Arte Para Todos

So apparently I'm not the most dedicated of internet scribblers. Who knew? Regardless, I'm now back in the Motherland and elated by the opportunity to reflect on some Argentina. Warning: a plethora of bullet points is about to commence. 

Arte Para Todos 

Jackson Pollock lesson at Comedor Doña Leticia 

   With some unbelievably enthusiastic young Argentines, we created an organization that offers art history and art education to underprivileged children in the city. Because their schools don't offer art education or they just don't go to school, children with remarkable talent and passion never discover or explore their artistic gifts. 

   In six weeks, people from all over BA built something quite beautiful. We established three teaching sites where Argentine locals and American abroad students work. Every week we visited the Hogar de Niñas de Pilar (a home for girls), Comedor Doña Leticia (a small room in a slum where members of the community eat), and a trailer where homeless children gather during the day. Because we now have too many volunteers we feel ready to add a fourth site and hopefully more as we continue to grow.

    A directive board of Argentines are now running the show. Arte Para Todos, as we have named the organization, will continue to build into a permanent education and outreach program. We also met with the social service branch of the city government, who are helping us establish Arte Para Todos as a foundation. Soon we will have a website for any who are interested. 

    For now, I'll transmit a few vignettes from reflections in my journal in BA.  

*Excuse the confusing organization. Each week we taught the same lesson at the three sites (different kids) and I included specific experiences from different weeks at each site.

**Can't use names for the kids because that's creepy and probably illegal. Hence, I've replaced them with art names. Also, I have posted few pictures because mine mostly include the children, and I don't like the look of kids with bars through their faces or blurred heads.**

• FIRST LESSON: MICHELANGELO at Doña Leticia Comedor Comunitario- Barrio Saldias
• In the chilly rain three children waited in a muddy yard for “los seños” (sort of slang for teachers) to arrive. Before we could exit the car they were cupping their hands against the window for a peek inside. After kissing each of them on the cheek, as is the custom of introduction there, we waited in the rain for someone with keys to arrive. 10-year-old CheekyFuturePresidentofArgentinawithTwinkleEyes, introduced himself by kissing my hand and held an umbrella for the two girls with him. About 20 minutes pass, more children gather, and “La Gordita” arrived to open the comedor. We entered a leaky dark room and the children grab brooms to sweep water puddles out of the teaching area. Standing around a table, we introduced ourselves and began the lesson. I warned them of my strange accent from Spain as well as my frequent confusion with Italian. I then taught a brief lesson on Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. Three Argentine volunteers described Michelangelo’s manner of painting the ceiling on his back and then explained how to use watercolor. After taping paper to the underside of the dining table, we layed on our backs and painted as Michelangelinos and Michelangelinas. Shycreativitypersonified skipped over over to my side after the lesson and showed me his work. He had painted his planet, which was thick and orange and contained a network of rules he dictated as he pleased. Following Shycreativitypersonified, nearly all children brought their paintings to explain to "seño." 
• FIRST LESSON: MICHELANGELO at El Vagon- Retiro
• El Vagon is a trailer stationed in a yard between two train stations in the Retiro barrio of Buenos Aires. In March 2010 the government placed a team of five social workers and two security guards there to offer homeless children shelter, activities, and a lunch from 12-4. As a medium to get the kids of the street, the vagon subtracts four hours of drugs, abuse, gang violence, etc from the kids' day. 



El Vagon en Retiro

• For the volunteers, it is definitely a more challenging site and comes with its own set of rules. For example, we asked volunteers to dress a simply as possible, leaving fancy sneakers, jewelry, etc. at home. For women volunteers, we ask that they dress extremely conservatively. Because these kids have received no guidance in social behavior including mixed-gender relationships, the boys have never learned limits. For example, within the first 30 minutes, all of us experienced some degree of inappropriate sexual speech or behavior. Therefore our female volunteers end up teaching art as well as male-female boundaries. They have completely skipped their childhood. Literally it’s like they were born and then they had to become adults. All of the boys lack limits in their interaction with girls and most of these children already have their own children. Also these kids live on a level of poverty far below those of the hogar or the comedor. These children have no home and no family. Unlike the other sites, many of them were older are are usually lightly to severely drugged up. Also, it’s not the cyclical situation in the other sites, where you give love and your receive love. It’s not a site where you leave with the warm-fuzzies of “making a difference.” You feel uncomfortable and occasionally intimidated. Sometimes when offering love you receive resentment in response. And yet you want to return the next day and the next.
• Our first lesson some couldn’t understand me as I tried to explain the lesson so the Argentine director taught the lesson. A little more than half participated, which was wonderful.
• FreckledBoyWhoRemindsMeofMyBrother and I painted together at one end. I asked him to choose our subject matter. He chose a house.
• On the other end of the table I painted with DaisySmile, our most enthusiastic artist. By the time I lied down next to her, she had already spread a small galaxy of abstract forms and brilliant colors. She signed it with an exploding star. We talked about how she did her hair and how I didn’t smoke "paco," a common nightmare of a street drug in BA. She reacted as if I told her I had no bellybutton. DaisySmile also explained that even though she’s poor, she’s seen the world. She listed all of the places she’s been- Italy, Spain,  Chile, Holland, Uruguay, Costa Rica- referring to the names of the plazas here in Buenos Aires.
• CouldBeFamousIfHeGetsHis-Together, a sixteen-year-old who looks like a twenty-five-year-old who has a one-year-old, made me feel like I was in some movie from the 80s. I’m still trying to figure out which one... A "leader" on the streets, he adores rap and practices improv regularly. And he’s good. Like, really good (says a white girl from New Orleans who mostly listens to folk music and Enya). He rapped about the kids, the volunteers, the art lesson, the hardship of poverty, the suffering on the streets, and that in all of it he knew he had God, finishing it by crossing himself. For those that know me, you can imagine the intensity of my effort keep it together.
• JACKON POLLOCK LESSON at El Vagon - Retiro
• Or rather a paint fight disguised as a JP Action Painting Lesson.
• The group of kids changes every day and this week we taught mostly young ones, about 9 to 13. Terribly precious, particularly in their moments to be badass (smoking dead cigarettes, pretending to hit on the female volunteers who are literally twice their height).  
• IWantMySontoBeThisSweet stole my heart. He took the lesson seriously, splattering and streaking paint as he had just learned Jackson Pollock did. When the others behaved like hooligans and dumped water or paint down his part of the mural, he became upset but didn’t lash out. He was the only one who remembered the name of the artist at the end of the lesson. When I praised his work, he thanked me but insisted I recognize the two volunteers who had also splattered paint on his part of the mural. Before the kids went absolutely nuts and the expected paint fight commenced, IWantMySontoBeThisSweet and I hid his in a plastic playhouse to keep it protected. 
• Later we had merienda together where we chatted about how old we were and what kind of art we liked to do. Also SoDruggedHeDidntKnowWhoHeWas informed us he had to go to work that afternoon where he professionally steals cell phones. 
• JAPANESE ORIGAMI AND CALDER MOBILES en El Hogar de Niñas de Pilar
• It was magnificent at the Hogar because the girls have the best attention span of the three sites. We explained that sculpture didn't have to be clay or bronze or stone but could be made entirely of paper and could even move. About 20 of us sat around a table and step by step we learned how to make paper crane origami. Afterwards we colored them, attached them with strings, and hung them from a broomstick. We called this our "mobile" imitating Alexander Calder's kinetic sculpture. 

• The Hogar is always rainbows and roses. Cyclical love and colorful enthusiasm. The nuns couldn't be cooler and the girls couldn't be cuter. 
• SELF-PORTRAITURE AND FRIDA KAHL0 LESSON at Dona Leticia Comedor Comunitario
• We learned how Kahlo and others used self-portraiture as a tool for expression and coping. Also we discussed the process of representing yourself and how the colors, objects, facial expressions, clothing, places, etc. are all deliberate choices by the artist to illustrate a part of his or herself.  After viewing a few examples of her 55 self-portraits, each child drew his or her own. Each had to choose a specific place, object, and activity to represent part of his or her identity. It was marvelous. The kids went all over the place. Some drew themselves as boats.  Some as soccer players. Some abstractly. Afterwards CheekyFuturePresidentofArgentinawithTwinkleEyes made up a game for us. Someone had to chase us as "it" and the only way a person could save themselves from becoming "it" was if they shouted a name of a famous artist. Once Michelangelo, Jackson Pollock, and Frida Kahlo had been used up, the kids would run to us shreaking for another artist name. Gosh I miss it.
• SELF-PORTRAITURE AND FRIDA KAHL0 LESSON at El Vagon - Retiro
• After a soccer game, a mix of older and younger kids joined us inside and another volunteer taught.
• LittleElephantWhoNeedsLotsofHugs and I liked the countryside so we both drew a field and mountains. Then he decided we needed a circus in our countryside, naturally. So he drew a cage with a bird and a sheep in each of our fields. Then we put condors (the enormous birds of mountainous Argentina) in our skies with nest homes on each mountaintop. He was better at drawing the feet so thankfully he assisted me. Then he drew me as the sun and himself as the sheep in his. Insides twirled with love.
• Towards the end of the lesson I delighted in the drizzly weather- that we were painting on such a cosy rainy afternoon. Fifteen minutes later we hugged goodbye, they grabbed their trashbags of belongings or their nothing and headed out into it. That was a humbling queasiness I hadn't experienced before.
• CHINESE STAMP LESSON at El Vagon
• We learned about Chinese Seals and how emperors and artists would sign documents or works with a carved symbolic seal. Each came up with their seal, carved it into molding clay, dipped it into paint, and stamped it onto paper. We also made mural scenes where each person carved an object like a leaf or a fish and stamped it into the scene.
• FreckledBoyWhoRemindsMeofMyBrother went back home!  FreckledBoyWhoRemindsMeofMyBrother left his house 6 months ago after his mother, a prostitute, was killed by a client. We don't know about his father. His older siblings tried to maintain a home, but he left for “el amor del consumo,” love of drugs. It was so strange interacting with him because although he was attending school and living in a home half a year ago, he had definitely turned street kid- upperlip swollen from frequent use of paco, hadn't showered in God knows how long, evidences of violent run-ins, etc. One of the social workers told me some internal problem sent him to the hospital a week before, where his siblings were able to reconnect to him and convince him to come home! I had experienced shocking joy like that before. I mean an actual shock.  
• FIGURE DRAWING at el Hogar de Niñas de Pilar 
•  We taught about the human figure in art and about Leonardo Da Vinci's mastery of its proportions. Then we practiced drawing each other in 60 second, 30 second, and 15 second periods where we practiced quickly capturing the essence of a form. 
• For my last day teaching, they threw me a "despedida" party that actually changed my life. One of the nuns printed pictures of the girls who each signed with a note. They presented me with the pictures as well as a card with drawings and a goodbye song. After circling around, they had me sit in the middle while they sang the song, which they explained was their precious gift they could give even when they didn't have much. Tears. Clearly. 
• Then we had strawberry tart and spent hours trying to say goodbye.

Michelangelo Lesson at the Hogar 

Soooo... for those of you reading, anyone who has questions please send. Anyone who has people in BA interested in participating or checking it out, please send. Anyone who has extra dollars (= 4 pesos) please send. I'm staying on as "Directora Americana" in that I help fundraise and put American universities and abroad programs in contact with Arte Para Todos to offer exchange students the opportunity to volunteer abroad and get to know unbelievably cool Argentines.


Also, friend us on Facebook- Arte Para Todos Argentina. Gosh I'm becoming so web. But do it because we'll have more pictures and info and whatnot there. Website coming but not here yet.