Today a fifteen year old told me she was glad she found the arts center because after recently losing a friend and a cousin, she's decided "there's nothing out there on the street for me." She thanked me for having something productive for her to do, but I should have thanked her. It was what I needed to hear to pull me out of the rut of disillusionment and pessimism I stumbled into recently. There are lots of things that need doing, and a few of them are things I can do.

"The association of tyranny and kitsch art is real and it is slightly mysterious."

This article, about the tasteless art favored by the Gaddafi family, is worth a read. I think it sheds light on the importance of art made by disempowered people.

composite mural photo, new website coming soon, etc

Oh, hello. I don't believe I ever put a picture of the finished mural on this here blog, so here it is:

As you can probably tell, the mural is so big that I had to take several pictures and stick 'em together in Photoshop... which is why it looks kind of choppy. But, lacking a fancy camera, and considering the very poor lighting in the auditorium, I think I made do pretty well!

I am nearly finished with a full-blown website that will include my artwork and outlines of new and exciting community arts projects, at which point I might put this blog to rest, because there are limits to the blog format. I'll be sure to post the website link once it's up (later this month).

stencil street art: examining consumerism and social problems in west baltimore

Jessie and I planned this project to accomplish three things with our teen students: to understand how street art can be a powerful art form and tool for social change, to think critically about consumerism and the way that advertising affects us, and to examine issues in our own communities that we want to speak out about. We wanted the activity to be a way of subverting the methods that corporations use to market to us. Once we identified the tricks that companies use to sell us stuff we don't need, we asked the teens to use those tricks in their stencil artwork--catchy slogans and images that will catch peoples' attention. But instead of using these tricks to sell things, we used them to convey our ideas. We used temporary chalk spraypaint to stencil our slogans on historic Pennsylvania Avenue in West Baltimore.

Teen students stenciling one of the slogans they came up with based on our discussions: Teach us, don't fear us.

exciting mural progress. pictures!

We are almost finished with the mural that we've been working on for the past 3 months at a nearby elementary school. We have had two classes of fourth- and fifth-graders working with us during the school day to design and paint the 75-foot mural in their auditorium. I thought I'd just post a lot of photos of the process because they speak for themselves.

Our theme for the mural is, "We have the power to shape our community." After discussion and activities about positive things and problems in our communities, students made drawings based on these themes. I then compiled and outlined the students' drawings to project onto the wall as a basis for our mural.

current events response collage: protests in the middle east and wisconsin

I organized a teen group that meets once a month at our center. It's designed to be a gateway for teens in the surrounding communities to get more involved with our programming. Our lowest enrollment in classes is among teens, hence the creation of the "Teen Advisory Group." I am still figuring out exactly how the group should be structured, but lately I've been organizing different team-building/art-making activities that hopefully are fun and engaging. The point of the group is also to find out from teens what kinds of classes they'd like us to offer here, and to have them help design classes and plan events at the center. We hope that with their input, they will feel a sense of ownership over their community arts center, and will be more likely to sign up for classes and ask their friends to sign up, too.

african-inspired masks

goal

To create masks using papier-mache to wear at an event that our family celebrates.