Brooklyn Art Incubator, Inc. was founded in 2001 by a local artist-teacher to help young people use art to overcome the challenges that make growing up – as productive, successful members of the community – appear to be an unreachable goal.

Developed out of his experiences as a teacher in NYC public schools and Juvenile Justice facilities, his underlying vision for BAI promotes positive self and social development of youth by incubating their artistic talent, empowering them with a creative and entrepreneurial spirit, and bridging the gap between talent and success.

BAI helps youth – with difficult home lives, poverty backgrounds, lacking in traditional academic success – connect to their art projects, develop a sense of self worth from hands on experience in creating a project, and identify concrete ways to derive benefits from it.

BAI offers youth opportunities for artistic recognition and social achievement. We provide mentoring by local community based artists of similar backgrounds to encourage and inspire them. We incorporate basic learning skills into the artistic development process, along with formal entrepreneurship training, which empowers youth academically as well as creatively and economically.

By 2005 BAI staff had learned that the same techniques used to engage youth and empower them to reach their goals were also effective to empower people of all ages. Therefore, later programs such as ARTZ BIZ KIDZ, Vision to Action and Art for Seniors and most recently the Family Support Center which offers Bridges to Health services to families with foster care involvement.

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