CYCLICAL MENTORSHIP PROGRAM

GLOBAL EDUCATION PROGRAM

CYCLICAL MENTORSHIP Program Overview

The IMOD Cyclical Artistic Mentorship (CAM) is a community-rooted, paid mentorship model designed to build sustainable creative leadership pathways for youth artists and emerging arts administrators. CAM reimagines arts education by centering lived experience, youth voice, and real-world artistic practice. Participants are not passive students, they are active contributors to meaningful arts initiatives within their communities.

CAM is a community-rooted, paid mentorship model that reimagines arts education by centering youth voices, lived experience, and real-world creative practice. CAMP supports youth artists and emerging arts administrators through hands-on mentorships that build skills in artistic development, project management, and community engagement while actively participating in meaningful arts initiatives.

IMOD-New Mexico leads this work in collaboration with a network of local and national partners. Over the past three years in New Mexico, IMOD has partnered with artists, educators, and organizations to offer community arts lecture series, artistic mentorships and workshops, administrative and professional development trainings, community discussion panels, performances, and youth-centered educational programming. Together, these efforts strengthen cultural infrastructure while expanding access to creative leadership pathways.

CYCLICAL MENTORSHIP PROGRAM MENTORSHIP MODEL

CAM’s mentorship model invites established, practicing artists and cultural workers, deeply connected to their communities, to work as mentors aligned with each cohort’s artistic focus. This structure intentionally disrupts traditional hierarchies in arts education, redistributing power and centering youth stories, self-expression, and creative agency. Through validation, encouragement of who our mentees already are, and shared lived experience, participants gain both technical skills and a sense of belonging within the broader arts ecosystem.

CAM functions through cyclical cohorts that connect:
• Artists (Youth, ages 10-18)
• Cultural workers deeply rooted in community
• Emerging arts administrators
• Established practicing artists

Mentors are selected based on artistic excellence and lived cultural connection. Each cohort aligns with a specific artistic focus (e.g., Arts Administration, Body Percussion, Contemporary, Folklorico, Hip-Hop, etc.).

The model intentionally disrupts traditional hierarchies in arts education by:
• Centering youth stories and cultural identity
• Offering direct access to professional artistic ecosystems
• Providing paid mentorship opportunities
• Redistributing creative authority

Participants develop both artistic and administrative skill sets while building confidence, belonging, and leadership capacity.

IMOD CAM LOCAL PARTNERS

• Bishop’s Lodge

• Center for Contemporary Arts (CCA)

• City of Santa Fe Arts & Culture Department

• New Mexico School for the Arts (NMSA)

• The Son of Piccaso 

• Zozobra 101 & Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe