Process Binder #4
The past few weeks, I have made a lot of progress in regards to my Capstone Project for CPSA250/CPSA201. Not only did I fully complete my first portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat, but I also completed my journal entry in connection to my visits to the Freedom School in DC with Do Better. In fact, I also have gotten well into working on my presentation through Prezi for ArtsFest and will post a link to it. Below is a portion of my journal for my Do Better visit:
During my visits to the DC Freedom School with Do Better, a community service-centered student organization that has chapters at the University of Maryland, College Park, Morehouse College, Bowie State University, and Howard University; I have had the opportunity to truly see the importance of representation manifest with my own two eyes. I have been blessed enough to have had countless opportunities to interact with and develop mentor-mentee bonds with children who look like younger versions of myself, and take me back to a time where I once did not love myself, people, history, or culture; and had no idea how to.
After volunteering with organizations and initiatives including the Blue Drop Initiative, the Slam the Gap Initiative, America Counts; and even my actual paid junior and senior counselor positions with Forcey Day Camp, one would think that I had reached my maximum potential and hit the quota on knowledge of the importance of representation. This presumption is false.
At my last visit to the Freedom School, I saw things beginning to come full circle in regards to the kids. Although I have not been able to visit too often due to scheduling conflicts with my internship at the Office of Community Engagement last semester or my job as a Marketing and Technology Assistant with the Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Education this semester, many of the kids recognized me immediately - even with yet another different hairstyle than what they had seen during my previous visits. Not only did they recognize myself and my two peers that I went with, Liz and Maimouna, but their faces literally lit up as the light bulb went off in their heads. With the Black Panther soundtrack blasting in the background and its bass making the gravel quake, we moved on to play “Red Light, Green Light” with our scholars and, dance to other current hits that they were familiar with. hen the sun eventually set, we read books with them inside to place an emphasis on and plant seeds of literacy and scholarship in young, impressionable framers of our future.
