A group of teachers of artistic teachings, the integration, in the curriculum of plastic and visual teachings, of the perspective and work of silenced women artists is proposed. The initiative takes the name of Table of Elemental Women Artists.
Fourth-year students of Compulsory Secondary Education, with Mayalen Piqueras, Professor of Drawing at Heliche de Olivares Public Institute of Secondary Education (Seville) they worked in this line the composition that they called “Spectacular catrinas”; a sample of his productions is the opening image.
During the 2020/21 academic year, covid-19 conditioned the behavior of families and students. School organizations were obliged to provide hybrid forms of teaching, face-to-face and distance. The initial idea had to be transformed; without giving up the purpose of giving presence to women artists, the project arises Masks with art.
As we announced in the previous post, on this occasion, we report its sequence of work in the classroom and we continue to delve into the educational sense.
The school curriculum
In our opinion, an educational institution achieves full meaning if it contributes added value to the socialization process. To achieve this, learning scenarios are required that facilitate new experiences, broad and diverse views of everyday life, grounded ideas, mastery of the procedure, autonomy, empathic relationships, attitudes and capacities to question what is presented as ‘obvious’ …
The school curriculum is the referential resource, which is ideally based on proven knowledge and welcomes the greatest diversity of presences and visions. However, as regards women, and other weakened social groups, their words, guides and action logics are absent, silenced … considered of little value, residual, of inferior quality, local or unproductive. Humanity in its evolution continues to use ‘the gaze’ of only one part, the one that holds power.
In this way, school contents work with incomplete, partial knowledge … and provide a precarious plurality of forms of socialization. The presence of women, for example, in school manuals for Compulsory Secondary Education is only 7.9%. A situation to which the ‘sacred’ character also contributes, of objective and neutral truth that has been intended to be given to academic content.
If we are not aware of the existence of a reality, it does not exist. However, overcoming absences is not something simple; it is not enough to include ideas, criteria, visions that deserve to be worked on in school environments. We need to be aware of the strategies and infrastructures that prevent it; often as opaque as they are contrary to the common good.
The humanities, the sciences, the arts … need something more to incorporate presences traditionally ignored; They must be told in another way, building a different teaching that integrates ‘other’ logics of understanding and definition of the great problems of our humanity. It is a mistake to believe that the transmission of knowledge is exhausted with retention. It has never been like that and, meanwhile, the intangible it creates is limited and unfair.
Art, technique and affirmation
“We started our project. Many linked activities await us. Take photos, draw on paper, on the Tablet, research on art and the diversity of visions of female painters. Sew, paint, record videos, share with students from other centers our work in rrss …”Mayalen Piqueras announces to her students.
And they begin the task. Each student chooses three of the silenced painter artists, in this case, belonging to the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. For this, they are provided with a relationship categorized into a table on-line, from which they leave to carry out a first investigation work.
The relationship is extensive and since it is not a matter of choosing at random – it is interesting to know the contributions of each painter, relating them to the interest aroused in each student – Mayalen Piqueras proposes to distribute her study in the class group. Three per student.
They would inquire, in principle, only about the three assigned painters, writing in their session diary what they consider valuable and of possible common interest. They chose three or four of the works by each artist, downloaded the images, titled the works and prioritized some characteristics to inform the rest of the class. The images were uploaded to a shared album on the cloud.
The information collected was presented to the class group. During the listening, the rest of the students made annotations in their journals about the works that most aroused their curiosity. After the presentations, each student, in a dialogue in the class group, opted for a painter, avoiding repetitions in their choice.
Focused on the study of one of the artists, they continued investigating, delving into her work. Expert opinions found on the web were helpful. They finally decided on one of the works, which became a matrix for interpretation as a makeup sketch. They ended up printing it in color on Din A4 paper.
From this moment, they enter another more personal phase of the process. They take a photograph, as a self-portrait, which they also print on a Din A4 sheet, to later enlarge it, using the grid technique, to drawing paper size (Basik Din A3).
On the photo they draw a grid, and another, to scale, in A3. They copy the self-portrait, frame by frame, avoiding distorting the proportions of the face and features, and at the end outline the drawing with a marker.
They make several photocopies of the drawing to be able to work on several sketches with different makeup ideas. The sketches, in confinement time, are made at home using colored pencils and watercolors. Later they were reviewed in class, applying techniques that helped them to improve them.
The interpretation of the work as makeup meant choosing to: integrate parts of the painting of the chosen artist into the features of the face, simplify the work, or copy the complete work on the face, leaving parts of the face without paint. It was about putting a personal stamp on the interpretation of the chosen work. Mayalen Piqueras followed, in parallel, the same process, exemplifying these tasks in the self-portrait of one of the students to serve as a reference.
As always, the process of creating sketches, the elaboration of diverse, complementary ideas … and refining them until finding the best option was what cost the most. Once they found that idea, the enthusiasm and good planning of the sequence made them feel that it was “sewing and singing”.
They had to understand, among other concepts, that in order to incorporate the volume into the drawing, it was essential to work the color ranges both in the image of the work interpreted in the makeup itself, and in the rest of the surfaces of the face. Quite a challenge.
The restrictions imposed by the covid-19, forced them to make an adaptation of this interpretation: they would transfer it to a mask.
They couldn’t use a ready-made mask. Being sewn it was difficult to paint it; they had to make it. They started from a flat pattern that they mounted on a rectangular cloth, using a template. The main motifs of the makeup design were then passed, in pencil, onto the canvas, which they colored with canvas paints.
Once the painting was finished and well dried, it was cut and sewn at home, using a tutorial available on the net, with the color and thickness of thread that each student preferred.
With the masks finished, they portrayed themselves using a chroma to mix the photos with the images of the rendered frames. They recorded videos with the masks and mounted a general video with which to disseminate the project, its purposes and productions. With all the achievements they organized a great exhibition in the center and they disseminated in RRSS, congresses and teacher training activities. The message had to reach every corner. No more silences and many more presences.
“Making the art made by women visible has been an objective of this project. We dedicate a lot of effort and time to it and I’m sure that in the story things have remained in the pipeline, but I would like you to see the video and the images of the students’ productions ”, Mayalen Piqueras asks us.
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