills of running a gallery (literacy, verbal and visual communication, computer graphic programs, publication writing, illustration design and production; gallery maintenance and installation of monthly shows). The context for this curriculum driven program is a working downtown gallery. Meridian partners with the Mayor's Youth Employment and Education Program (MYEEP), who pays the youth a minimum hourly wage as they create their own diverse working community in a safe environment while they learn art making skills from a team of five to six professional artist instructors. They organize several annual events including their own gallery show, a Holiday Coffee House performance, and publish a Zine for about 600 city youth.

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