Highland Elementary Mural with students

Hi Everyone!

As promised, I'm slowly getting current - sharing stories about older projects. This is a mural I made in collaboration with three ambitious and passionate 4th grade teachers, and three classrooms full of young minds, in Gresham, Oregon. If you're been following me for a bit, you might remember this project from last year. Yep, same school - but different hallway and different kiddos.

About 5-ish years ago, I was a Teaching Artist with Lane Arts Council in Eugene. I would go into schools and make murals with students. Sometimes with one classroom and sometimes with every kid in the school. It was a ton of work. And it wasn't quite a way to make a living. But I suuuure do miss it sometimes! I've been trying to do one of these volunteer projects per year, to get my fix. Read on, to learn how we made this year's mural.

I think my philosophy on mural-making with kids, stemmed partially from the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps' approach to international and community development was drilled into me from my years as a peace corps volunteer. You enter a community (in this case, the school/classroom) to do a project (mural), and you must first get buy-in from them if the project is going to go well. A good recipe for community development, and for getting kids on your side when doing murals together, is to INVOLVE them, rather than tell them what they should do. It works like this: Kids help you decide what to paint, and why. Therefore, they CARE. Therefore, they are PERFECT ANGELS for you while you paint (this was certainly the case during the last two murals I did in this school, where I was adamant about this process.) Therefore, they treat the mural with respect and pride when it's finished, and build some self-confidence in the process. While painting the mural, I try to keep my hands off it, save for fixing minor drips and splashes. But I'm not gonna go in and render out a perfect flower, over the top of one that five kids created together over the course of an hour. Kids make it = kids take pride in it.

Here is how we made a mural design with three classrooms full of kids. I asked the three teachers to come up with a very broad theme that we could use to prompt the kids to think of imagery. They chose this quote by Gandhi: "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." The teachers had also been talking a lot about the idea of "using our voices." Pretty broad, right? But timely. Important. Big. Each kid was assigned to write and draw about what this means to them. I then took all of those assignments, and checked for re-occurring imagery, or words that could become imagery. Here's what came up:

Kids expressed using their voices through:

Art (fitting, right?)
Music
Writing
Kindness and anti-bullying
Speech/activism - this came up a lot in various forms. Some kids even specified: Black Lives Matter, immigration rights, "love is love", etc.
Keeping their environment clean and "green"
Learning and school

Imagery that came up a lot:
Hearts
rainbows
Hand-holding
kids playing
All skin colors
Protesters/marching/sign holding

My job then, was to try and synthesize all of that into one cohesive design, which is what we painted. Before getting our brushes wet, I talked with the kids about the power of "using our voices" through art (because that's what I know best.) I showed a powerpoint, and talked about how muralists like Diego Rivera were able to express some pretty powerful ideas through making public art. I talked about some murals I made in Madagascar, and how they helped teach folks in areas where literacy rates were low. That's the power of using our voices. So, the kids were already empowered about the idea of using their "voices" to show the rest of the school community how they felt. And that again, is the Peace Corps way.

On painting days, I lead about 5 kids out into the hallway at a time, and give them each a paint color and a place to put it. We work in layers - the first layers are purely just covering the wall. The subsequent layers leave more room for expressive mark-making and more careful technique practice. In the end, all of the kid have put a mark or 30 on the mural. And believe me, they remember EXACTLY where they are afterwards. It's so fun! The teachers even captured it on video this year, and made this gorgeous time-lapse! Love. Bucket = filled.

"I am a Muralist" - A Social Justice Mural with Smart Kiddos

Hi everyone!

Prepare for a word-y, picture heavy post. This one's a doozy.

If you've followed this blog for a long time, you'll know that I originally started it as a way to document and explain my art lessons with kids, so that other teachers and teaching artists could benefit from them. I have since moved on and changed careers, and my blog has changed to reflect that. I used to be a Teaching Artist. I was on a roster with the local art council, and would get hired to visit schools to work with their kids in creating murals. Sometimes the contracts would last over a month, and sometimes just for a day. In my job now, I work a 9-5 as a graphic designer for a company. It's a more steady income flow, and it was just a nice career shift for me. While I definitely love still doing my own mural work on the side, there are days when I really miss making art with the kids. 

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to work with a classroom on a mural again. The school guidance counselor reached out to me through my website, and asked if I would be willing to donate my time to help them create a mural. My work just happens to give me 2 days per year to do service work, so that worked out perfectly for this project. This is how the school counselor described their situation:

"100% of our students receive free lunch. Our students are mostly kids of color and many are first or second generation Americans. Many of our kiddos have challenging home lives and have parents who are incarcerated, addicted or absentee. My role as the School Counselor is to teach skills and give support to these young people regarding the hurt, frustration, sadness and anger they have. We are a school of many white walls. I believe children will invest in what they see their environment to be and I don't believe white sterile walls are good for anyone, let alone children."

How could I possibly say no to that? We met up with the teacher who would be leading the project with me, and game-planned. The students would create a mural based on a poem that they were used to reading every morning before they started their school work. Here is that poem, written by Luis Valdez:

Tú eres mi otro yo.
You are my other me.

Si te hago daño a ti,
If I do harm to you,

Me hago daño a mi mismo.
I do harm to myself.

Si te amo y respeto,
If I love and respect you,

Me amo y respeto yo.
I love and respect myself.

The kids were assigned to draw and write about what the poem meant to them. The teacher then sent me all of their answers and drawings. I took stock of the images that came up repeatedly in the kids' work: Landscapes. Children holding hands. Children of different colors. Hearts. Then, I took those images and turned them into one cohesive mural design, which I traced onto the wall myself before working with the kids. 

On painting day #1, I gave a short presentation about the mural work I do. We talked about what makes a mural different from other art (it's art for everyone to enjoy, it's art for a community). We also talked about what it means to do a project together and work collaboratively (no one person gets to do the "coolest part" all by themselves. It takes ALL our brushstrokes to make up this picture, together). The biggest thing I had to tell them though, was why art is important. We talked about my murals done in the Peace Corps, in areas where the literacy rates are very low - murals become communication and teaching tools, more than the written word. Murals can explain to the public, the feelings of a community. This mural they were creating as a classroom, was going to explain their feelings and values to the school community. Murals give people voices. 

Then, we got to work. I approach murals with kids with a "one kid, one color, one job" approach. I mix a ton of colors in solo cups (house party supplies coming in handy! haha) and give one to each kid as they cycle through turns painting. Each kid gets a job. I ask them to fill in something, outline something, add some trees here, etc. They use their color, in their area, to finish their job. After 15-20 minutes, we rotate kids. Rinse and repeat until the mural feels finished. We had such a blast!

In the end, it looks absolutely beautiful. Since the first day when I made the black outlines, I had not touched it. I only directed the kiddos, much like I imagine a conductor would direct a symphony. The kids become my paintbrushes :) They did such a great job!

In the middle of the second day, the guidance counselor came up to tell me this: "one of the Latina girls you have been painting with just told me that she has felt sad with all the people saying they are not happy with immigrants being here. But she said that after painting this and seeing people with all the different skin colors in the mural, she feels like people really do love her." (I'm not crying, you're crying!) The lesson here is this: there are many ways to resist injustice. I was not in the streets that day, I was wrangling children with paintbrushes. But it's clearly made a small difference, if just to a few shorter, lovely humans. 

Here are a few of the kids' responses to their experiences. Again, heart melts. My favorite: "I am a muralist." Yeah kid, you sure are.