Art can transform the way people think and act. It gives society a gathering place. In an instant, art can bring people to be inspired, protest, fight, love, cry, reflect, remember, or believe. It can be therapeutic for both the experiencer and the creator. The act of art making allows us to express, research, experiment, play which can lead us to innovations and skill building.
On May 26th, 2020, George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His murder led to the creation of Black Lives Matter and sparked protests around the world. In Dallas, Texas where I was living at the time, store front windows in downtown and surrounding areas were smashed out, there was looting, protesters were blocking highways, COVID-19 was raging, and people were angry and in so much pain.
By early June something started happening to the boarded-up windows in downtown. Artist started using them as canvases (below are some photos I took of the art that went up during that time). The art inspired the community to come together, heal, and to listen and learn from each other. This got me thinking as an artist and art educator that I need to find a way to bring this into my classroom. During the pandemic I played with different assignments dealing with social justice as the topic, but it was difficult because most students were staying home and focusing solely on Covid.
Art education at CSU has stretched my perspective on social justice issues, how art and art educators can play a role in this discussion, and how to execute teaching complex social issues to children. My peer teaching group is focusing our project on immigration. We are tying our person immigration stories to our project and asking our peers to do the same in hopes that the personal connections strengthen the impact of the art experience.
I’ve had many personal connections and experiences with my former students in terms of immigration. In November of 2016 I took my students to the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas to see a traveling exhibition called Borders Cantos. The exhibition had two artists, an American photographer named Richard Misrach, which is well known for his landscapes, and a Mexican sculptor named Guillermo Galindo, know for using found objects. Paired together, their artwork opened the eyes of my students to the horrors against humans and the environment at the Mexico/United States border.
For me, the real impact of this experience came in the weeks after. A student of mine came to me with her own immigration story. She had never spoken to anyone outside of her family about how she immigrated to America as a child from Mexico. Her parents brought her over on foot through the hot and dangerous desert. It was an emotional conversation and she thanked me for bringing the class to the Borders Cantos exhibition. She spoke of how it helped her feel connected to the art and less ashamed of her story. Below are some pictures from that museum visit.
My art piece reflects on my family’s immigration history. A few years back my family decided to take a DNA test. I’ve always been told that I’m mostly German, so I wasn’t expecting this test to tell me differently. Turns out I am of Scotch-Irish ancestry. I have always seen Celtic art and thought it was beautiful, but now I had a true connection to it. The metaphor in my art piece is the earth connecting to the sky as the tree of life unifies them in a symbolic and systematic Celtic knot. It signifies harmony in nature, the balance between the seasons, and the balance I am finding in this class between learning and creating.
The peer teaching project has already taught me a new skill (laser cutting), opened new doors within the community (Ft. Collins Plastics and Cecelia Kreider), and strengthened my relationship with my peers (Nikki and Malea). These all greatly impact my future as an artist and an art educator.
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