The
early afternoon light makes colours pop out even more. Overwhelming
fuchia-pink and purple bougainvillea grows over bright white walls,
set against a deep blue sky. Dramatic clouds of cotton white and
menacing grey, with little shades of grey (much less 50) in between,
flock around the top of the volcano.
Blurry
colours flash by the windows as the bus speeds over the highway,
weaving in and out of traffic, faster than the Knight Bus in Harry
Potter. Music blares over the speakers, but not loud enough for the
driver to stop talking on his phone. Who needs hands on the steering
wheel when the bus and its load is protected by a teary-eyed Jesus
over the rear view mirror, flanked by two Playboy bunny silhouettes?
No
room for more thoughts as the ayudante
wriggles his way through the isle, squeezing through tight packed
bodies while charging $0,50 for the ride. Just ten more minutes of
elbows, buttocks and thighs. I'm on my way to work.
A
little over a year ago I promised the kids of the Escuela
Comunitaria de Arte (a municipal
art course) in Alotenango to come back and here I am, for a series of
workshops and the creation of a mural. And as usual in Guatemala, the
project is yet again one big lesson in patience and flexibility.
My
initial plan was to paint a mural in the classroom where the course
is being taught. The teacher and kids were all for it, we got the new
mayor's permission too, but after the Christmas holidays, the space
looked like this:
Now,
two months later, the space looks like this:
And
since the mayor has only recently been installed, things are moving
sloooowly...
Nonetheless,
teacher Rolando and his students have been assigned another space, on
the top floor of a lawyer's office, which is located above a
convenience store and something they call here a “bookshop”. It
sounds big, but it isn't, much less for 20 students. But it does have
a perfect view over the soon to be painted wall, a stair-step-shaped
partition of the sport complex across the street. When we asked the
mayor permission to paint this wall, I was planning on the side
within the sport complex, but this side, facing a busy road, is much
more visible. And since we didn't specify which side we wanted to
paint in the first place, we decided to go for the more public side.
But I'm getting ahead of things...
 |
| The soon to be painted wall, the sport complex and in the background the Agua Volcano |
I
started preparing this project back in December and the worksheets I
was working on soon turned into a 45-page manual. It begins with a
section on murals throughout the history of art and goes on to
explain in detailed matter how to create a community mural, including
on how to collaboratively decide on a theme and design. Adding a
section on art history might seem a bit unnecessary, but most of the
kids I wrote the manual for have very little access to any cultural
context, and I know from experience they are actually very much into
it. Especially this group of 20 students. The youngest is 8, the
oldest in her 60s, but most of the students are between 12 and 16
years old. So far I spent a whole week teaching art history and it
was great fun! From the earliest cave paintings we went on to study
the Maya murals of Bonampak, San Bartolo and Calakmul. The Romans
taught us about fresco technique and in the section about medieval
art we discovered how the image of Jesus Christ has changed over the
centuries, with lots of intercultural Copy/Paste. The kids had no
idea that the first depictions of Jesus were actually of a chubby boy
with curly hair and a wand. Or that Nike's logo represents a wing of
the Greek goddess of victory.
Furthermore
we dove into the Renaissance, the Mexican revolution, all the way to
today's graffiti and street art.
The
teacher has asked me to consider including some samples of different
art movements in the mural, even before he knew I was going to teach
some art history workshops. So that was a given. To take the idea
even further, I figured it would be nice if the students would paint
several famous artworks on the wall, as if they were hanging there,
framed and all. It would not only be a great exercise in painting a
mural and a fun exploration through the history of art, but a
permanent art exhibition in the classroom!
If
only the space hadn't been stocked up to the ceiling with toilets....
Plan
B. We still painted famous artworks, but on cardboard. Unfortunately
on a much smaller scale (because of lack of space), but otherwise
with pretty much the same techniques. It wasn't easy, especially how
to figure out what scale to use for the grid, but all in all the
students did well and learned a lot. We have a few more things to go
over before we start the real work on Monday....
To
be continued!
