After months of working with the youth shelter's directors, obtaining approvals to start this art program and finding time in these busy youths' schedules, I finally was able to teach my first art class at a transitional living program within a local shelter for homeless youth. I used my first project (pictured above) as a way as assessing skill level and prior art-knowledge.
I first had the residents write a list of 5 of their favorite things about themselves: personality traits, body parts, favorite foods, what's most important to them, goals, etc. As I witnessed how hard it was for this group of youths to find things they liked about themselves, I gave them a range of ideas by asking each youth questions and quickly changed the assignment to write as many positive things down about themselves within 5 minutes. Thankfully the lists grew and grew and now these hang on the walls of the youths' rooms.
The next step was to pick out 3 things from their lists to depict. One would be represented by a picture they found in a magazine, the second would be drawn using pastels or colored pencils, and the third would be represented with abbreviated text.
As the youth worked on their projects I explained the Dada movement to them - hitting on the overarching ideas that would resonate with this group as I passed around books about Dadaism... all while holding one of the resident's infant.
After the youths each had their 3 items that represented them, they put tape on the back and made a line in front of a large background paper hung on the wall. I reminded them of the artist Jean Arp we had discussed and showed them an image of his work Untitled (Collage with Squares Arranged according to the Laws of Chance). I explained that we were going to make a community collage that represented each of this community's members, but they had to follow the ideas of Dadaism, specifically Jean Arp, by either closing their eyes and posting one of their items, or by simply having 1 second to paste it up without thinking about where it was going to go. They went through the line 3 times to take turns posting each of their 3 items. Once it was over they each signed their name and looked over the collage laughing and smiling, proud of what they had accomplished.
