Born in the former Soviet Union, the land of engineers and hard science, it’s no wonder that Marina Shterenberg describes her chosen profession as impractical.
As an artist, she doesn’t create things people can use — but as a teacher and philanthropist, she’s found a way to make a difference in the lives of low-income children.
Shterenberg’s family came to the United States from Ukraine in 1989, when she was 15, in the very last major wave of Jewish refugee immigration. A product of an immigrant culture that stresses personal success over community service, Shterenberg is rare in her desire to work so hard for so little financial or professional gain.
However, she is typical in other ways. In the overachieving tradition of her fellow immigrants, Shterenberg started an educational nonprofit called Star Mountain Art, while simultaneously tackling her fine arts master’s program at S.F. State.
The mission of Star Mountain is to give free art and yoga classes to low-income children. To fulfill that mission with minimal resources, she solicited interns from SFSU classes in nonprofit management and business writing.
As the program gains momentum and exposure, volunteers are now stepping up to help run the program. A newly formed board of directors organizes a yearly fundraiser and does outreach. So far, more than 300 children have participated in Star Mountain’s after-school art and yoga program, its summer program and community mural paintings in Tenderloin, West Sunset and Mission playgrounds.
The 3 1/2-year-old organization finds funding for teacher salaries and equipment through art grants, private donations and corporate sponsorship, and space is donated by the San Francisco Department of Parks and Recreation at the Mission and Glen Park recreation centers. Working with modest funding, Shterenberg doesn’t pay herself for the time she puts in to run the program. She only gets paid when she teaches.
She says the work is a labor of love, which pays off through positive feedback from parents, changes in the children and the commitment of the artists and teachers.
The idea to start Star Mountain began when Shterenberg moved to San Francisco from New York City five years ago. She noticed that the artist community that thrived in the Mission district had little interaction with the neighborhood’s immigrant Latino population. She envisioned local artists serving as role models, sharing their love of art and creative exploration with the kids.
After eight years of teaching art to children as a traveling artist-in-residence in the New York public school system, Shterenberg felt ready to start her own program. By that time, the need was dire in a climate of devastating cuts to after-school and art programs in Bay Area public schools.
Running Star Mountain has sharpened Shterenberg’s business skills as an accountant, grant writer, and program manager, and has fed her passion for the transformative power of art. “The goal of the program is not to teach kids to be artists, but to empower them and give them confidence and a sense of accomplishment through the creative process,” she says.
The first summer program offered was a fort building and video project. Half the kids built a fort while the others filmed the process. “One of the participating children could not sit still, but with a camera in hand he was transformed. He filmed 70 percent of the project and was totally focused and absorbed,” recalls Shterenberg.
Star Mountain is unique in its use of yoga to foster creativity, break inhibitions and hone focus. Starting with 20 minutes of yoga helps the kids loosen up and become comfortable, which opens them up to the vulnerable process of creating art, Shterenberg says.
She also believes art helps kids deal with identity, especially for immigrants adapting to a new culture. As a teen immigrant herself, Shterenberg remembers how difficult it was on her when her family moved to Dallas and became involved in the Jewish community. Though her grandfather was a rabbi in Ukraine, running the town’s secret synagogue, Shterenberg had little exposure to Judaism.
She had a bat mitzvah in Texas, but the process was foreign to her. “It was shocking — for the first time I had to ask myself if I was Jewish, Russian, Ukrainian or American. It was so difficult to fit in. I think my art is influenced deeply by this search for identity,” she says.
Having received a master’s degree in painting, Shterenberg is now a resident at the Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin, where she’s working on installation art pieces.
While many artists make comments on social change through their work, Shterenberg is out there making a hands-on impact.
“I truly believe that change is possible when diverse people come together,” she says. “I could have never done this on my own. I may have started this, but the talents and minds of many people have made it happen.”