Self Portrait Explorations
/“These kinds of all-school projects create a chance for cohesion and conversation”
Now that we are beginning our third month of school, the bulletin boards in the hallways of the brick building are beginning to fill with student work created in the art studio with K-8 Art Essentialist, Jennifer Emrich. Although our greater community can’t see these displays in person right now, we hope to share with you what our young artists have been working on so far this school year.
During the fall, students traditionally begin the year with a self portrait project that looks a little different at each grade level. Jennifer shares, “this year it seemed particularly relevant to explore self-portraits that incorporated our hair, faces and bodies, and to work on that as a whole school, including the Portland Public School students participating in our SchoolDay Care program. Different grade levels focused on different aspects of identity, and different media skills: we painted hair and talked about skin colors and racism; we studied what a silhouette is and how to create one while discussing what clothes say about a person; we allowed ourselves to be influenced by artists from different cultures and/or ethnic backgrounds than our own while striving to paint or screen print an image that was instantly recognizable as our own face.” While working on their projects, students were able to discuss topics such as hair and hair cuts, body positivity, and empowerment through organic conversations and through books that Jennifer shared with her classes. One book that she recommends for parents of young elementary school students is Crown by Derrick Barnes which focuses on racial empowerment and body positivity culture.
A different element of creating self portraits this year was of course masks and how to incorporate them into artwork. Now that mask wearing has become part of the daily routine at school and when in public, it can sometimes serve as another form of self expression. In every self portrait, Jennifer shares that “students were encouraged to portray their masks as part of their identity.” Jennifer was pleasantly surprised to see how many students chose to incorporate their masks and how eager they were to make their mask part of their work. Pictures below help to highlight how students chose to incorporate their masks into their self portraits.
Now that the self portrait projects are complete, students will now be able to view their peers' self portraits and offer critique. Although critique weeks in the past have consisted of students evaluating the work of others in their own classroom, this year students will be critiquing the artwork of students in different grade levels. During the critique week, “we will be looking at the artwork of students from a different grade, learning what their goals were, and discussing why those goals were important for our time, and whether or not we think the work meets those goals.” This will allow students a chance to connect with what other grades are doing even if they can’t do so in person.
Despite the fact that we are able to gather less as a whole school community this school year in traditional ways such as community meeting, learning buddies, and our all school music concert, creating art work as a whole school helps to create shared experience and a form of connection during a challenging time. Students are looking forward to starting their next project focused on creating their own ‘world’ that will allow them to create a background, building and landscape, and characters that are a part of their own unique worlds. When at times we all feel apart from one and other, Jennifer notes that “these kinds of all-school projects create a chance for cohesion and conversation… It will be very exciting when all of these worlds are displayed, and the visual conversation displays and reinforces the joy, power and promise of our Breakwater community.”