It’s been a long semester looking back.
We’ve come a long way – from first stepping into the BFHS classroom to walking out for the last time – the personal transformation from this experience has been profound.
To be completely honest, I came into this class with zero expectations. As with my previous IRC class experience, I had no idea what to expect, and so I walked in with a clean slate, a blank sheet, an open mind from which to create and learn.
The students seemed shy in the beginning. And our first day with BFHS reminded me of orientation day at UMBC, where all the new freshmen meet with some of the orientation staff, many of whom are upperclassmen. Neither are quite sure how to approach the other, but the expectation was there – that some interaction was about to begin. Truthfully, I was not sure how to act at first, so I adopted what I thought was a pretty passive approach. Once all the students had finished introducing themselves, I sidled over to a table and began chatting and doodling. Gradually, over the course of the two hours, a few students became more talkative, mostly about minor things, punctuated by the occasional joke and sarcasm. I remembered a few names for future reference, and ruminated about a few observations: They were passionate about art. They liked drawing. They were excited about new ideas and new technology. They have not had a lot of opportunities to express any of this.
The original premise of the project certainly seemed interesting. The notion of “community” was something with which I’ve been familiar growing up, but has been a feeling that’s drawn further and further away with age, responsibility, and my own loss of free time. I grew up on a small communal farm, where every family knew about the business of every other family. That was my understanding of what a community was.
But the Bay area and the project with BFHS presented a challenge on a conceptual level. To define the community through art and ask the question of “What does the Chesapeake Bay community mean to you?” to this group of students seemed dauntingly ambitious. Their reactions seemed varied. Some seemed to be interested, and contributed ideas. Some seemed indifferent. Others were opposed to it, or just simply did not understand it in full. To be honest, I’m not certain I understood it. And if I could not answer a question, I didn’t see how the students would answer it. But one of the girls with whom I had become close had expressed what seemed to me like a rather vehement objection to the idea of connecting the Chesapeake Bay, and I thought, “that was that.” Then came our biggest hurdle.
At that point, I felt the most difficult aspect of this project for me was figuring out a way to bridge all of the mini-projects together. While what we did was fun and meaningful individually, I felt that the overall connection between the art fights, the claymations, the portrait drawings, the collages, the paintings, and so on was somewhat fragmented. In our sessions back at UMBC, too, this was brought up. Ultimately, our solution worked – the common link of art drawing all of the creativity together – but I would say conceptually, this was my biggest struggle in the BFHS project. I could not see us bridging this in a way that made more sense, that coherently brought together all of the differences and fragmentations within the class – from the mediums to the activities, to even the types of interactions students had with each other.
The most difficult component of my personal project was a bit different. By the time I produced my final pieces, I had already gone through two previous idea proofs, which I discontinued. The first would have been a highly intimate piece that would have had me asking students very personal – perhaps even touchy – questions about their lives. Given our time constraint and the gray sketchiness of some of the comments I may receive, I decided that idea was somewhat risky. My next idea was an Andy Warhol inspired idea, after I had noticed that the students were drawn to very bright, vibrant colors. I was going to make pop art, which required me to take photographs of them. So that’s what I did: I had a few students follow me into the hallway and stand against the wall, and I would photograph them. It soon turned out to be a photomontage session, as they freely changed expressions and emotions and gestures sans any command. I ended up with around 20 shots of each student. I had asked them to give me three colors they felt represented them, or had special meaning to them, and all of them dutifully did so. When I returned to look at the photos, the variety in their expressions was something that jumped out at me. And I decided that it was not to be wasted, so I changed my idea for the final time, and produced the following pieces. It was an accidental inspiration, and I’m glad I stumbled upon it.
My most enjoyable experience by far was doing the claymations. I felt that was where the students transformations were the most palpable. I am not going to name names in this paper, but the student I worked with went from “I don’t know what to do,” to “Let’s move the camera over there, and we’ll do the shot my way.” The beginning was certainly a struggle. Explaining the usage and application of each equipment required patience: this green background, this purple paper, this keyboard, that computer, the camera and how to operate it, etc. They picked it all up quickly enough, but then came the other challenging part of coming with a story. Initially, everyone seemed hesitant about taking control over the animation. No one seemed eager to pitch ideas, and everyone seemed more ready to defer to me or another UMBC student. They asked questions like “Can I do this?” or “Am I allowed to do it this way?” to which the response was always “This is your story, you can do whatever you want!” To help move things along, I would suggest things about placement, a few skeleton storylines to see if they pick up on anything. They did, and very quickly.
The first we did was the gory clip for Halloween. I would say that was the highlight of my experience. It was fun, creative, and reflective of something with which I was very familiar – teenage angst. It didn’t even start out that way; the story actually began very innocently, with animals playing with each other. But as the BFHS students took control, our collaboration went into “Halloween mode.” It was hilarious to watch them work at this, laboriously shaping the stubborn clay and carefully adding strategic drops of red paint for blood. That was where their control as artists really became evident, and I could see that it was becoming easier and easier for the students to direct, mold, and shape the course of their characters and story. I’ve never felt that transformation so clearly as I did in those Claymation sessions, and what a rewarding feeling that was to watch it happen.
This course was important in my life because to me, it felt bigger than what it actually was. Yes, it was a class, there was a coursework component, but it had externalities that I never would have considered to be part of a class structure until this semester. As I had mentioned before, community had a very linear and limited definition for me. Over the course of the semester, I could see the quintessential notion of a community unfolding before me: the classroom was a community; as artists, we were now part of that community. It included schools, family members, the elderly, faculty, staff, us, everybody. It was something I had not previously considered.
Ultimately, the students taught me as much as I taught them, if not more. I knew art – or what I thought was my conception of art – but I did not envision its unfolding in the scope of this BFHS class, and certainly nothing about that surrounding community. I went in not knowing what I could contribute, and walked away feeling like I contributed through an awakening of sorts. I was a small cog in a big machine, but it was a machine that served as an outlet for students hungry for artistic release, starving for recognition and expression of their talents and ambitions and dreams and goals.
And it was more meaningful than my words have the capacity to convey.
I work as an Emergency Medical Technician, so I’m often told that my contribution to the community under my fire station’s jurisdiction is immediately and straightforward. Someone calls for help, I show up, I help them, I take them to the hospital. It was professional. It was quick and impersonal. This BFHS experience was different. My contribution was less immediate, it was dispersed over a long period of time, and subtle in its nature. And it felt very personal. I wasn’t bandaging a wound or setting a bone or doing palpations. I was making friends, sharing my life stories and giving personal advice, girl to girl. I was talking about art as much as my experiences in school, in China, in my travels, etc. Some of the students had troubles at home, and had confided in me about them. Others had issues at school. Some were simply struggling with an artist’s block. But I was a part of all of that.
All in all, this course was a great experience. The BFHS class was also a great experience. It has reshaped my vision of what community is, and also gave me a unique perspective on how I can contribute to it in ways outside of my traditional considerations. I hope to take these lessons in the future as I uncover more communities, and seek to be a positive force of influence to those around me.
