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Happy Holidays!
Our staff wishes you and your family a warm and plentiful
holiday season.
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Wish List
ArtCorps seeks 9
second-hand laptops to loan to our artists in the field and improve
communication between the field and our offices. If you have
one to donate, please email jenkins@nebf.org. Thank you!
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Thank You
On November 1 ArtCorps
held our first fundraising event. Thank you to all that contributed
to making Raising Spirits a fun and successful
evening! |
Contact Info
ArtCorps
www.artcorp.org
+1 (978)
927-2404
artcorps@nebf.org
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This month
 This
month, we wanted you to hear about the ArtCorps experience in
the field in an artist's own words. We bring you excerpts from
the blog of artist Isabel Samson, who worked with Save the
Children Guatemala this year.
Save
the Children Guatemala works to influence the government and
civil society so that Guatemalan children may fully enjoy
their rights in an environment of respect, equality and
solidarity.
In
late 2006, Save the Children Guatemala opened a new office
serving Livingston. Isabel was there at a time when
relationships with the community were being established.
Livingston's
cultural mix of Mayan, Hispanic, Hindu, and Garífuna people is
unique in Guatemala. Isabel helped over 175 women and children
connect
with each other and with their
natural environment. To do this, she
also had to connect
personally to the town's people and climate.
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The Diary of an ArtCorps Artist in
Livingston
The following are excerpts
about environmental education workshops from the blog Isabel
Samson kept while in Livingston.
June 29, 2007
Finding a place to do
workshops and organizing the kids is challenging. I have
managed to borrow a room in one school one day a week to work
with 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. Wednesday was my first time
working with these kids. I was not sure who would show up and
how it would work considering it was scheduled during what is
normally their free time.
After an hour walk along the
beach in the broiling sun with my heavy, heavy bag full of
paint, brushes, pencils, mirrors, cups, and paper, after
getting stung by a bee in one foot and then ten steps later
stepping on a sea urchin with my other foot (the spike is
still lodged in my foot), I arrive a half hour late, light
headed from the heat that most don't dare enter at mid-day and
from the months of traveler's diarrhea that has left me weaker
than normal. To my surprise, 20 kids are in the schoolyard
playing soccer-mostly girls who are totally ripping it up on
the soccer field. They see me and yell my name and run over
excited. I tell them we need to find water to mix the paint
and pieces of plastic b ags or big wrappers to use as pallets. In less than
ten minutes they have found water from the closest well, a
bucket to put it in, plastic for pallets and lots of smiles.
After a demonstration on drawing technique and explaining what
a self-portrait is, I hand out mirrors to the groups and they
start drawing how they see themselves. We draw and paint for
hours with a couple mango picking breaks. The kids here are
amazing. The portraits turned out hilarious and
beautiful.
July 19, 2007
Last Wednesday's
workshop at the Escuela de la Pista was incredible. There have
been two since I wrote last. The first one was drawing scenes
of life under the sea in Livingston's bay. We used oil
pastels, and we talked about how the animals are affected when
we pollute the rivers and beaches and about how we people are
affected when the animals are affected. The drawings came out
beautifully, full of colorful crabs, fish, sea plants, shrimp,
and shells.
 The next Wednesday the kids came prepared with what
I instructed the class before. This time we were making
mobiles out of recycled materials and natural resources.
Twenty-four kids showed up with big smiles and excitement with
their bags full of shells, coconuts, glass, bottle caps,
plastic bottles, sticks, and cans. We started in on cutting
things up, painting everything we could with bright colors,
drilling holes with drills I made by hand out of drill bits
melted into the shells of ballpoint pens. We glued, cracked,
colored, tied, hung, and created. The kids were so into it and
some of those little ones are nuts to keep in order. I was
really touched by the beauty that came out in so many ways in
this workshop. After hours of work, we finished cleaning and I
walked out side to let the hot rain and sun fall on my
shoulders.
October 1, 2007
Everything is
going really well in the boarding school. We were working on portraits of endangered animals. I gave them
homework over vacation to look for pictures of endangered
animals in magazines or anywhere they could find them. Each
had to select one animal and find a picture if it. They all
returned from vacation with their pictures, excited to paint.
The first day we worked the whole day constructing the frames
with wood and canvas. Then we painted them with white paint.
We only had one hammer, but the kids are very creative and
handy. They found rocks to hammer the nails. The next class we
started to draw the animals and then fill in the colors with
paint. We are still working on this project. All of the 20
boys and girls are very happy to have the opportunity to do
art.
 I realized that they are very talented so
I went to speak with the Father of the Church who is in charge
of the boarding school. I asked if I could organize a day with
the kids to paint a mural in the park. He was very happy and
we found a day to start. We started last Friday. I went to the
school to walk with them to the park. We walked together to my
office where the paint was stored, and they helped me carry
the paint and other materials. The idea for the mural is an
underwater scene of Livingston's beaches and river called
Sweet River. The point is to have people think about the life
and nature that we don't see from above. The ocean and river
here in Livingston are what provides life here. So it is very
important to take care of them. We are going to work one more
day to finish the mural, and we are going to write a message
about the theme in the 4 local languages. It looks nice
already, and the people in town are happy with the new colors
in their park.
Isabel
is from Santa Cruz, California and lives to paint, dance, make
jewelry, sculpt and draw. As a surfer, she also has a deep
connection to the natural
environment.
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