Athena Corbin: Visual Artist
Together Again: We Welcome AOB Alumna Athena Corbin as our Assistant Artist This Summer
She’s passionate, she’s creative, and she’s ready to set the world on fire. Meet AOB alumna Athena Corbin, who will be returning this summer to assist in our “Pour Your ART Out-DC“ workshop and share her infectious love of art and passion for bringing out the best in young people with the next generation of AOB apprentices!
Following a brief residence on the other coast, Corbin is back in town with her Associate of Arts degree in hand, preparing to enter Howard University. She aims to pursue her Bachelor’s in Elementary Education degree minoring in Visual Arts where she can build on her love of photography, illustration, painting, jewelry making and clothing design.
It was as a student at Bethesda Chevy Chase High School that she joined Arts on the Block’s very first apprenticeship workshop. The year was 2004, and mosaics as a medium had not yet been introduced to the program. Corbin fondly remembers the final project that year: creating one’s own “self-expressive” three-dimensional (kapok-stuffed) T-shirt. Corbin alone opted for using original photographs in her design – an early indication of her fascination with photography that continues to this day.
The next season, Corbin returned to AOB, scoring a mock interview with a representative of The Gazette (newspaper) during the job-readiness training component of the program. To her surprise and delight, Corbin was offered an internship as a photojournalist, ultimately seeing a number of her photos appear in print. Soon after graduation, Corbin’s passion for art led to a job as an AOB teaching assistant, sparking her interest in working with youth and leading to subsequent teaching roles.
Corbin has long looked to travel as a major source of inspiration for art-making. Born in Charleston, South Carolina, Corbin lived in Liberia, West Africa, with her grandparents while she was very young before moving to Silver Spring. A move to California in Oakland led to the completion of her Associate of Arts degree from Berkeley City College, and in 2013, with her aunt and her adventurous bengal cat, Pixel, Corbin drove cross-country visiting green cities, resulting in a photo series titled “Rhythm and Motion in America.”
The decision to return to school on the east coast was an easy one, given that her top schools and family were in the area. Thrilled at Corbin’s decision to pursue a career in education, we welcome her back to AOB, and look forward to a richly rewarding summer—and beyond—together again!
