Intergenerational Post Card Project - The Art of Hope

Intergenerational Post Card Project - The Art of Hope

INVITATION

YOU ARE INVITED to participate in an intergenerational art project

Coordinated by the University of Memphis Art Department 

Theme: Hope 

What do you hope for? What is your vision of hope for yourself and our community?

Goal(s): Develop understanding of ourselves and our community. Discover the similarities or differences between individual and collective interpretations of the theme of Hope. Create an intergenerational collaborative work of art to be displayed in the community that communicates our individual and collective vision of hope. Demonstrate ways in which art can help to understand and express thoughts and feelings.  

Art media: We will send you blank postcards, if you choose to participate. You can use pen, pencil, crayon, watercolor, or colored pencil to create your images. 

TIMELINE: 

Jan 19 - Feb 7: create postcards

Feb 6: Deliver postcards to: Meryl Klein @ Creative Aging, 1451 Union Ave, Ste 120. 901-272-3434 on or before the due date

Feb 9-11: Postcards photographed. Send digital copy to design team. Redistribute original postcards - Postcard exchange. participants will receive postcards from another site.

Feb 11 - 16: Design team works with muralist to incorporate ideas from postcards into a community mural. Prepare wall for painting.

Feb 17-18:   Prep wall and paint outline on mural wall.

Feb 21: In conjunction with PeaceJam, mural painted in community site. 

For more information, contact Richard Lou, ralou@memphis.edu or Dr. Donalyn Heise, dheise2@memphis.edu. 

WHY? Research suggests that participation in the arts can strengthen community and build human capacity. The arts can enhance communication, reveal what we value, and heighten perception. We will use art to develop an appreciation and respect for the variety of human cultures. Personal development and identity are shaped by factors including culture, groups, and institutions. Culture encompasses similarities and differences among people, including their beliefs, knowledge, changes, values and traditions.  
 

 

PROJECT GUIDELINES: 

1.   Anticipatory Set: What does the word HOPE mean?  Write it down. Write down everything that comes to mind when you think of the word HOPE. (give a few minutes for participants to reflect and write). Share dictionary definition of HOPE. expectation of fulfillment and success; to expect with confidence; to anticipate obtainment; SYNONYM = Expect; ANTONYM = despair   

What do you hope for yourself? What hope do you have for our community? Write or sketch your ideas and vision of hope for yourself, our community, our nation, and our world. 

2. Ask the participants to sketch on paper and pencil symbols for the things they hope for themselves and the community.   After a few minutes ask individuals to share their images with others.  

3. Show how artists communicate using symbols. Use symbols in various cultures. Through symbols, artist communicate ideas and feelings. For symbol examples, you can introduce them to Native American symbols, Hieroglyphs of Ancient Egypt, or contemporary artists, such as Keith Haring. Tell the participants to think of ways in which they can create their vision of hope in a work of art. What symbols can effectively community your ideas? Participants can brainstorm on a piece of paper before beginning their postcard.  

4. Show images of artwork that depicts an artist's vision of hope, such as Thomas Moran's Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. His images inspired westward expansion, communicated the grandeur of the west and a hope for the future.

Thomas Moran (February 12, 1837 - August 25, 1926) from England was an artist of the Hudson River School who often painted the Rocky Mountains.

Thomas Moran's vision of the Western landscape was critical to the creation of Yellowstone National Park.

Thomas Moran along with Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Hill, and William Keith are sometimes referred to as belonging to the Rocky Mountain School of landscape painters because of all of the Western landscapes made by this group. His pencil and watercolor field sketches and paintings captured the grandeur and documented the extraordinary terrain and natural features of the Yellowstone region.

Moran's artwork was presented to members of Congress by park proponents. These powerful images of Yellowstone fired the imagination and helped inspire Congress to establish the National Park System in 1916. 

Other artists include Jacob Lawrence, Migration Series, depicting African American migration to the north, their vision of hope for a better life.  

You can shared a few examples of emotion in art such as Edvard Munch's Scream, Roy Lichtenstein's&, or Marc Chagall's Amoureux de Vence. Ask the participants what emotions the artists might be trying to portray. How do they achieve creating each emotion?  Some artists may use the subject, colors, lines, or textures to create an emotion.  How can we effectively communicate through lines, colors, composition? 

5. Distribute a postcard size piece of blank cardstock to each participant. (we have blank tag board cut to size in the UM Art Dept. Call Tony to arrange pick up 678-2216). Use desired materials to carry out a piece of art expressing each participant's vision of hope for themselves and/or for the community (can use color pencils, markers, collage, pencil, fine point black pen, etc)

Allow the participants to write a message on the back of their postcards leaving room for a mailing address. Have them write their return address.  The message may explain the participant's vision of hope, or write a poem communicating their vision. 

8. Collect all postcards and package together and sent to Meryl Klein @ Creative Aging, 1451 Union Ave, Ste 120. 901-272-3434 on or before the due date of Feb 6 . You will receive a package with one postcard for each of your participants/participants from a variety of project partners. Meryl will facilitate digitatizing images of ALL postcards, front and back, then will send a copy to RLou. (Richard will send cd disk of images to the muralist, and a copy to all project partners. Then Meryl will send actual postcards to each participating site. (For example, you may receive postcards from seniors at Tresvent Manor, middle school students at The University of Memphis Community Art Academy, or from the Hispanic Student Organization at Kingsbury High, YMCA youth, etc.) Everyone who created a postcard will receive a postcard. 

Once you receive the corresponding project partner's postcards give one to each participant. Allow the participants time to reflect on the messages conveyed on the postcard.

10. Ask What is their vision of HOPE? What do you see that makes you think that?

Discuss if the postcard communicate similar or different vision of hope than their own.  Ask, Do you think that we share a vision of hope with others? Are there different visions of hope? Why or why not? What are some visions of hope we might share as a community or nation? Discuss ways that we might be able to achieve our individual and collective vision of hope. What images/symbols might communicate our collective vision? 

11. A Muralist will work with the design team to facilitate the design and execution of the painting of a mural in the community. The team will use ideas and images from the postcards to develop this collaborative work of art.  The collaborative work will focus on our collective vision of hope. 

Closure: Do you think art is a good way to communicate thoughts, feelings, visions? What did you learn from sharing your vision of hope with your penpal? Did your postcard or the artwork of others help you to understand/articulate your own vision of hope and understand the visions of hope a community might have? How did this collaborative art project help you feel connected to the community?