A couple of intense sessions with my group of early and middle childhood student teachers in their first college art education class. We learned about Kerry James Marshalls painting series titled the Lost Boys (1993). The paintings construct a rich and complex surface with expressive references to abstract American Painting and Grafitti Art as well as figure drawing references to Renaissance and Yoruba portraiture. But mostly the paintings are funereal portraits of ordinary young African-American boys who lost their lives too early, victims of police and gang violence in a time, if you notice the date, when riots went virulent in L.A. Marshall has written eloquently how he explored ideas of Loss, Dignity, Empathy, Heroism... We had a great conversation about the pieces and Marshall as an artist. Looked and talked via a learning board that propelled interpretation and image-based inquiry. Then, students have explored moments of loss and interruption in their own life experiences, and have drawn their own funereal mementos, which we have layered on top of some painterly material explorations that we had produced a week ago. As a closure conversation, we have talked about how the sense of loss is something personal, and that it is important to have opportunities to feel the space of loss in a time when we move in a too fast pace. But based on Marshalls work we have also discussed how loss is something public that makes us wonder why young are dispensable, and how such horrific news barely transform collective consciousness. We discussed how important is to build empathy with situations that may be far from our own existences by trying to go back to our own lives and find moments or people that had similar experiences. We also realized that memorializing should be different than victimizing. We considered why a tough lesson like this could be relevant to teach and learn in a city like Milwaukee.
Posted on: Thu, 17 Jul 2014 22:22:51 +0000
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