Rebecca Stees moved to Alameda seven years ago looking for a way to follow her passion for art and fostering creativity.

She settled on the island after her position at the Creative Growth Art Center, an Oakland organization that serves physically, mentally and developmentally disabled adult artists, was defunded after the dot-com crash. 

Within a year, she had started Art Yowza. Today Stees offers summer camps, after school programs at Franklin and Edison schools, and day-long programs that coincide with school holidays.

Stees is determined not only to foster and support art-making. She is also interested in guiding young people to think about art and design in their everyday world.

"I tell the kids to look around them," Stees says. "Everything in their environment is designed — chairs, tables, the books in their classrooms."  She prods kids to think about how they can turn their creativity into a way of life and into a career that can pay the proverbial rent.

In fact, a primary goal for Stees is teaching creative confidence. Not only does she work with children on projects, but she also teaches them to see the creative impulse in the world around them.

"During the Olympics, I asked the kids what the most important thing about the event was," Stees explained. "They said 'gold medals.' Then I asked them what kind of designer they thought created those."

Once the kids had wrapped their heads around the idea that the medals were designed by someone, Stees launched them into thinking about the Olympic flags, the uniforms, the flowers, the lighting — all of which were created by someone. Someone they could grow up to be.

A recent project  for the Alameda Animal Shelter also helped show Stees' students that art and creativity can be part of a viable career. 

"The Shelter really needed an infusion of cute," said Stees. 

So the kids in her "Young Designers" summer camp created "Adoption Love Stories" — profiles of pets and the people who had adopted them from the shelter.

The young designers also  made magnets, toys and buttons, and then held a trunk show at Daisy's on Park Street. The kids were delighted to see their works sell; all the proceeds went to the Animal Shelter.

Often, says Stees, kids first get the idea that they can make a career out of art when they realize that her job is teaching art. Then they begin to think about how they might do something similar. "When you have passions and talents and can organize yourself, you can do it," Stees tells them. 

She tries to be very transparent with her students about how she does what she does, and engages them in the process. This year she launched an internship program, working closely with high-school and college-aged students.

"I just feel so happy about this life," Stees says.  "I'm very excited about it, very lucky."

Art Yowza will be holding School Holiday Camps throughout the December holidays for children aged 5 to 11.  Art Yowza works can be seen at the Starbucks on Park Street and the Starbucks in Alameda Towne Centre.