Residency: Urban Arts Academy - Tamar Ghidali, Sagirah Shahid, Imani Vaughn-Jones - Total hours: 2 Juxtaposition- Ben Petersen, Johnathan Herrera - Total Hours: 3
Shadowing: Simpson Housing - Melodee Strong - Total hours: 7 hours
As the weeks go by, I notice myself slipping on just about everything. Everything seemed to be due around the same time and it really set me back. However, I am finally getting back on my feet after the rollercoaster of stress I've been experiencing. I am also happy to announce that next week I will teach my first lesson on my own. I won't spoil any of the details until afterward. I am just happy that I was able to find something that combines what I am into and something fun for the kids. Speaking of the kids, this week at Urban Arts Academy, I noticed that a few of the kids have been acting up more than usual. They have a new teacher and have been testing their limits with Sagirah. It's a good thing that she's tough so there's no doubt that she could handle it. There's been a lot of changes happening since Rosey left and the kids aren't used to that. I hope that they'll soon have an appreciation for her the way they did with Rosey.
This week, I also started shadowing Melodee again. I always have so much fun with Melodee at Simpson Housing. The kids learned how to paint birch trees with watercolor paint, and they just had a blast.
At Juxta, I finally got to see the new space they moved into. Now they had a space big enough for three different labs. The apprentices started on a new project for Juxta's shop they have in the main gallery. They were going off of the theme of afro-futurism and some examples they made included African tribal makeup. I brought up concerns I had as an African woman because I always see people use this imagery to "be African" and not do any research on what the symbols mean. We ended up having a really great discussion about appropriation and afro-futurism so I was glad that I brought up my concerns. In the end, the group got some really great inspiration from actual research they did.
