I have to admit right up front that following my objective in this project did not take the path I anticipated. I think early on I viewed it as a personal research and growth project being undertaken to continue to grow a more robust knowledge of artists and art history.

This came from wanting to do better for my students as I developed new art curriculum, but also from wanting to expand my personal range of influences and inspirations. I anticipated reading, visiting galleries and working in the traditional ways I had become accustomed to when doing my own exploration and research. I was specifically attentive to artistic voices that represented historical time periods, social justice movements, racial and cultural viewpoints that would allow me to explore themes with students where they could better see themselves reflected and come to better understand the role that art and expression plays in themes of identity, injustice and power.

Where I ended up was challenging my own views of what good art curriculum was, exploring a lot about how art and social media are currently intertwined, diving into new work with students during a year full of restrictions that limited what I could ask kids to do, and even drawing some personal inspiration while challenging myself to think like a student. It turned out to be a very broad path to follow, but one that spawned a lot of side paths and future routes of exploration. I’m not sure I can say this is a project that will have a definitive end. Rather I think it will end up creating a series of smaller goals as it continues.

The original inspiration was a workshop I had participated in called “Decolonizing Your Curriculum.” Following that I had joined the Patreon for the group who ran the experience. There they posted regular newsletters and project ideas based on artists and themes that are traditionally underrepresented and/or misrepresented in art curriculums. Last year during the restrictions of seeing students outside the art studio and in small pods (and the materials and project challenges this presented), I implemented some of the project ideas or modified existing projects to explore some of these themes.

While I made changes in both grades that I teach, I honed in mostly on my 5th grade classes. We used the abstract work of  Howardena Pindell and her exploration of themes of injustice, racism, feminism, deconstruction/reconstruction and more as the end project of a unit that began with color theory and then used those art concepts to create a work inspired by hers. Later in the year, we looked at the work of Venezuelan digital illustrator Daniel Arzola and how he works to counter the very serious anti-LGBTQIA+ sentiment that he and others experience in his home country and around the world. 

I also found Instagram to be a really amazing tool for connecting to other art educators and resources for antiracist information and curriculum. I was really struck by the work of an artist named Brianna Collins, who has a page called Journalbean. Her technique is simply a kind of autobiographical collage journaling, and this seemed like a great way to explore personal themes in an almost stream of conscious way. Adding Voices, Teachers for Black Lives, Antiracist Education Now, Art Unknown Podcast, Peripheral Vision Press, Jurgen Vermaire, Lib Ya, Flavia Zuniga-West, as well as a host of artist pages and so many more were sources of information, thought provoking posts and inspiration for themes for the future.

In the midst of all of this consideration of the student experience in my classroom I also wanted to stay tied to the art skills and materials experiences that students had. Almost as a side project drawn directly from all of this, I decided I needed to be creating something, and felt I should work with a material that I have not traditionally used.

I ask this of students all the time; use a new or unfamiliar material, and approach it with an attitude of patience and exploration while pushing yourself to try skills that might cause you to feel anxious or self conscious. In essence, really put yourself out there. I began work on a large painting using oil paints, which is a media I have specific negative experiences with in my own past. I worked through unfamiliarity and my own issues around my drawing abilities, concerns about being able to tackle work of this size, as well as problem solving logistical issues. And as I continue to develop this piece I’m putting myself in the shoes of my students. I chose a self-portrait b/c it’s something that is a common ask of our students beginning in the 4s and repeated in the middle school curriculum in several ways, including during the 6th grade observational drawing unit. It’s also something that explores ideas of identity, which relates to the other side of this work I’ve been doing.