This past week Søren added JFK to his Book of 100 Heads. This time I noticed that he drew in two sessions instead of one. He told me that after he set it aside the first time and looked back at the drawing, he noticed that he needed to add more range of value. As luck would have it, I had photographed the drawing after the first session of drawing.
At the end, Søren was inspired to read a book about the man he had spent a couple hours drawing. He may even write a little report.
Q. What sticks with you from your research of famous women?
A. Hannah: I remember clearly being confused about Polio when we read about Wilma Rudolph, but so impressed that she did not let this mysterious physical handicap stop her from winning gold. I remember making prairie bonnets and dresses when we read about Laura Ingalls Wilder and being thankful that she bothered to share her recollections of pioneer life with me. I remember wishing I could have been a stowaway in that plane with Amelia Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt. I remember thinking how awful I would have felt in Faith Ringgold’s shoes when that teacher told her to give up her dream of becoming an artist because she had no talent… imagine that! Vivid among these memories is having the privilege of meeting Faith Ringgold and being able to share this thought with her in person. I remember making an appliqué wall hanging of Faith Ringgold inspired by her many quilt-paintings hanging in museums like the one I saw at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. I remember my mom reproducing my quilt in miniature so I could cut and paste the images onto greeting cards. I remember handing a stack of these cards tied neatly together with a bow to Faith Ringgold and showing her the quilt I made. I remember that the artist not only autographed my copy of her brand new book, The Invisible Princess, but also applauded my artwork. Research of famous women was an ongoing elementary assignment. That was more than ten years ago. After all this remembering what I remember most is that the assignment still matters.
A. Evelyn: I loved doing art projects to go with our write-ups on each famous woman in history. I clearly remember working on my watercolor of Amelia Earhart one night and showing it off proudly to my brother and his friend. I remember when Hannah and I sat together and traced drawings from the book about Wilma Rudolph and learned about her inspiring story of perseverance. I remember working on my art project for Faith Ringgold—it was a canvas divided into three sections depicting things I love—cooking, my friends, and art—and illustrating scenes that were important in Faith’s life. I remember specifically learning about how an art teacher told Faith Ringgold she could never become an artist because she didn’t know how to paint mountains. I thought that was so unfair because Faith had never even seen mountains before. Getting to actually meet Faith Ringgold and show her my art project, well, how many kids get that kind of opportunity? I was recently reading my college art appreciation book and I noticed artwork by Ringgold and I said to myself, “I’ve met her!” I remember learning about the first black woman millionaire, Madam C.J Walker. I liked learning about how she created beauty products for women. Entrepreneurial success stories have fascinated me ever since. I remember painting a portrait of Princess Diana and on “Person I Admire Day” dressing up like her. One not so fond memory is when I spent what seemed like hours crafting my write up on Louisa May Alcott and then accidentally feeding it through our paper shredder! These things happen! When we read about Rachel Carson, we participated in a coastal clean up day. I still carry with me striking memories from our research and art projects.
I stumbled upon one of my prized possessions the other day, paper and pencil in hand, a writer looking for creative inspiration. As I unfolded the mass of faded-yellow legal pad and saw Sara’s profuse notes staring back at me, I felt the smile stretch from ear to ear and was taken back to the summer of 1997. Who needs a time machine?
For the coming school year our desire was to continue to provide opportunities for directed year-long research. The intrinsic reward of this type of activity is that children discover over time to value work that is not instantaneous. Beyond that, the objective is to develop the muscle necessary for independent discovery, which will have a direct connection to critical thinking. But there’s always a twist.
Back in time, Sara and I are in my kitchen. Where else? Chattering away we are brainstorming. We want to inspire our young girls (then first and third graders) to follow the thread of perseverance to its logical conclusion. What if they engage in research of famous women from history who will model the skill? What if we use great picture books and incorporate sophisticated art materials? Yes! And of course it will be great fun! And, think about it, I mean, we will be exploring literature, and this is history too, right? Ah, the glory of cross-curricular activities!
So, with a baby on my hip stirring up dinner in a pot on the stove, I imagined with Sara, her legal pad in hand chock full of bibliographic lists of famous women biographies she had researched to get our girls started, we constructed a series of research questions that the girls would use to guide them in their research and developed a presentation format. We decided that, for each book read, our girls would write a report and craft a creative project depicting the famous woman.
Detail from Amelia and Eleanor Go For a Ride by Pam Munoz Ryan
Looking back, the trick to this kind of research is to be prepared. Because we had a plan, we were able to sit with our girls, take turns reading aloud with them, and guide them as they developed the skill gathering just the right tidbits about the famous woman’s life to include in their simple research paper. We had time to help them explore art materials such as paint and canvas, chalk pastels, and textiles. We were able to encourage them as they endeavored to craft a creative project that would not only celebrate each famous woman, but also would propel them into the process of seeing a creative work from the start to the finish line.
Set as a two hour per week activity, generally speaking, we read and wrote about one book per week unless the book was long, in which case this leg of the activity could take a couple weeks or more (the “there is no hurry” truth applies here), and we completed the artistic activity in two or three weeks. From there, it’s all, well, history.
Only looking back do I see the great pay-off, our girls, all grown now, Hannah is 21 and Evelyn is 19, are women that turn heads not only because they are lovely, but because they are busy following the thread of perseverance to its logical conclusion and are consequently girls who dare to dream.
– Kim
Detail of Faith Ringgold project – fabric wall hanging
Spread from Dinner at Aunt Connie's House by Faith Ringgold
Detail of Eleanor Roosevelt project – acrylic on canvas
Eleanor by Barbara Cooney
Detail of Wilma Rudolf project – colored pencil, pen, acrylic, collage
A couple months ago the boys ran barefoot, shovels in hand eager to pull out the remnants of our summer garden. Last spring we transformed the decorative raised beds that edge our suburban lawn to vegetable patches, set up a compost pile on the strip of land between us and the neighbors, and kept a journal of our progress. At one point my youngest turned to me and remarked, "Happy Winds-day, Piglet," which made me burst out laughing because it truly was a perfectly wonderful blustery day indeed!
As the boys pulled at pesky crab grass, harvested the last of the tomatoes and onions for afternoon salsa, they stumbled on an unexpected treasure. Growing in the midst of the grass were a handful of taller weed-like plants that we decided to pull from the soil. The boys were delighted to discover potatoes beneath the surface in various stages of development. I asked them how they thought potatoes started growing in our garden when we had never planted potatoes? After some thought and discussion they realized that these were volunteer plants that must have come from our rich compost soil.
I photographed the plants, and placed the real thing in plastic bags in the refrigerator for observation research later in the week and ran to the local library for a handful of books on the subject.
Be looking, be flexible, be ready! Sometimes the most unexpected treasures make the most interesting subjects for observation!
In my guild, fall is Person I Admire season. This year I had an anniversary—five students including my eldest son, who had participated in Person I Admire once a year for ten years in a row. I gave them each a few minutes before the presentations began to reminisce and to tell the group what they found personally significant. Listening, I realized that this activity had evolved into much more than a clever way to get kids to read. What began as a culminating activity, an opportunity to present a biographical report in costume from the point of view of a famous person, became an ongoing academic thread that has built into my children and my students the value of imagination.
I will never forget the year that my oldest son, now a ten year Person I Admire veteran, declared that he wanted to research Frank Gehry. There was no doubt in my mind what had inspired him. His weekly music lessons are situated in the conservatory across the street from what was, back then, the construction site of Frank Gehry's LA masterpiece, Walt Disney Concert Hall. So Taylor read books about Gehry (over and over and over again), visited a local museum exhibiting Gehry’s work (numerous times) and spent hours in the hands-on architectural activity room inspired by Gehry’s work. We even went on a driving tour to see other buildings designed by Frank Gehry in Los Angeles. Eventually architectural sculptures began cropping up all over the house—a veritable metropolis in my living room. The application of learning was alive and well. The ultimate fruit of my son's research, research that went on for three years, was to culminate in October of 2003 with the public unveiling of the concert hall.
Climbing the stairs a few paces ahead of me donning his idea of the perfect costume, Gehry’s concert hall in the form of an enormous hat, my son was deaf to the buzz of astonished whispers swirling. Surveying the lay of the land, connecting one by one with the massive shapes, he was unaware that his presence detracted attention from the inauguration of the icon itself.
While gazing at the shimmering mosaic rose pool, a couple shaking their heads in amusement walked right up to my little boy and invited him to be part of their photo, a photo I was asked to snap. As quick as the fascinated strangers wrapped their arms around my son’s small shoulders the shutter clicked. Handing the camera back to a man I’ll never see again, he flashed me a grin and thanked me for the experience. I followed silently two steps behind my son chasing sunlight on stainless steel.
Another man approached the hat only to discover, eyes dropping, that it rested on the head of a small boy. Introducing himself to my son as an award-winning architect he listened intently to the tale of the hat. Head shaking, eyes twinkling, he patted my son’s back, and looked to the sky in wonderment. In the end he asked for my son’s name and promised to commit it to memory, “I’ll be watching for you Taylor.”
Then came a barrage of curious strangers—a tour bus of people snapping pictures like paparazzi of the boy and his hat, fascinated parents demanding the name of my son’s teacher, students, security guards, and weary teachers wanting this formula for success. Each managed a moment with my boy and his great silver-winged hat. Taylor gladly shared the story of watching the icon slowly come to life, of the man named Frank O. Gehry who made buildings inspired by fish, and of his own research project that sparked the idea for the hat that triggered all the storytelling in the first place.
Swarms of people came to experience an architectural inauguration and were captivated by something they had not anticipated— a boy wearing a monumental hat. Toward the end of our visit, as I stood beside Gehry’s swooping silver sculpture pondering my son’s interactions with perfect strangers a man touched my shoulder and looked intently into my eyes, “You must be doing something right if your kid is into Gehry.”
I realized in that moment that these strangers were reaching out to touch imagination in a bland world. Crossing paths with this child, who connected with creativity and engaged in the work necessary to bring an imagination into reality, forced these strangers to step outside of what they believed a child is capable of and jolted their stereotype. I was in the midst of a slice of humanity that had journeyed afar to identify with a stainless steel exclamation point. It struck me that creativity is indeed a great magnet.
Art, whatever the form, begs its audience to attend to our longing to eradicate a haunting sense of disconnection. People had come in droves to celebrate face-to-face with Frank Gehry's imagination, had come to prove that outrageous dreams are possible. Gehry’s architectural masterpiece begs the question, “Why do we hide in dimly lit boxes behind blinds that keep us safely isolated from the risk of imagination?” His soaring structure presents a challenge to chase away the complacency that isolates humanity. My son, wearing a hat inspired by an architect he has never met, opened the door of imagination for people he will likely never meet again. His hat drew connections like a magnet, broke down walls, and briefly caused lives to intersect in a way that is noteworthy. My son audaciously locking arms with Gehry implored, “Look, me too!” Like Gehry before him, Taylor responded to the creative impulse, opened the blinds, and let the real thing in.
