On Wednesday, HEArt Chavez began painting a new mural in the 8th grade corridor.

From left, blazing flames represent the risks and struggles students face on a day to day basis, and the hardship that the students must overcome in order to succeed.  Carrying a positive message, the flames are also a symbol of purification, cleansing and rebirth as the students find their paths toward healthy lifestyles at school and beyond.  The metamorphosis of a butterfly is depicted as an analogy for the students’ growth and transformation from 6th through 8th grade. The butterfly evolves from the right, beginning as a simple caterpillar climbing into the foreground, resting in the chrysalis until it finally emerges, fully transformed into a beautiful adult butterfly. In the middle, a girl holds up a peace sign, urging for peace in her community. A typical EPA street scene is depicted behind her, showing that the girl is using her own inner strength to create positive change in her home community.  On the right, an 8th grader ascends the stairs to meet a hand extending his Chavez diploma as he graduates to high school.  On the right, the ivy surrounding the diploma and stairs is a symbol of growth, strength and friendship.   The EPA foothills and blue sky rest in the background.

Check back for weekly updates on our progress!

Painting Day 1 - Opposite Colors

The students blew us away with their excitement and creativity in creating their tree house safe havens.  Photos don’t do justice to the architecture behind these awesome sculptures!  The students spent hours crafting the logistics of building walls, roofs, staircases, swing sets, airplanes and pools for their utopian getaways.  Below are some of the standouts.

Teen Art Instructor Monica!

Over the past couple of weeks, the Chavez students have been fashioning tree houses made primarily from firewood, tree branches, and popsicle sticks. These tree houses represent safe havens – a utopian environment where they can go to escape worries and woes.  Working in teams, the students have been constructing houses, swings, bridges, stairs, jacuzzis and airplanes to represent their ideal reality.

Isaiah and Viri work on a tree house

We also celebrate the new “HEArt Gallery” where we will showcase artwork on a rotating basis!

Viri, Sarah and Monica celebrate a new gallery to showcase student work

Chavez students finished their headdresses on the final day of our Mardi Gras Indian unit.  Through a three-week series, the students were able to consider what the word “gang” means to them and how creativity can be used to vent aggressive tendencies.  They finished designing their own Mardi Gras Indian-style headdresses, bejeweled with sequins and beads and embellished with feathers.  And a brave few “battled” it out through dance to earn themselves some flashy Mardi Gras beads!

The youngest member of the gang!

Good buddies

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What do you think of when you hear the words… Gang? Mardi Gras? Indian? Battle? Pretty?

Chavez students are breaking down the associations (mostly negative) they have with these words by studying the history of Mardi Gras Indians in New Orleans.  Mardi Gras Indians form “gangs” that “do battle” with one another on Mardi Gras day until the Big Chief of one gang bows down to another and acknowledges him as “the prettiest.”   These gangs are social support groups and their battles are creative battles to see who can come up with the most beautiful costume, song and dance of all.   By making their own Mardi Gras-style headdresses and performing their own creative battles, Chavez students can envision a new type of gang for their community.

Mardi Gras Indian

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HEArt students took a quick refresher course on color theory.  Using the color wheel, students learned the relationships between primary colors, secondary colors, and complimentary colors.  Isaiah taught the class his personal trick for remembering the complimentary colors: red/green = Christmas colors, purple/yellow = the Lakers, and blue/orange = the Broncos!

The students used what they’d discussed about color theory and its symbolism to decorate paper hearts and peace signs.  They were asked to step out of the box to think of color relationships that could represent themes of love and peace (Love is not just red and pink!).  From a spread of brightly colored tissue papers, the students chose colors that they could use to represent their ideas.  We took pictures outside, framing our world through love and peace:

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The classroom at Chavez was SHAKIN’ this week as students finished their maracas.  Step 1: Students popped the balloons inside of the paper-mached shell of their maracas.  Step 2:  Students put beans inside of the maraca and listened to the sound, adding more beans until they liked the tone.  Step 3:  Students sealed the maracas and added paper-towel tube handles.  Step 3: Paint and shake!

Sarah helps students create the shake

Marina and Jose paint their maracas with Monica's help

The final product! Yazmin's beautiful maraca

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HEArt at Chavez is back in action in 2010.  To continue the flow from our Hip Hop workshops in 2009, we started the class by circling up with a set of percussion instruments.  We are entering a new unit that focuses on ways we use the creative arts to express our emotions and cope with stress.  In an exercise on emotional literacy, each student was asked to name an emotion that they’d felt during the day and to play an instrument that expressed that emotion.  After each student took a turn, we introduced a method of making home-made maracas out of simple everyday materials.  The students blew up balloons and covered them with paper mache to create a shell mimicking that of gourds, the traditional material.  Next week, we’ll put beans inside the maracas so that they shake, cover the hole and add handles.

Tamara, Viri, and Oswaldo

6th Graders Viri, Vanessa and Marina making maracas

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In a two-week workshop, guest artists Tefferi Brook and Patrick Davenport came and taught the Chavez middle school students a little something about hip hop.   Teff and Patrick are both deeply involved in MMAP’s History through Hip Hop Program.

Week 1 began with a percussion instrument jam session to get the beat going.  Teff then went through basic hip hop terms including tempo, hook, verse, bridge, and bar.   Students learned how to count bars and identify the basic skeleton of a rap song as we listened to “Down” by Jay Sean ft. Lil Wayne.  By the end of class, everyone was dancing and singing to the music!

Week 2 also began with a percussion jam session with all the students reaching for their favorite instruments from the week before.  This week, our guest artists focused on the history of hip hop music.  Working in groups, students learned about the four key players in hip hop: the DJ, the MC, the B-Boy, and the Graffiti Artist.  Students also learned about four pioneers of hip-hop music:  2Pac, E40, Too Short, and Mac Dre.

Guest artist Tefferi Brook

Tefferi and Sarah with students Freddy, Ana and Alexia

Tamara and 7th grader Emmanuel present on Too Short

Patrick gets spiritual during the percussion jam session