COMUNIDARTE

Comunidarte (community, giving, art)  In order to demand educational and economic equity for youth of color and low income and immigrant families, and women of color, the community has to lead and collaborate. The community can succeed in creating change if we have access, resources, voice. This work is more than a job or campaign, requires creativity, and is life long.         

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After a semester at MLK Academic Middle School, we put together a beautiful collection of writing and drawings. So proud of my poet students. #Comunidarte #PoetryLikeBread

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Part of  Festival de Poesía, IV, Flor y Canto Para Nuestros Niños y Niñas (Luna Press). Painting with Words (Pintando con Palabras). A Nahuatl inspired Writing Workshop for youth 5-10 years old @ Acción Latina in the Mission District (SEPT 26, 2015). The poets experimented with music, drew author photos, tried out the stage and did “Word Math.”

“Mamá + Papá es yo cuando era bebe”

“I come from the Mission, the pan dulce and the MUSIC”

One of the mom’s observing began writing herself, and another commented that if someone had explained poetry like this when she was younger, she would have written poetry all the time. This is the exactly the point. Poetry, like bread. 

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https://www.facebook.com/events/456104337905193/

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https://www.facebook.com/events/456104337905193/

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IRON MOM: NOT JUST A BABY MAMA. May 2013. Final Performance for the Dar A Luz: Giving Light to Birth Project. Photo by Cultural Fotografía. 2013. 

http://daraluz.net/

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Honoring Our Ancestors. 2000 and 2014. My signature project. A portrait lesson I created after the book Honoring Our Ancestors by Harriet Rohmer.

Students learn about drawing faces. They write about an ancestor or famous figure. They learn about painting tecniques. They work with burlap, an unpredictable, particular kind of canvas. There are a few variations. Most recently led this project in my son's 4th grade class as a complement to the Spanish language research biographies they completed.

Burlap squares were cut from a huge role of material a teacher donated to me after I did the project in his class at San Pedro School in San Rafael, in 2007. 

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Bessie Carmichael 2013

Budding Artists at Bessie Carmichael

    Over 30 students in a class and an hour.  My charge and challenge as Artist in Residence at Bessie Carmichael Elementary School was to work with two fifth grade classrooms packed with wall to wall students to make art in a limited amount of time. We had a blast, and the young artists colored their hearts onto paper and left a powerful imprint.

 During our ten sessions together, the youth in Ms. Salva and  Ms. Ebalo’s classes made beautiful things out of recycled paper, shaving cream and food coloring, lucha libre masks and watercolors. Our fist project involved an introduction. During our first lesson on mosaic, we talked about the art form and related connections such as public art in their school and pixel art. They had been focusing on social justice in a unit titled “Taking a Stand,” so we introduced ourselves by making a personal symbol that represented each of us personally, from recycled paper, and in the form of a mosaic. The students presented symbols that showed they would not fail in life (Mokdam);  a favorite place to chill (Tía);  a heart for animals (Susan); and happiness (Stephen). 

Next, we made marbled paper. Usually I would conduct the project with oil-based paint, foil tins full of water and turpenoid to wipe the hardcore paint from our hands. Ready for the challenge of limited time, shared materials, and a large group, I researched a different approach. As a result, I presented them with parchment paper, shaving cream, and food dye so we could marble paper in an easier way—that is if spraying gobs of shaving cream onto parchment, adding drops of food dye, making designs,  and placing paper on top like a paper cake of sorts is…easier. 

Switching gears, I read them a story about a creative approach to dealing with our fears. Yuyi Morales’ Niño Wrestles the World was a big hit as were the masks you can print form her website. The youth created a cause they were fighting and superheroes modeled after the masks I printed for them to decorate and rename.  They then formed groups and wrote and performed stories about their causes (that they were taking a stand for). 

We moved on to making books and painting. I opted for watercolors, and asked them to paint a story without words about weather patterns, land formations, and the solar system (more connections to their class units). This lesson coincided with tragic typhoon Haiyan in the Phillipines, and many of the students, having frequently demonstrated pride in their Filipino heritage, created beautiful books portraying intense environmental events.

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A Road Map by Tae in preparation for writing. Stopping Traffic 2012. 

http://theintersection.org/2012/04/young-poets-stopping-traffic/

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Collaboration with Intersection for the Arts and Seven Tepees. Writing Workshop. Using Poetry to Map Life Stories. 

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Taught art after school at Horace Mann from 1997-2000. This was a display of handmade paper, marbled paper, and painted light switch plates. (My father was a wallpaper hanger. I used to go to work with him. He showed me how to paper the plates when I was around 8 years old. This one traces back to him.)

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 2001. Children's Book Press Lit Links Program. Designed bilingual poetry lessons for an on line class.  My students were 6th graders at  Oyster School In Washington D.C.. Students downloaded assignments and uploaded their poems through a special website that provided us with personal pages to post and store our writing and messages. Students celebrated with an anthology and poetry reading. I traveled to D.C. a few times a year during the project to teach in person, and to see them read their poetry. The second year, I was in D.C. when the United States invaded Iraq. The students used their poetry to digest that day. 

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We See the World Mural. 2000 Jamestown ASE Program @ Horace Mann Middle School. Partnership with Precita Eyes. Youth planned, sketched, and painted mural. Partnership with Papalote Grill. Accompanying art exhibit inside restaurant of student artwork. 

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Endless inspiration from the Lotería Game. I have used variations of the game throughout the years to inspire art and writing. Here, a student created their own game, and then wrote a story based on their card. The student work featured was created in 1998 (César Chávez, San Francisco).

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Cipactli Journal. #10. Primavera 2001. 

Antepasados. Those Who Passed Before Are Here Now. 

A project inspired by Rini Templeton. I wrote a bilingual poem for a class at Horace Mann Middle School that I worked with as a visiting poet. They could use the poem as they wished to write their own poem (in the spirit of Templeton's example). The students wrote poems, chose a drawing from Templeton's clip art to accompany their poems, and we submitted their work to the Cipactli journal in an informal publication contest. Jenny Liu and Christopher Teddy were published in the journal, and participated in the public poetry reading at SFSU to celebrate the journal release. 

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Book Making Class (circa late 1990's). César Chávez Elementary School, S.F.

Book binding, Marbling Paper, Story Writing. This student wrote Lety's Problem, about me, and was very good about remembering to include a "problem," that needed to be solved.