Nuts and bolts of the project:
Ann: Youth first sketched an idea for a quilt square on paper. Next they made a collage of their design cutting out colored construction paper and gluing it onto paper. Then they scanned these collages into the computer and brought them into Photoshop. Mary Theresa came up with the idea to have students use colored paper to make collages of their original sketches which were wonderfully vivid and textured when scanned in to the computer. Meanwhile they used the digital camera and posed for each other to get the human figures making appropriate gestures for their designs. Wendy was instrumental in teaching the kids how to use the layers in Photoshop so they could merge their collages with the digital photos which involved digitally erasing the background in the digital photos to isolate the figures and merging these figures with their collaged backgrounds. This was a fairly intensive one-on-one teaching process, but the first ones to learn how to do it began helping other students. When we got into the collage process in Photoshop some students started taking pieces of photographs or drawings that other people had done. (We should have done a lesson about copyright and be more clear about the issues involved in appropriating someone else's work.) The process was great for students who were reluctant to do art projects because they didn't feel like they were great artists. They were able to substitute collage and photography for drawing. After perfecting their pieces in Photoshop, students printed out a copy using the color printer at the Ark. Mary Theresa took all these color prints to Crossgates Mall where they were transferred to fabric at a T-shirt stand. At this point, the quilter came in and started working with the kids. They picked out colors for borders, cut them out and then used the Ark's sewing machines to sew the colored borders around their squares. This was a complex task because of the way the strips of fabric overlapped the squares and each other. Mary Christine Yamin, who teaches sewing at the Ark, also helped teach the kids how to use the sewing machine. The students who had already worked with her were a big help with the sewing machines, particularly Candy and Krystal. After the borders were on the squares, the youth laid them out on the background and pinned them into place. By then it was May and we were in a crunch for time, so the quilter ended up taking the quilt home and anchoring everything into place and finishing the quilt. I wish we hadn't been so pressed for time at the end because some of the students would have loved to work on finishing the quilt themselves.
Thinking behind the project:
Ann: Through the art practice of WYRED, youth are drawing on their own
experiences to tell their story. But, how does one reflect critically on
experience? To start with, it is crucial to recognize that there is not "a direct
correspondence between words and things." (Scott, p. 34) Language produces
meaning. It is a way of changing the focus and the philosophy of our
history, from one bent on naturalizing experience through a belief in the
unmediated relationship between words and things, to one that takes all
categories of analysis as contextual, contested and contingent. ( Scott, p. 36 ) Power
comes from recognizing how different words are used to construct a
constantly shifting "experience". There is not a single truth to be
uncovered, rather a series of truths. We are not simply capturing experience
but evoking the continual "substitution of one interpretation for another"
( Scott, p. 35 ) the way light moves on water. This art practice is structured to allow the community to construct
stories from multiple viewpoints. Because we are not looking for the single
definitive truth, we can muddle through this complex world and find our
bearings over and over again, one moment at a time. (Fortun)
Looking ahead:
Ann: Hand in hand with the idea that there are multiple truths is the need to provide a forum to express difference. In the WYRED project we have been successful at creating art projects in which there is room for many voices. I think we need to work at creating space in the process areas of the project for dissent. Power relationships are messy in real life. When you have a group of people working on a project there is bound to be disagreements for example which teaching strategies to use, what new technologies to use or avoid, what new resources are necessary and which are superfluous. Unless there is a specific and regular meeting time set aside to air differences they end up hovering at the edges of the project. It is important to embed the idea that difference is healthy and to cultivate forums for dissent within a project.
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