Michael
The heavy plywood came crashing down, the grout cracked and all the brick pieces that were painstakingly made individually out of terracotta clay fell off the wood and on to the linoleum floor in the art room. Shattered, Michael bolted from the room.
Just a few minutes before, I was overwhelmed with enthusiasm and joy seeing Michael’s finished mosaic. He had worked on it for a good three months in an after-school program I was teaching. We started out by studying the history and architecture of our neighborhood in Baltimore called Waverly. The neighborhood is a beautiful mix of traditional Baltimore row houses with marble steps and small wood row house Victorians. We drew on site and took photos for source material. Each middle school youth involved made an individual house mosaic of their actual home, or designed their dream home for the neighborhood. Most made detailed doors and windows out of clay and then filled the rest with broken commercial tile. The results were amazing. They looked like Romare Beardon’s collages made from shaped clay pieces and tile tesserae.
I had big plans, to display them all together as a large horizontal mosaic mural in the school and then give them back at the end of the school year. We finished the afternoon before winter break and my students begged me to let them take them home in time for Christmas gifts. Every few minutes another student would pop his or her head into the room to catch another glimpse of the magnificent work and just say PLEASE. I acquiesced. They could take their mosaics home after the school-wide winter feast.
Before I arrived, the school didn’t have an art teacher and for some students it was the first time they ever had art, one of my new stepsons Mischa included. Mischa, who has now graduated from collage never had an art class in all his years in the public schools in Baltimore. I am going to say that again. My son never had an art class in the Baltimore City Public Schools. We overlapped for one year at the Stadium School and he decided not to take art because I was going to marrying his father and he hated me for it. Mischa is brilliant, a wordsmith, and I feel quite sure that he will be editing this story for me. Even so, there is a little bit of something missing or some lack of flexibility in his thinking that I can’t quite pinpoint. Maybe I am biased, but I can’t help thinking that he is not quite as brilliant as he could be, or would be, if he had just one good art class.
I took one photo with Michael smiling holding his house mosaic. I snapped another near the window with a pile of desks in the background and then I spotted the large piece of plain white paper covering the blackboard. There was a narrow ledge that would be perfect for setting Michael’s Mosaic almost vertical for the perfect photo. I looked in Michael’s eyes and he looked skeptical. I reassured him that nothing would happen to the mosaic he and I were so proud of. The mosaic was very heavy and physics has never been my strong suit.
I ran after Michael but he disappeared. When I returned to the room I assessed the damage. I knew that I could fix it with some of the unused tiles Michael had made, but it would take time. Art conservation is one of my hidden talents. I can fix almost anything, probably because I have broken or damaged so many things throughout the years.
You see, a few months before, MichaeI had lost his father unexpectedly in a car crash and he desperately wanted to give the mosaic to his mother for Christmas. His mother thanked me on numerous occasions in the past few months. She said that the solace Michael found in the art room with me as his teacher has made his loss a little more bearable.
And then it occurred to me. If I could create a shared story that we both constructed then he would forgive me and it would all work out. All classes were cancelled because of the winter feast, so I spent the next hour or so trying to get him into the art room to talk with me.
When he finally agreed, I started this way: “I am going to tell you a Christmas story but I am not sure how it ends. “There was once a young man who created a beautiful gift for his Mom with his hands and heart. Unfortunately, just as he was going to give it to her it was destroyed by an insensitive evil ogre. ”
Michael interjected, “an art teacher.”
“A fairy or maybe St Nicholas takes pity on the young man and magically repairs it so that it is as good as new.”
Michael interjected, “Santa Claus”.
“The family goes to bed on Christmas Eve and the next morning it unexpectedly appears on the door step of their home”.
Michael interjected, “It has a big red bow”.
“Let’s do it Michael. Think of how surprised your Mom would be if on Christmas morning a mosaic wrapped with a big red bow is left on your door step. Michael, I’ll ring the bell at 9:30 and then disappear.
I knew that I had captured his imagination. With a little coaxing he bought into it and my careful painstaking work was cut out for me. The winter break started a little late that year. On the 24th, I spent the entire day cleaning off every single piece of tessarae and gluing them on the house shaped wood panel. The glue needed to dry for 24 hours before I could grout. At 4:00 on Christmas morning I woke up and grouted the mosaic. At 9:00 I attached the red ribbon, put it into the car and headed for Michael’s house. All the houses looked alike on his street, but I found the number, placed the mosaic on the porch, rang the bell and quickly got out of sight.
Throughout the ten day vacation I thought about how Michael’s mother must have been surprised. I could see her face. . Where did they hang the mosaic? Did they have tools to hang it? How sad they must have been without his father. When school started again, I could hardly wait to see Michael to find out how it all turned out.
When he caught sight of me his face turned bright red and he turned his head immediately. He was visibly upset. “Michael, what happened?” He quickly walked away. A lot of stories ran through my head. Had the mosaic fallen off the wall because it was too heavy? Did I do a good enough job putting it back together? Did his mother make enough fuss about it? Had something else really horrible happened to his family?
It took the entire day but finally his best friend Chris came into the art room to tell me. You didn’t drop off the Mosaic Miss Diane like you promised and Michael is really angry. What! I did drop it off. Had someone stolen it off the porch on Christmas morning?
That afternoon, I went to his house to talk to Michael and his mother. As I was just about to ring the bell Michael’s mother spotted me and opened another door to let me in. The duplexes were designed so that the front doors of each separate dwelling were placed side by side. In part, because of my excitement and in part because I was tired, I inadvertently rang the wrong bell on Christmas morning. We knocked on their neighbors’ door together and someone was home. I was really worried; the neighbor lady didn’t look like she knew what I was talking about and then Michael started to describe his creation. A look of recognition appeared first in her eyes and then spread to her smiling face. She went into another room to get the mosaic. She didn’t know what it was or where it came from, but kept it because it was so beautiful.
Michael, his mother Michelle, and I went inside to sit on their couch and talk. I apologized for disappointing him. Michelle said: “Michael, you know that Miss Diane would never do anything intentionally to hurt you”. Michael said: “It’s ok Miss Diane”. Michelle then said: “You see, Michael has been so hurt and any new disappointment reminds him of his father. And Michael started to sob and sob and his mother held him. I left the room.
Diane Kuthy 2010
Just a few minutes before, I was overwhelmed with enthusiasm and joy seeing Michael’s finished mosaic. He had worked on it for a good three months in an after-school program I was teaching. We started out by studying the history and architecture of our neighborhood in Baltimore called Waverly. The neighborhood is a beautiful mix of traditional Baltimore row houses with marble steps and small wood row house Victorians. We drew on site and took photos for source material. Each middle school youth involved made an individual house mosaic of their actual home, or designed their dream home for the neighborhood. Most made detailed doors and windows out of clay and then filled the rest with broken commercial tile. The results were amazing. They looked like Romare Beardon’s collages made from shaped clay pieces and tile tesserae.
I had big plans, to display them all together as a large horizontal mosaic mural in the school and then give them back at the end of the school year. We finished the afternoon before winter break and my students begged me to let them take them home in time for Christmas gifts. Every few minutes another student would pop his or her head into the room to catch another glimpse of the magnificent work and just say PLEASE. I acquiesced. They could take their mosaics home after the school-wide winter feast.
Before I arrived, the school didn’t have an art teacher and for some students it was the first time they ever had art, one of my new stepsons Mischa included. Mischa, who has now graduated from collage never had an art class in all his years in the public schools in Baltimore. I am going to say that again. My son never had an art class in the Baltimore City Public Schools. We overlapped for one year at the Stadium School and he decided not to take art because I was going to marrying his father and he hated me for it. Mischa is brilliant, a wordsmith, and I feel quite sure that he will be editing this story for me. Even so, there is a little bit of something missing or some lack of flexibility in his thinking that I can’t quite pinpoint. Maybe I am biased, but I can’t help thinking that he is not quite as brilliant as he could be, or would be, if he had just one good art class.
I took one photo with Michael smiling holding his house mosaic. I snapped another near the window with a pile of desks in the background and then I spotted the large piece of plain white paper covering the blackboard. There was a narrow ledge that would be perfect for setting Michael’s Mosaic almost vertical for the perfect photo. I looked in Michael’s eyes and he looked skeptical. I reassured him that nothing would happen to the mosaic he and I were so proud of. The mosaic was very heavy and physics has never been my strong suit.
I ran after Michael but he disappeared. When I returned to the room I assessed the damage. I knew that I could fix it with some of the unused tiles Michael had made, but it would take time. Art conservation is one of my hidden talents. I can fix almost anything, probably because I have broken or damaged so many things throughout the years.
You see, a few months before, MichaeI had lost his father unexpectedly in a car crash and he desperately wanted to give the mosaic to his mother for Christmas. His mother thanked me on numerous occasions in the past few months. She said that the solace Michael found in the art room with me as his teacher has made his loss a little more bearable.
And then it occurred to me. If I could create a shared story that we both constructed then he would forgive me and it would all work out. All classes were cancelled because of the winter feast, so I spent the next hour or so trying to get him into the art room to talk with me.
When he finally agreed, I started this way: “I am going to tell you a Christmas story but I am not sure how it ends. “There was once a young man who created a beautiful gift for his Mom with his hands and heart. Unfortunately, just as he was going to give it to her it was destroyed by an insensitive evil ogre. ”
Michael interjected, “an art teacher.”
“A fairy or maybe St Nicholas takes pity on the young man and magically repairs it so that it is as good as new.”
Michael interjected, “Santa Claus”.
“The family goes to bed on Christmas Eve and the next morning it unexpectedly appears on the door step of their home”.
Michael interjected, “It has a big red bow”.
“Let’s do it Michael. Think of how surprised your Mom would be if on Christmas morning a mosaic wrapped with a big red bow is left on your door step. Michael, I’ll ring the bell at 9:30 and then disappear.
I knew that I had captured his imagination. With a little coaxing he bought into it and my careful painstaking work was cut out for me. The winter break started a little late that year. On the 24th, I spent the entire day cleaning off every single piece of tessarae and gluing them on the house shaped wood panel. The glue needed to dry for 24 hours before I could grout. At 4:00 on Christmas morning I woke up and grouted the mosaic. At 9:00 I attached the red ribbon, put it into the car and headed for Michael’s house. All the houses looked alike on his street, but I found the number, placed the mosaic on the porch, rang the bell and quickly got out of sight.
Throughout the ten day vacation I thought about how Michael’s mother must have been surprised. I could see her face. . Where did they hang the mosaic? Did they have tools to hang it? How sad they must have been without his father. When school started again, I could hardly wait to see Michael to find out how it all turned out.
When he caught sight of me his face turned bright red and he turned his head immediately. He was visibly upset. “Michael, what happened?” He quickly walked away. A lot of stories ran through my head. Had the mosaic fallen off the wall because it was too heavy? Did I do a good enough job putting it back together? Did his mother make enough fuss about it? Had something else really horrible happened to his family?
It took the entire day but finally his best friend Chris came into the art room to tell me. You didn’t drop off the Mosaic Miss Diane like you promised and Michael is really angry. What! I did drop it off. Had someone stolen it off the porch on Christmas morning?
That afternoon, I went to his house to talk to Michael and his mother. As I was just about to ring the bell Michael’s mother spotted me and opened another door to let me in. The duplexes were designed so that the front doors of each separate dwelling were placed side by side. In part, because of my excitement and in part because I was tired, I inadvertently rang the wrong bell on Christmas morning. We knocked on their neighbors’ door together and someone was home. I was really worried; the neighbor lady didn’t look like she knew what I was talking about and then Michael started to describe his creation. A look of recognition appeared first in her eyes and then spread to her smiling face. She went into another room to get the mosaic. She didn’t know what it was or where it came from, but kept it because it was so beautiful.
Michael, his mother Michelle, and I went inside to sit on their couch and talk. I apologized for disappointing him. Michelle said: “Michael, you know that Miss Diane would never do anything intentionally to hurt you”. Michael said: “It’s ok Miss Diane”. Michelle then said: “You see, Michael has been so hurt and any new disappointment reminds him of his father. And Michael started to sob and sob and his mother held him. I left the room.
Diane Kuthy 2010
Carlisle
What on earth was I thinking taking a group of 8th graders to see an exhibition with titles like “Cuddly Black Dick” and “Catch a Nigger by His Toe”? How can I, a white teacher, show this work to African-American 8th graders?
It is vitally important to show and help interpret challenging contemporary art work for students. Political content should not be avoided. Audiences of color as well as white audiences need to see artwork that challenges racism. It is especially important for the identity of young artists of color to see such work. This sometimes needs to be done by white art teachers in schools with predominately students of color. White art teachers must begin to confront their own racism before they can ethically introduce the work. At the same time we all need to work in a myriad of ways to make sure that there are more art teachers of color working with young people.
From January until June, I offered an after-school museum club for ten 8th graders at the Stadium School. Each Thursday we spent an hour and a half after school in local museums looking at artwork. With a half a year’s worth of exposure and positive experiences, my students felt really comfortable in museum settings and trusted me as their teacher. Often, the group would sit on the floor in front of an object for our long, involved discussions, and as adolescents do they’d flop and sprawl. Once a museum employee commented in a disparaging way that the students acted as if they owned the place. I told the education department employee that yes they did own the place and thanked her for helping to take care of it for them. The students really liked my response to the interaction and enjoyed telling the story when they got back to school.
The museum club developed a culminating tour for parents and other community members, focusing on Kickin it with the Old Masters, a special exhibition of Joyce Scott’s work at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Kickin it with the Old Masters literally opened the grand front doors of the Baltimore Museum of Art that had not been opened for 15 years. The exhibition was a collaborative endeavor between Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore Museum of Art and the artist. Joyce Scott’s provocative art turned every aspect of the museum upside down and outside in. Hanging above Rodin’s The Thinker was a mixed media sculpture of a lynched man. Joyce had selected The Thinker and other objects from the collection to help put into context her artistic and cultural influences.
Joyce is an African –American feminist artist who grew up and still lives in Baltimore and is a vital force in the artist community. The students and larger Baltimore community were familiar with the neighborhood where she grew up and the schools she attended. Many community groups from across the city came to see her work, and the museum offered transportation funds to help with access. This exhibition may have been one of the only times that the proportion of people of color attending the museum may have accurately reflected the racial makeup of Baltimore.
There are many entry points and paths towards understanding in her work. Joyce’s beaded, blown glass and sewn work is breathtakingly beautiful and commands attention. Her materials and craft are seductive and entrancing. It is difficult to move from her sculptures until a deeper meaning is revealed and then augmented. Joyce Scott is a conjurer, an alchemist, a “Yoruba West African Eshu (trickster god) that guards the crossroad of the universe” (King-Hammond, p.107). Her work holds, suspends, transcends dichotomies such as humor and horror, black and white, craft and fine art, personal and universal, intimate and monumental, past and present.
Joyce Scott is a wonderful example of an artist/teacher/researcher. She comes from a long line of quilters, woodworkers, basket makers, blacksmiths, and clay artists. “Learning and teaching are interchange elements” for Joyce. She has been teaching from the age of nine in a variety of contexts and “believes that knowledge must be passed on so that it will live and evolve”. (King-Hammond, 1999, p.12) In addition to her body of work she also speaks considerably about her work and process, offering another tool to navigate interpretation.
Joyce travels extensively and cross-cultural associations are her strength. She is a keeper and interpreter of culture as she explores folk craft, visual culture, African-American culture and history, and western art traditions in her work.
Joyce’s art speaks about stereotypes, racism, violence and sexism. Viewers are compelled to weave their own stories from her cast of characters who force us to personalize the scene to our own lives, fears, prejudices, and ethos. (Ciscle, 1999, p.6) For middle school youth Joyce Scott’s work has all the interest of sex, power, gender, race, and family dynamics.
The catalogue for the exhibition was very helpful in preparing to work with my students. The reproductions of the artwork were often juxtaposed with Joyce’s own thoughts about the work. Her words below for Cuddly Black Dick III made it possible for me to discuss the work with 8th graders:
“The woman here is with her lover or husband
and
To scaffold the learning experience, I found images of West-African Yoruba and Mexican Huichol beadwork and molas from the Kuna people in Panama. I also found readings about some of the current and historical events she incorporates into her work. There was a reading about Rodney King, one about black slaves being wet nurses and nannies for white slave owner’s children and another about stereotypes. Interestingly with all the difficult content, I was most worried about sexually explicit imagery for eight graders.
It was magic, we walked in and there was almost complete silence entranced they carefully examined the work. I have never seen a group of students have a stronger immediate and sustained interest in an exhibition. None of the giggling and acting out because of discomfort occurred. We spent the next four weeks exploring Joyce’s work and preparing for the community tour.
In middle school Carlisle was very heavy and tall for 8th grade. He was one of the really compliant boys, full of “yes ma’am,” just as nice and polite as he could be.
Carlisle was immediately attracted to Boy with Gun, a sculpture of a male figure created out of brown and white beads organized in a geometric surface pattern. Coming out of the chest area there is a small beaded cylinder that is surrounded by dark red beads. An upturned wire baby carriage which contains a large green beaded revolver overflowing with white beads is beside the figure. The outside of the baby carriage is covered with small glass eye beads. One of the figure’s hands is holding the handle of the carriage and the other arm is raised with palm faced out. The base of the sculpture is made out of a piece of irregularly shaped wood and covered with pennies.
I handed Joyce’s text about Boy with Gun to Carlisle and asked him to read it aloud so we both could hear. He stuttered and stumbled and was having trouble reading the simplest of words.
At that moment I looked at Carlisle’s face and recognized a fierceness that I hadn’t noticed before. He was right then and there silently saying: “I want to know what this is about and will do everything in my power to find out.” I told Carlisle that we would look at the sculpture and text for as long as it took to understand. We then momentarily set aside the text and started looking and discussing her sculpture together.
It was obvious to both of us that the person had just been shot with the gun. The small iridescent bead cylinder in the chest represented a bullet and the red beads were like blood. The white beads coming out of the barrel of the gun looked like smoke so it had just happened.
A baby Do you think the baby is still inside?
Maybe the gun is inside because a baby is shooting the gun?
A baby is shooting the boy?
Babies shooting babies!
My mom sometimes says that.
We enjoyed the way the glass beads glistened in the light and were amazed at how she created 3-D form with the beads and thought it must have taken a really long time. We both marveled at the geometric patterning made with brown and white beads covering the surface of the boy’s body.
Carlisle and I walked to the African collection to see Ngaady Mwaash a Female Mask of the Kuba peoples to look at the geometric patterns on the surface made with cowrie shells, beads and paint. Ngaaady Mwaash is one of my favorite objects at the Museum. Cowrie shells were used for money by the Kuba peoples and were very valuable. The diagonal lines descending from the eyes and across the cheeks of the masks may signify tears. She is the ancestral mother for the Kuba peoples and represents the suffering of women in childbirth and is sometimes worn in funeral ceremonies. Her mouth is sealed shut with shells and beads as if she must be silent or holds a secret.
Maybe she is trying to say that something is not worth that much?
Drugs and guns are not worth that much.
We walked back to look at the Boy with the Gun some more. We liked the way the shiny iridescent green beads of the gun looked sparkly under the gallery lights.
The evening of the tour we had a full bus-load of students, parents and community members. A few of us needed to actually drive in separate cars so that all could attend. Students dressed in their Sunday best stood prepared with index cards full of questions. Some had photos of West-African Yoruba beadwork, and beads to feel and pass around. When the bus arrived at the museum we divided into smaller groups and rotated through the exhibition objects where our students were waiting.
During the tour I circulated around to hear and see how everything was going.. The students did an amazing job. They were confident enough to ask probing questions, listen and then offer their interpretations. I heard more than one of the students say things like, “Don’t worry if you don’t understand at first, just take your time and keep looking and thinking.” and “That’s interesting; have you thought about this?” Several of the students took the group to see another object as a contextual reference for their discussion.
The parents and grandparents were deeply engaged and invested in Joyce Scott’s work as well. Like the young people they were immediately transfixed and offered many interesting questions and comments. A few provided some historical context to the discussions. Several weeks later, Clear and Present, one of Joyce Scott’s blown glass works was damaged on a school tour. A parent came into the school the next day with tears in her eyes holding the article about the damaged sculpture. She and her daughter were worried and wondered if it could be fixed. She hung the article clipped out of the newspaper on a common bulletin board for the rest of the school community to see.
My husband is listening to me read this, and I am about to ask him if I should take out the part about Carlisle being afraid to go out at night. It is as strong as a lead bullet, an emotional vortex. I am concerned it will distract the readers, preventing them from hearing all the other important things I want them to know. I want the outcry of Carlisle’s intellect, accessed through art, to be clearly heard. Readers must understand how important it is to show politically challenging and relevant art work to young people. And they must understand that it takes time and care to build confidence in museum settings and that museums can be places to strengthen community: to understand that teachers need to do the hard work of confronting their own fears so that they can be fully available to participate in difficult dialogues with their students.
Then I look over at my husband, Jay; he is crying. He hadn’t had a chance to tell me yet; one of his students had seen a friend’s blown-out brains on the street yesterday. I think about how two years ago a high school boy was shot at 6:30 in the evening a block away in our alley waiting for the bus. After the shooting, I was scared for our son, Sammy, to walk to school through that same alley. Jay said that Sammy is safer than most of the other teenagers in the neighborhood because he is white. Why is that? Now I am thinking about Matteo, our six and a half year old son whose skin is the same color as the beaded boy, and I know that in a few years our privilege won’t protect him. I can see myself making him stay inside like Carlisle’s mother did. I am also thinking about how no one is immune to violence, how sometimes I suppress my emotions about the violence of our war as others repress the violence that is prevalent in every aspect of our culture. And then it occurs to me that all of this is what Joyce’s work is about. This is the work.
Boy with Gun
Joyce’s words from the catalogue:
I am worried
about the next generation of kids
Ciscle, G. (1999). Curator’s Statement. Joyce J.Scott Kickin’ It with the Old Masters. Baltimore, MD: The Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland Institute College of Art
King-Hammond, L. (1999). Acting Up and Out: Artistry in the Life of Joyce Jane Scott. Joyce J.Scott Kickin’ It with the Old Masters. Baltimore, MD: The Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland Institute College of Art
Boy with Gun
1995
Beads, wire, fabric, thread, wood, and pennies
341/2 x 16 x 16
Collection Weatherspoon Art Gallery,
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Museum Purchase, 1997
Michael is the first story and Carlisle is the third story in an interconnected series called Tesserae. There will be four stories in all based on experiences from my fellowship and directly after through 2004, which have shaped my current ideas about art education. Thoughts about Community Based Teaching, inequities of educational resources, and my evolving understanding of how all this works are woven into each story.
Diane Kuthy 2010
It is vitally important to show and help interpret challenging contemporary art work for students. Political content should not be avoided. Audiences of color as well as white audiences need to see artwork that challenges racism. It is especially important for the identity of young artists of color to see such work. This sometimes needs to be done by white art teachers in schools with predominately students of color. White art teachers must begin to confront their own racism before they can ethically introduce the work. At the same time we all need to work in a myriad of ways to make sure that there are more art teachers of color working with young people.
From January until June, I offered an after-school museum club for ten 8th graders at the Stadium School. Each Thursday we spent an hour and a half after school in local museums looking at artwork. With a half a year’s worth of exposure and positive experiences, my students felt really comfortable in museum settings and trusted me as their teacher. Often, the group would sit on the floor in front of an object for our long, involved discussions, and as adolescents do they’d flop and sprawl. Once a museum employee commented in a disparaging way that the students acted as if they owned the place. I told the education department employee that yes they did own the place and thanked her for helping to take care of it for them. The students really liked my response to the interaction and enjoyed telling the story when they got back to school.
The museum club developed a culminating tour for parents and other community members, focusing on Kickin it with the Old Masters, a special exhibition of Joyce Scott’s work at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Kickin it with the Old Masters literally opened the grand front doors of the Baltimore Museum of Art that had not been opened for 15 years. The exhibition was a collaborative endeavor between Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore Museum of Art and the artist. Joyce Scott’s provocative art turned every aspect of the museum upside down and outside in. Hanging above Rodin’s The Thinker was a mixed media sculpture of a lynched man. Joyce had selected The Thinker and other objects from the collection to help put into context her artistic and cultural influences.
Joyce is an African –American feminist artist who grew up and still lives in Baltimore and is a vital force in the artist community. The students and larger Baltimore community were familiar with the neighborhood where she grew up and the schools she attended. Many community groups from across the city came to see her work, and the museum offered transportation funds to help with access. This exhibition may have been one of the only times that the proportion of people of color attending the museum may have accurately reflected the racial makeup of Baltimore.
There are many entry points and paths towards understanding in her work. Joyce’s beaded, blown glass and sewn work is breathtakingly beautiful and commands attention. Her materials and craft are seductive and entrancing. It is difficult to move from her sculptures until a deeper meaning is revealed and then augmented. Joyce Scott is a conjurer, an alchemist, a “Yoruba West African Eshu (trickster god) that guards the crossroad of the universe” (King-Hammond, p.107). Her work holds, suspends, transcends dichotomies such as humor and horror, black and white, craft and fine art, personal and universal, intimate and monumental, past and present.
Joyce Scott is a wonderful example of an artist/teacher/researcher. She comes from a long line of quilters, woodworkers, basket makers, blacksmiths, and clay artists. “Learning and teaching are interchange elements” for Joyce. She has been teaching from the age of nine in a variety of contexts and “believes that knowledge must be passed on so that it will live and evolve”. (King-Hammond, 1999, p.12) In addition to her body of work she also speaks considerably about her work and process, offering another tool to navigate interpretation.
Joyce travels extensively and cross-cultural associations are her strength. She is a keeper and interpreter of culture as she explores folk craft, visual culture, African-American culture and history, and western art traditions in her work.
Joyce’s art speaks about stereotypes, racism, violence and sexism. Viewers are compelled to weave their own stories from her cast of characters who force us to personalize the scene to our own lives, fears, prejudices, and ethos. (Ciscle, 1999, p.6) For middle school youth Joyce Scott’s work has all the interest of sex, power, gender, race, and family dynamics.
The catalogue for the exhibition was very helpful in preparing to work with my students. The reproductions of the artwork were often juxtaposed with Joyce’s own thoughts about the work. Her words below for Cuddly Black Dick III made it possible for me to discuss the work with 8th graders:
“The woman here is with her lover or husband
and
- she’s got her arm around him and they’re talking.
- But when people who dislike this, or have one narrow view
- just
- a dick”
To scaffold the learning experience, I found images of West-African Yoruba and Mexican Huichol beadwork and molas from the Kuna people in Panama. I also found readings about some of the current and historical events she incorporates into her work. There was a reading about Rodney King, one about black slaves being wet nurses and nannies for white slave owner’s children and another about stereotypes. Interestingly with all the difficult content, I was most worried about sexually explicit imagery for eight graders.
It was magic, we walked in and there was almost complete silence entranced they carefully examined the work. I have never seen a group of students have a stronger immediate and sustained interest in an exhibition. None of the giggling and acting out because of discomfort occurred. We spent the next four weeks exploring Joyce’s work and preparing for the community tour.
In middle school Carlisle was very heavy and tall for 8th grade. He was one of the really compliant boys, full of “yes ma’am,” just as nice and polite as he could be.
Carlisle was immediately attracted to Boy with Gun, a sculpture of a male figure created out of brown and white beads organized in a geometric surface pattern. Coming out of the chest area there is a small beaded cylinder that is surrounded by dark red beads. An upturned wire baby carriage which contains a large green beaded revolver overflowing with white beads is beside the figure. The outside of the baby carriage is covered with small glass eye beads. One of the figure’s hands is holding the handle of the carriage and the other arm is raised with palm faced out. The base of the sculpture is made out of a piece of irregularly shaped wood and covered with pennies.
I handed Joyce’s text about Boy with Gun to Carlisle and asked him to read it aloud so we both could hear. He stuttered and stumbled and was having trouble reading the simplest of words.
At that moment I looked at Carlisle’s face and recognized a fierceness that I hadn’t noticed before. He was right then and there silently saying: “I want to know what this is about and will do everything in my power to find out.” I told Carlisle that we would look at the sculpture and text for as long as it took to understand. We then momentarily set aside the text and started looking and discussing her sculpture together.
It was obvious to both of us that the person had just been shot with the gun. The small iridescent bead cylinder in the chest represented a bullet and the red beads were like blood. The white beads coming out of the barrel of the gun looked like smoke so it had just happened.
- Carlisle had wondered if the person who shot the gun had thrown it quickly into the baby carriage and run away.
- Carlisle pointed out that the person’s hand was in the air like he was surrendering so that means someone else shot him.
- Thinking a little more about the title, Carlisle said that the figure was probably the boy. He said that the artist would have said baby instead of boy if she were talking about someone in the carriage.
A baby Do you think the baby is still inside?
Maybe the gun is inside because a baby is shooting the gun?
A baby is shooting the boy?
Babies shooting babies!
My mom sometimes says that.
We enjoyed the way the glass beads glistened in the light and were amazed at how she created 3-D form with the beads and thought it must have taken a really long time. We both marveled at the geometric patterning made with brown and white beads covering the surface of the boy’s body.
- The neutral colored diamond and chevron shapes that create the pattern remind me of masks and cut pile cloth work by Kuba peoples of the Congo.
- I asked if he had ever seen photos of scarification which are like tattoos. Kuba boys in the past had scarification as part of an initiation ceremony when a boy turns into a man. I said that I didn’t know about now. Carlisle, do you know of any initiation practices?
Carlisle and I walked to the African collection to see Ngaady Mwaash a Female Mask of the Kuba peoples to look at the geometric patterns on the surface made with cowrie shells, beads and paint. Ngaaady Mwaash is one of my favorite objects at the Museum. Cowrie shells were used for money by the Kuba peoples and were very valuable. The diagonal lines descending from the eyes and across the cheeks of the masks may signify tears. She is the ancestral mother for the Kuba peoples and represents the suffering of women in childbirth and is sometimes worn in funeral ceremonies. Her mouth is sealed shut with shells and beads as if she must be silent or holds a secret.
- I wondered if the pennies covering the base of Joyce’s sculpture were a reference to cowrie shells that were used as money.
Maybe she is trying to say that something is not worth that much?
Drugs and guns are not worth that much.
We walked back to look at the Boy with the Gun some more. We liked the way the shiny iridescent green beads of the gun looked sparkly under the gallery lights.
- I thought that the Joyce’s use of green was to create contrast in order get our attention. It is the same reason why she made the gun so big.
- Adding to Carlisle’s idea I said that the iridescent beads make the gun seductive like money.
- I wondered what the eye beads might symbolize on the carriage. I told Carlisle that Joyce went to school in Mexico where the eye is an important symbol.
- Carlisle thought maybe that the eyes represented all the neighbors on the street watching the boy being shot.
- No, but I often hear gun shots at night and a friend I know has. I am not allowed to go out at night. My Mom gets too worried.
The evening of the tour we had a full bus-load of students, parents and community members. A few of us needed to actually drive in separate cars so that all could attend. Students dressed in their Sunday best stood prepared with index cards full of questions. Some had photos of West-African Yoruba beadwork, and beads to feel and pass around. When the bus arrived at the museum we divided into smaller groups and rotated through the exhibition objects where our students were waiting.
During the tour I circulated around to hear and see how everything was going.. The students did an amazing job. They were confident enough to ask probing questions, listen and then offer their interpretations. I heard more than one of the students say things like, “Don’t worry if you don’t understand at first, just take your time and keep looking and thinking.” and “That’s interesting; have you thought about this?” Several of the students took the group to see another object as a contextual reference for their discussion.
The parents and grandparents were deeply engaged and invested in Joyce Scott’s work as well. Like the young people they were immediately transfixed and offered many interesting questions and comments. A few provided some historical context to the discussions. Several weeks later, Clear and Present, one of Joyce Scott’s blown glass works was damaged on a school tour. A parent came into the school the next day with tears in her eyes holding the article about the damaged sculpture. She and her daughter were worried and wondered if it could be fixed. She hung the article clipped out of the newspaper on a common bulletin board for the rest of the school community to see.
My husband is listening to me read this, and I am about to ask him if I should take out the part about Carlisle being afraid to go out at night. It is as strong as a lead bullet, an emotional vortex. I am concerned it will distract the readers, preventing them from hearing all the other important things I want them to know. I want the outcry of Carlisle’s intellect, accessed through art, to be clearly heard. Readers must understand how important it is to show politically challenging and relevant art work to young people. And they must understand that it takes time and care to build confidence in museum settings and that museums can be places to strengthen community: to understand that teachers need to do the hard work of confronting their own fears so that they can be fully available to participate in difficult dialogues with their students.
Then I look over at my husband, Jay; he is crying. He hadn’t had a chance to tell me yet; one of his students had seen a friend’s blown-out brains on the street yesterday. I think about how two years ago a high school boy was shot at 6:30 in the evening a block away in our alley waiting for the bus. After the shooting, I was scared for our son, Sammy, to walk to school through that same alley. Jay said that Sammy is safer than most of the other teenagers in the neighborhood because he is white. Why is that? Now I am thinking about Matteo, our six and a half year old son whose skin is the same color as the beaded boy, and I know that in a few years our privilege won’t protect him. I can see myself making him stay inside like Carlisle’s mother did. I am also thinking about how no one is immune to violence, how sometimes I suppress my emotions about the violence of our war as others repress the violence that is prevalent in every aspect of our culture. And then it occurs to me that all of this is what Joyce’s work is about. This is the work.
Boy with Gun
Joyce’s words from the catalogue:
I am worried
about the next generation of kids
- who are comfortable with violence, who will own guns.
- And that comes from us….
- where this is happening
Ciscle, G. (1999). Curator’s Statement. Joyce J.Scott Kickin’ It with the Old Masters. Baltimore, MD: The Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland Institute College of Art
King-Hammond, L. (1999). Acting Up and Out: Artistry in the Life of Joyce Jane Scott. Joyce J.Scott Kickin’ It with the Old Masters. Baltimore, MD: The Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland Institute College of Art
Boy with Gun
1995
Beads, wire, fabric, thread, wood, and pennies
341/2 x 16 x 16
Collection Weatherspoon Art Gallery,
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Museum Purchase, 1997
- Female Mask (Ngaady Mwaash)
- Kuba peoples
- Wood, metal, fiber, beads, cowrie shells, pigment, cotton, raffia
- The Baltimore Museum of Art
- Diane Kuthy 2010
Tesserae
Both of these stories are based on experiences I had at the Stadium School in Baltimore City during an Open Society Institute Community Fellowship from 2000-2002 Until 2005, I continued to teach after-school art programs at the school. Our pre-service teachers from Towson University are now involved in the school through a service learning course called Community Based Arts Teaching. Michael is the first story and Carlisle is the third story in an interconnected series called Tesserae. There will be four stories in all based on experiences from my fellowship and directly after through 2004, which have shaped my current ideas about art education. Thoughts about Community Based Teaching, inequities of educational resources, and my evolving understanding of how all this works are woven into each story.
Diane Kuthy 2010
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