Today was the second day of my extension studies class "Community Arts Training" where we work with 12 year old students from a local school to eventually create a celebratory art piece together. I already love this class so much it's not even funny. Ok well maybe it is a little.
We started class pretty early and we began by us university students showing our work to groups of the high school students (not the same as high school in America obviously... I think they are like 8th graders? Maybe younger? I don't know how things work here still....eh. They say they are grade 8 but I don't think it's the same thing. I'LL NEVER KNOW!). So we each sat at a table and the students came around in little groups of two and three (there are 9 of us--only 7 of us were here today, and only 6 of us stayed the whole time, and 9 or 10 of the young students) and looked at our work and asked us questions and and wrote notes on these little note pads they got.
Ok so back on track, the students are so tiny! Well some of them are bigger and more mature looking but seriously I forgot how tiny grade school kids are! Precious! It was nice to see some of them actually showing genuine interest in art and when they got excited to tell me about similar projects they had done it was really cute! After a short break we regrouped and this time it was our turn to ask the kids questions. We grouped into pairs and went around from group to group of students and talked to them and continued getting to know them which was nice. The first group was these two boys... haha mannn its funny to be around boys that age. Reminds me of kinds i used to know in grade school. As me and my partner asked them questions one of them drew funny pictures of our faces, and continued to ask me a billion random questions about America like "do you like cheeseburgers?" "How many cowboys are there in Chicago" "Is everyone in America fat?" and he kept saying "Howdy, partner". Oh, and they kept asking me to speak with a British accent. Which we all know I love to do buttttttttttt not then, haha. It was pretty funny!
Oh we also looked at the exhibit in the gallery at school together. I spent most of the time doing that with one of my friends and one of the students and it was really fun to ask him what he thought of the work and hear a completely honest kid answer. One piece he totally hated and said "My 4 year older brother could do that!" hah! And then he rated a bunch of work on a scale of 0-10 and it was just really interesting to see what someone who hasn't been all jaded by pretentious art talk 24/7 has to say about it.
After that we had lunch and then headed over to the Brighton Museum which I visited briefly a few weeks ago. It was really great because we got to go to this special room and sit there and learn about African masks that are up to a century old! And we got to touch them and put them on our heads and stuff, hahah it was great! I love tribal masks (Kate, if you are reading this, I kept thinking of you and our trips to the MIA to look as African masks all day!). Then we got to draw the masks and man some of those kids are better drawers than me. It figures. After that we explored the museum a little more and one of my friends told me about a friend of his who is obsessed with taxidermy and stuff and owns tons of old surgical equipment and uses old scalpels and stuff to butter his toast. Hah! By then it was like 3:00 and we were done. It was such a nice day getting to know my classmates and teacher and the new little kids we are going to be working with! YAY.
