- UWP's Collaborative Drawings
Racism Unfair, Poor Blacks and No Social Justice, and the Statue of Liberty
Now, let's redefine this game. When Dewey said that engaged activity was the best way to learn, he didn't mean engaging me to guess what's on your mind. I thought you had a student named Damion (bad seed?) and that he was engaging (handcuffs) in white crime which is really not as bad as "bad crime," which is, of course, committed by non-white people. Then I saw Feldman, and got it. Feldman good guy. Asks for collaboration and understanding over unhealthy competition. YES! But is that really a mail box, and are we on to mail fraud?
Do you guys know how to spell Dalai Lama? Look it up, folks. Wal;ker's not with the POLICE; he's with the Texas Rangers. Or did I miss the allusion altogether? This time I turned the tulip I don't understand into my cat. Cat nice. I like cat. And the statue of liberty, what did you want to tell your community about her? Maybe a tear or two for all those poor blacks all over the page? Or would you like to make her half black, half white? Then what about all the other colors of the rainbow?
What's with the heart? My mind rotates things for hints of meaning. Look at that heart upside down and it looks like you're dealing with illicit sex. Dear me, Americans worry such an awful lot about sex. The French always say they do it, and that we Americans just worry about it. But I'm not sure I can tell where it fits in. It certainly isn't limited to any ethnic or racial group. We're dealing with sexual slavery world-wide. Maybe the French better figure out what to teach us.
In the interest of my sanity, how about the next drawing have a theme, and a message that any old ordinary person might get. Look at the samples in this issue and those from the last couple of weeks. And do a little conceptual art. Maybe instead of just one or two drawings, you could break into groups, take a theme, and work together on it. Take the death penalty. It's out there again, this time world-wide. The Middle East and the East are very much into vengeance and punishment. They welcomed the sentence of death against Saddam Hussein. Our sense of the death penalty is that we really do make mistakes. We're human. And the death penalty can't be undone. In Saddam's case though we know he really was a mean guy. But we of the West also hesitate to take God's judgment unto ourselves. The death penalty DOES NOT DETER. Now there's a sticker message for you.
Now, faced with an Eastern perspective from which countries want to join the Western markets, and WTO and the European Union, etc., one of the requirements has been disavowal of the death penalty. Now that we begin to merge our cultures and our values, do we really want to take on the vengeance seeking lust for punishment unto death? Major concern, and to me, a major step backwards into our inhumanity to man and woman. These are issues we need to talk about. Make a sticker. You're all grown up now. You can do it. Susan and I have faith in you.
What if you favor the death penalty? Then do a sticker that sums up what it is you believe the death penalty will do for us. It will certainly provide vengeance. Please don't say Vengeance is Righteous. I don't think I could handle that. But we're teachers. We're not trying to tell you what's right and what's wrong; we're trying to help you see all perspectives. For example, how many of you knew about the East's pressure for the death penalty. People need to know that. Stickers will help them learn. (Reference: last week's New York Times, and maybe the Los Angeles Times. This issue really is coming to the forefront.)
love and peace, jeanne
- Tell Someone - Over and Over Until They Remember
Froggy to Remind Alejandro's Three-Year-Old to Wash His Hands.
The three-year-old has his own. No child suffered our taking his froggy away from him in this program.
I changed the color of a few messages to make it easier to read on the Web. I also added a feature on my graphics program that looks a little like soap bubbles. I did that for texture. And I outlined in black. That makes things pop out some time when things are melding together. If you're using a stamping technique that's easy to do by staining just the edge of your form. You could also do it with a felt pen.
Notice that Alejandro's Froggy has pockets, so that the youngster can take messages out to read, and put some back. The frog can keep changing messages, and the idea of washing hands will stay at a conscious level for a while, as long as the frog remains a focal thing for the family.
This type of message dissemination works well when we're trying to establish or break habits. This one was designed for children, but it originated with the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV ) warnings that can cause cancer. Washing your hands frequently is one of the best ways to avoid viruses like the common cold, the flu. Frequent hand washing is an important habit to acquire. Getting rid of the germs on your hands is one good way to stay healthy. Gives a good overall explanation of the importance of washing hands with SOAP and water.
Some of our students have hung froggies in the restrooms at their work places, after observing how many of their co-workers failed to wash their hands. Good idea. Might work at schools, too. Don't be alarmed if someone steals your froggy. Make another one! You've made someone conscious enough of the importance of washing hands that they're going to hang your froggy somewhere else where it will remind others. Unless they're going to trash it, in which case, we gain even more. Someone that leary of talking about the importance of washing hands needs to get a little rattled over not wanting to, or not doing it. Remember this is public art. We're using it as part of our engagement to build a better community, in which people are aware of important issues, and get that information. They may not want to wash their hands - but we need to keep reminding them that such an attitude makes them dangerous to themselves and others.
Remember that our community includes us all, kids, families, teachers, neighbors, co-workers, clerks in retail stores, all of us. Include eveeryone in getting these messages out there. jeanne
- Stimulate Community Dialog in Every Language the Community Speaks
Olga's First Spanish Sticker: Unidos
- Remind Us that Bugs Don't Like Soap and Water
Mean Bugs
Wash Hands
- Remind Us that We Need to Find Focal Things
that Are Personal to Us
Juliette created texture and interest by stamping flowers on newspaper cutouts. The only thing I added was an outline in black to make the sticker more readable from a distance. Outlines are useful. (Rouault used them a lot.) Experiment with outlines in colors other than black.
- Choice Means Complicity When We Do Nothing in Face of What Is Wrong
Yvonne Ramirez wrote on the back of her sticker "We all have a choice in life in what we do or say! It's a choice in the way we perceive things." Nice colors. And Yvonne used outline to make the message stand out. It just wasn't strong enough, so I went over it again. I couldn't make out the second word, theory, until I re-outlined it. Then it popped out. I think the message needs a little clarification for the sticker. Suggestions welcome.
When you're using newspapers, you're not allowed to reproduce comics; they're all copyrighted. So we'd need to hunt for substitutions or draw our own before we could put this out as even free public art. We might try some of the free drawings available on the web. jeanne
- Grow Free
Latrice used glitter glue to do the printing. Needed some balancing, but I can do that on the computer. Nice message. There is something mysterious and lovely about your work here, Latrice. Makes me think of a door, a wonderful, old, time-worn door, with this lovely window onto some of those focal things. The black has a different effect than I would have thought. It doesn't feel like night, more like peaceful contemplation, which leads me to think of meditation, and some of the inner ways to grow free. jeanne
- Representative Rangel of New York Proposes Draft
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Put up sticker, and fold card (inside shown) to make a card you could leave with those you talk to.
This sample card that you could reproduce and give to those you talk with for further references is on Would a Draft Produce Equity? with information on the draft as it is currently being discussed.
Now what if I added a few lines to the sticker? How might that change our conversation?
Clue. Take a close look. The words "in jail" and "poor" have been added in the upper left and lower right corners? Think in terms of "you made your choice," which is often a Christian response for a lack of empathy. Might the Other respond "I didn't have the choices you did?" How does that relate to privilege all the way back to kindergarten?
- Shared Pathways with Roundworms for Dependent Behavior with Nicotine
How about the sticker:
Look at the New York Times article that inspired this sticker, Nematodes With a Craving for Nicotine, by Henry Fountainm November 21, 2006. Backup.
There's so much that's so toxic in our environments. I saw a man an outdoor cafe in Beverly Hills yesterday, smoking a cigar at the table he shared with his wife and young son. I told him that I had cancer, and asked how he could willfully subject his young son to such secondary smoke. Stop Smoking. Please. For your own sake, and for that of the planet. jeanne
A Justice Site
jeannecurran@habermas.org
