Meet our Artists
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Caley Vickerman | Literary & Visual Arts
Caley Vickerman | Literary & Visual Arts
Actor, Educator, and Poetic Enabler, Caley Vickerman, is the founder of Guerilla Haiku, a public art experience that she has been growing since 2011. The purpose of Guerilla Haiku is to use poetry as a tool to get strangers to connect and share their stories in public spaces. Facilitators build temporary installations to showcase a community’s stories, and begin conversations around the experiences participants have when gathering poems (and initiating contact) with the people around them.
Her professional life bridges the worlds of Educator and Artist. Both identities are essential parts of her person- she creates in order to teach, or through teaching she creates; both are sides of the same coin. A certified teacher in NY and MN, she has over 15 years of classroom experience both as a full-time classroom teacher (in mathematics and theater), and as an art educator consulting in-and-out of schools at all grade levels.
“Caley’s residency was amazing. She worked with bringing a school and community together to write Haiku. The relationships made, the communication and finding out what a school and community are grateful for was a gift. She truly made the week an energetic, exciting and productive one. Relationships were made, connections with school and community created and a wonderful end of residency celebration made us smile, brought tears (good ones) and we realized how lucky we were to have Caley work with our students.”
Caley is trained as an actor and she borrows from immersive and interactive theater models in much of her work. Her passion for experiential education, commitment to community arts programming, creativity and enthusiastic facilitation are key to the success of her educational programs.
For the past 7 years, she has been based out of New York City, and has facilitated programs in over 60 cities nationwide. School-based programs have been most popular, but she has also worked with museums such as the Corcoran Gallery of Art in DC, and the Phoenix Art Museum as well as other arts organizations, senior centers, hospitals, community police and faith-based institutions. Recently, she relocated to her hometown of Minneapolis and is dedicated to providing programming locally.
As an artist, she is passionate about the ways in which the arts can offer opportunities for deep connections, to oneself, to one’s environment, to new ideas and between strangers across all divides. Caley is thrilled to be a COMPAS roster artist and looks forward to creating meaningful programming with and for your community of learners.
Learn more about Caley in her July 2018 Artist Spotlight interview.
Sample Programs: Customizable To Site’s Needs
Residencies
Guerilla Haiku: Poetry as Community Building
Over the week, students will learn about haiku and work collaboratively to explore their classroom, home and school communities using haiku as the tool for exploration and engagement. As students become more sophisticated with the structure of a haiku, concepts like economy of language and figurative language will be explored. Toward the end of the week, students will begin working on an indoor or outdoor installation style showcase of their written work. The installation is a unique way to celebrate their work and further engage the rest of the school community.
Kite-Building: Math Taking Flight
Teams of students work collaboratively on building working kites. Using Tyvek and Fiberglass rods, students learn basic geometry concepts of measurement and scale and put them into practice. On flight day, students work together to test out and share their creations. The angle of ascension is used to explore the altitude of their kite, an example of basic trigonometry.
Workshops
Assembly-Style Program for a Grade Team: Guerilla Haiku-Poetry as Community Building
In the one-session special event, students engage in...
character development
community involvement
creative writing
team-building
This special event start with an opening ceremony/assembly to establish rules of play. After, teams of 10:1 (students:adult) head out on haiku scavenger hunts. Teams cover their campus and surrounding neighborhood to create spontaneous haiku inspired by what they see and experience. As they become more sophisticated with the structure of a haiku, students begin to recognize the power of only a few words, and the possibilities provided by figurative, nuanced language to hone their message. Students bring back their haiku to the closing ceremony to share their work and what they experienced.
Guerilla Haiku Free-For-All
Create a dynamic, collaborative space for volunteers, passers-by, and staff members to interact creatively with their environment and each other. Stories can be gathered about the event, or about a particular theme that is of interest to organizers. Each haiku is a qualitative data point; reports on the data gathered can be requested at additional cost.
For festivals, parties, ceremonies, family days, or other events as a way to prompt interaction between different stakeholders within the community in creative, intentional ways.
Professional Development
Writing Across Disciplines: Using Haiku in your Content Classroom
In this 2-hour team-building session for teachers and staff, participants will share best practices, connect literacy across all content areas and integrate experiential learning to enrich existing curriculum.
