Tonight, I volunteered my usual 6:30 p.m. til 9:00 p.m shift. It began as any other night, until I walked in and saw an oil painting of Malcolm X staring me right in the face. Another volunteer and a student are getting ready for their show at TAE on Sunday October 23rd, it should be a real cool show. I had a preview tonight. The opening reception is from 1 until 4--you guys should come on down for a real fun time in Pontiac, we could all go to Tiki Bobs after.... just kidding.
While the other volunteer and his student were working out the final painting for the show, it gave me the perfect opportunity to swoop in and help the other man who comes. He is an older man a bit slow. I'm not quite sure what his disability is. Last week, I was upset because the teacher drew his baseball player for him. So, when I came in he was trying to fix the drawing.
I asked him if he wanted some help and he said he had to ask ______ , the other volunteer. When the older man drawing the baseball player realized that _______ was busy he finally settled on me for some help. I grabbed some scrap paper and quickly laid out a grid around the border of the picture he was trying to draw. We grabbed a new piece of paper and I gridded that piece out. We were ready to start: square by square.
At this point, I began to work on my treasure box. I thought if he had any problems he would let me know....wrong. I soon looked over and I began to understand that this grid system might have been to advanced. He did not really understand spacial relativity. So I unplugged the hot glue gun scooched my chair right next to his and we took it one box at a time. I showed him how we could build the picture out of basic shapes and then, once the outline was done, we could go back in and get the details. We got about 8 squares done the whole night, but when he finally looked at the whole picture, he was really impressed with what he had drawn. The best part: it was actually his hand. I did not draw a single line on the paper for him. I discussed every single square: where he should start and end, what shapes he was drawing, and kept him focused but he did the drawing.
As for the poet he did not show up tonight, I hope everything is all right.
I think your approach was really kind and will foster a good sense of self esteem, Sydney. That was really good thinking on your feet! I've always had that sense with kid's art; adults always want to make it "look good" and that kind of ruins it for me.
ReplyDeleteDeb Czechowicz (I think I figured out how to post but it only works on anonymous, so I'll just sign my name to the posts. I wonder if you can comment on mine yet?)