Tales from “Our Community, Ourselves” Diversity Conference
Spring is here and we’ve been all over the place. I’m one of those terribly homey people. I LOVE home. But I also LOVE to travel. India, Mexico, Brazil, Puerto Rico, New York, Philadelphia, South Carolina, Vallejo, Alameda County… The world fascinates me with its beauty and variation, from the far away and vastly different to the close to home and still different! In San Francisco, we live in what I jokingly refer to as an “adjacent reality,” similar to the rest of the country, but noticeably unique. Ahhh, San Francisco, she’s an island unto herself in some ways. So even when we only travel a county or two away, I feel like we’re on an adventure…away from our familiar little village of the Castro and Mission Districts, away from the public trains and rolling fog, our local markets and favorite strolls.
This last Friday, April 23rd, we were up before the sun and off to the Newark Hilton for the Diversity Conference sponsored by Child, Family and Community Services, Inc. of Alameda County. I love doing these things with Matthew. He drives and I navigate. Usually I’ve been alone, so I drive and I have no idea who’s navigating. We got there nice and early and set up our table. It was the first public event for Claiming Face, the Educator’s Guide, and we sold our first copy! Mostly, we got to connect with folks from different agencies and talk about one of our favorite topics, empowering children.
I presented two long workshops on Claiming Face, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. To keep myself honest and fluid, I like to speak off the cuff. It’s not that I don’t put any thought into my presentations, but it’s important to me to allow for spontaneity and synchronicity to accommodate who is attending and what is relevant to them. I know that I could talk for days about Claiming Face so to focus myself, I structure and ground each session through presence with the moment. I have a general direction and I start walking, keeping my eyes and ears open. It challenges me to trust, to be curious and to be as present as possible. It’s fascinating to me to explore with new people. There is so much to know from each other, and to relax into the twists and turns that each person brings to the situation. Just like venturing outside of San Francisco, a session has the feel of an adventure, a journey and we are all on it together. We are going somewhere. I know that I’m standing in the position of educator, but no matter where we stand or sit we are all part of the journey. We are equal.
Claiming Face is best understood through experiencing it yourself. It’s not about art, although art is made. It’s about self. It’s about life. But what does that mean? I spoke about its development and the philosophy for the first half of the session. I passed out handouts that outlined the basics. We explored reflection, the power of creativity, presence. We personalized the philosophy through exploring reflection, in particular, in our own lives. I shared my 3 Rules and some stories from the classroom. Lecturing, story-telling and reading are excellent ways to bring in a certain level of knowing. However, in our current culture, these styles of knowing and engaging with information are heavily relied upon, at times to the exclusion of much else. The truth is there are a million ways to know and to learn. So for the second part of the session I pulled out the oil pastels. We did one of my favorite projects, the Frida Mirror. I quietly read from the Claiming Face text as everyone worked on creating Frida as a reflection of their selves. Afterwards, I asked who would like to share about their experience or about their piece. This is where the power lies. I could talk for days, but what matters is our own experience.
This is some of what I heard:
One woman said that she was tired and decided to use the project to relax to help energize herself. As she was coloring along, relaxing, seemingly out of nowhere she began thinking of her father. He had passed. She realized that she had drawn all this red webbing around Frida’s heart as she was loving her father and remembering his life.
One man said that he was frustrated. Frida looked sad and he didn’t allow sadness around him. He even had a rule for his granddaughters when they were with him. No crying! He kept adding color and more color to make her look happy, but no matter how much color he added, no matter how hard he worked, he could not change the sadness he saw in her eyes.
Another woman said that she could not see the sadness in Frida’s eyes. She looked direct and strong to her. She colored Frida’s skin in deep browns like her own. When I looked at her piece, I noticed that the beautiful browns reached well beyond the boundaries of Frida’s head. The browns reached out into her environment, like an expanding, glowing aura of self.
There were many stories, each highly individual and personally insightful. I was grateful to hear everyone. Because in telling me about their piece, whether they were aware of it or not, they were telling me (and themselves) about themselves. This is the power of Claiming Face. More than creating much needed reflection of ourselves in our world, we come to know ourselves more deeply and we can share this with others. I find that when I make art about myself, it usually shows me more about me than I generally allow myself to be aware of. I will share more about why this is important and some of the deeper structures within the curriculum in future posts. Like I said before, I could talk for days…
During my first session one woman in particular came up to me. She said with such heart that she could feel my spirit, which I interpreted as meaning that she could feel her own spirit. I wish I could remember more of what she said. That’s the part that really stuck with me, that and her hug, her eyes, the look on her face. In my imagination, it was like she was looking in a mirror and loving herself. Later talking to one of the organizers, she shared with me that someone had come up to her and told her that their experience in my session was “deep.” She said it as though this was new and noteworthy. I laughed and wondered if I was “supposed” to be “deep” at an early childhood development conference. It gave me pause to reflect.
I know what lies underneath the Claiming Face curriculum. It is very deep. But when I go into public schools, I know for sure that I’m not supposed to be too deep. I’m there to make art and talk about books with kids. We want our kids to be excited about reading and learning so they can ultimately go out in the world and have jobs. But I can’t help but talk about the importance of seeing ourselves in our world, especially in our media. And I can’t help but give kids the opportunity to know themselves more deeply and share this with others. It’s right there in hands reach. Too deep? Hmmmm…maybe that’s exactly what we need in our schools…a bit more depth. I wonder. I imagine. I create.
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