Literature, Life-Writing, and Identity

''It's a way - my way of communicating between human beings. Just one of the ways one can try to explain with full liberty. Some will do it with music, others with literature, I with painting.''¹

Please reference the artwork titled The Jungle², which can be found at the Museum of Modern Art’s (MoMA) webpage. The above quotation from its creator, Wilfredo Lam, is placed here to set your mindset as the reader to one of intrigue and respect. Please note the painting and the quotation equally. I view art as a great communicator, a language where all can understand and express equally but individually.

Wilfredo Lam (1902-1982) was a Cuban painter. He was an active contributor to both the cubist and surrealist movements. The above quotation was documented as the artist was asked to reflect upon his work near the end of his life. Born in Cuba and of mixed race (Chinese, European, Indian, and African),³ Lam was an artist who used his work to communicate and express his story.

I interpret the painting as a representation of the effect of all the identities one is expected to be, and can be. In the piece, the figures are neither whole nor face the same direction at the same time, reminiscent of how one cannot be their true self while also subscribing to another's expectation. One can see The Jungle as a visualization of answering to different people's expectations of what they want you to be. The multitude of figures in the work alludes to the many directions we feel that we are pulled when we address and visualize our own identity. Our internal idea is skewed by social factors, society, and our environment. Is it required that a person have just one identity? The above work reflects on the artist’s multicultural nature and the longing to find a whole among a library of parts. The figures stretched from the top to bottom of the canvas are being pulled in multiple directions. Packed into a small space, the amount of figures in the work is reminiscent of the number of expectations that are put upon us in our daily lives. Similarly, my students are living among multiple identities, being pulled in different directions as they shift through their daily lives.

Background

My school's official name is William B. Keene Elementary, but all of us who work there simply call it Keene. Keene is home to about 650 students ranging from kindergarten through fifth grade. My school is a title-1 school, meaning that a high percentage of our students come from minimal or unstable financial means. Part of our funding is allocated to help our families when they are in need; this is done through numerous programs, employees, and resources available to assist not just students but also their parents/guardians. The realities of an unstable outside life often carry over into classroom functions and needs. Apart from these real-world matters, my students burst through the doors each morning ready to get the day started. Keene is a bustling hive of discovery, education, socialization, and culture. The mix of heritages, interests, skill, and knowledge of each of my students makes teaching art a very exciting job.

As the art teacher, I have the exciting benefit of working with my students across multiple grade levels. Over the course of my four years at Keene, the relationships I have constructed with my students are certainly one of my favorite aspects of my career. My time on a weekly basis is minimal, only seeing students for one 45-minute class period a week, but looking back, it is my trans-grade level experience that is the most beneficial. I am amazed at how much my students remember from one grade to the next, as well as how much I remember about them.

In our 21^st century world of selfies, snapchat, and Instagram students are very familiar with what they look like, and how they like to look. The self-portrait/portrait is mutating from a formal artwork to an impromptu happening. Watching my five-year-old kindergarteners struggle to manipulate a hand-crank pencil sharpener but succeed with great speed at snapping selfies on the class iPad has always intrigued me. My students today are better acclimated to working a screen than a physical object in front of them. To combat this occurrence, I work on building and attaining fine motor skills in my younger students through a variety of art making activities. Starting with drawing, then advancing to painting, collage, printmaking, and ultimately clay, I open my classroom up in stages to my students.