Trajectory of inspiration

Feb 286 min read

Updated: 6 days ago

This week we created zines from a fairy tale trajectory of inspiration, depicted ASL phrases in watercolor, met dragons and carefully drew them, started a Tree of Knowledge library-cited mural, and continued developing characters and plot for comic book story boards. In addition, we are pleased to announce a few upcoming exhibitions!

As usual, AYB Artist Maraya Lopez got us thinking, learning art historical antecedents and pushed us to take time in our studio to flush out the work we began Monday in a session entiled The Three Little Pigs Weren’t So Little: Recontextualizing the Language of Fairy Tales in Advanced Studio on Zoom.

Jessie Willcox Smith, Little Red Riding Hood, 1911 (A Children’s Book of Stories, Duffield & Company)

Maraya summarizes: “In this session we explored the language found in literary fairy tales. We began laying the groundwork for a booklet zine.

Some English words have multiple meanings; some vary based on context, while others typically have a single interpretation. Although many popular fairy tales were originally written in languages other than English, we focused on their English translations for this lesson. The Brothers Grimm version of Little Red Riding Hood served as the project’s source of inspiration. The class researched their meanings using five words from the story’s context. They used these words as a starting point for their stories. Together, we will create a new fairy tale by recontextualizing its language and giving it new meaning. The materials and zine format parameters were flexible, allowing students to make creative decisions they deemed necessary.

My recent departure into the study of Applied Linguistics inspired this project. Analyzing language out of context is important for understanding its full potential and impact on our lives.

This lesson pushed the class to exceed their conceptual and material exploration limits, as many have never created a zine. Meridith completed her zine and Vera B. has made additional progress. I’m excited to see all the final works.”

Meridith McNeal, Recontextualizing Little Red Riding Hood, zine in progress/prototype version — Meridith McNeal, *Recontextualizing* *Little Red Riding Hood,* zine in progress/prototype version

Meridith McNeal, Recontextualizing Little Red Riding Hood, zine outside, 6x36" — Meridith McNeal, *Recontextualizing* *Little Red Riding Hood,* zine outside, 6x36"

Meridith McNeal, Recontextualizing Little Red Riding Hood, zine inside, 6x36" — Meridith McNeal, *Recontextualizing* *Little Red Riding Hood,* zine inside, 6x36"

Vee suggested we could make copies of our zine as handling copies. Lola checks out my mini zines.

Vera Brown, Recontextualizing Little Red Riding Hood, zine in progress

Vera Brown, Recontextualizing Little Red Riding Hood, complete — Vera Brown, *Recontextualizing* *Little Red Riding Hood,* complete

Maraya Lopez, Recontextualizing Little Red Riding Hood, zine in progress — Maraya Lopez, *Recontextualizing* *Little Red Riding Hood,* zine in progress

Neah Gray, Recontextualizing Little Red Riding Hood, zine in progress — Neah Gray, *Recontextualizing* *Little Red Riding Hood,* zine in progress

Vee Tineo, Recontextualizing Little Red Riding Hood, zine in progress, ceramic — Vee Tineo, *Recontextualizing* *Little Red Riding Hood,* zine in progress, ceramic

Abriel (bob) Gardner, Recontextualizing Little Red Riding Hood, zine in progress

Clementine Finn, Recontextualizing Little Red Riding Hood, zine in progress — Clementine Finn, *Recontextualizing* *Little Red Riding Hood,* zine in progress

Recontextualizing Little Red Riding Hood zines in progress by TJ Edgar, Delphine Levenson, Rachel Palmer, Adji Kebe, Scarlett Wagner:

We all appreciated Lila's dystopian humor, particularly with its positive ending.

Lila Green, Recontextualizing Little Red Riding Hood, zine in progress

On Tuesday in Advanced Studio in person in the studio at BWAC with AYB Artist Ajani Russell we painted gestures and hands to convey messages in ASL.

Ajani recounts: "This week AYB artists interpreted phrases in ASL through watercolor. They were asked to focus on the movements of the gestures- specifically the directions of each motion. Artist that inspired this lesson included Marcel Duchamp, Giacomo Balla and Carlo Carra. These artists depict movement in various ways. Carra turns the intensity of movements into brushstroke abstractly while Balla depicted the canon phases of the movement.

I asked participants to make their pieces monochromatic by assigning a color to the word or phrase of their choice, which helped the legibility of each respective piece. For example, ‘sunshine’ which was done by Gem was painted yellow.

‘Stinky’, painted by Grace was done in green. The path your eyes follow, when looking at many of the pieces is reflective of the motion of one’s hands, saying these phrases in ASL.

Sabryn’s blue ‘Ocean/ wave’ is very reminiscent of crashing waves coming back together.

Shallornes ‘dance’ is depicted in a spotlight, making the phrase the star of the show- dance becomes the dancer of you will.

Ajani Russell, Watercolor l & ll

My favorite part was during critique, we all shared which phrase we learned with the group, and so collectively we all learned 18 new ASL phrases. "

Ty demonstrates his phrase: Black (People)

AYB Teaching Artist Evelyn Beliveau writes: "Formidable dragons are everywhere at ART YARD Art Matters at PS 17! Dennis, Leo, Clementine, Scarlett, and I (Evelyn) led students into the second week of a lesson titled “Meeting a Dragon.”

This lesson has three parts: (1) learning about and drawing dragons from different cultures around the world, (2) learning how poses are used in art to show emotions and reactions, and (3) learning about foreground, middle ground, and background. We are currently in part 1. Last time, our classes (Grades 4, 6, 1, and 2) sketched dragons on practice paper and learned about their cultural associations with constellations, myths, and elements like water. This week, students worked on watercolor paper, starting the underdrawings for what will become watercolor paintings in the coming weeks. They drew a dragon in the upper portion of the paper, leaving plenty of space to add a person and a background next week.

Students took inspiration from one or more types of dragons, including Lóng from China, Draco from Iran, Tiamat from Ancient Mesopotamia, Ryū from Japan, Dragon from Medieval Europe, and Hydra from Ancient Greece. Working from their own sketches and from the images on the board, they chose to precisely transfer their drawings to the new paper or elaborate on their original drawings with additional details. During critique, students noted similarities and differences in the sizes of heads and bodies, the types of textures added, and the number of loops or S-curves.

Students felt challenged by this phase of the project and did a good job asking for help when they were stuck. I saw evidence of their hard work in the well-observed shapes of twisting serpent bodies and snarling heads, painstaking details of scales and claws, and even the erasures that show how committed they are to making the drawings exactly how they want them. Sometimes the pentimenti (see vocabulary list below) become an important and beautiful part of the work."

Dennis adds: “Continuing with still life pencil drawings during our afterschool program at PS 17, students learned about scale and measurements.Teaching artist, Marina Soliman, assisted by Leo, Clementine, and Scarlett, showed students how to measure using relative proportions.

Holding the pencil, extending the arm, closing one eye, etc. allowed students to understand scale and determine where on their paper to begin drawing.During critique, Justin expressed his gratitude for learning this technique - altho his drawing was cut off at the top of his page, he felt that with some more practice, he will never run out of space again.”

While we were busy with classes and afterschool, Teaching Artist/Muralist Giannina Gutierrez was busy painting the first base coat of paint to the library mural - which will ultimately tie in to our theme of literacy.

Today Dennis and the AYB team were back in Jersey City for another session of AYB Art Matters at PS 6.

Dennis reports: “During week 2 of our lesson on drawing comics at PS 6, teaching artist Gem Mercado worked with 5th, 4th, and 3rd grade students to enhance their characters and set their scenes. Some classes used elongated paper cut into strips. They were instructed to use between 3 and 6 boxes for their comics and concise text or story outlines. Other classes used 8x8” paper for a one character drawing with an smart title or text bubble.

Throughout the day, students attended an “author’s talk” in the auditorium with cartoonist and writer Mike Dawson, author and illustrator of “Gabagool” and “Freddie and Me” - and arrived at our classes even more inspired about drawing comics!Gem was assisted today by AYB Artist Amiya Brielle McCargo, and AYB interns Clementine and Scarlett - wonderful assets to our PS 6 team.”