Part Four: we start at the beginning of Spring semester 2011.
The travel course to Guatemala started meeting in a classroom setting like a normal class in the Spring of 2011. We were scheduled to leave for Guatemala in March and we were going to be there for 12 days, so we had two months to prepare for the trip and get to know each other.
Our first few classes focused on looking at the history of the native Maya people and their culture, significant parts of which still exist today. We also got to know each other during this time and made choices about who would room with whom, and what we wanted to do as a group while we were in Guatemala. I took on a TA role for the class, since I had taken the Maya courses with Prof. Turner in the past and I knew how to do the clerical work.
I was also extremely honored when Prof. Turner, whose daughter was working in Antigua at the time, asked me about taking part as a practicing artist in a fund raiser for Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO's) in Antigua, including the one her daughter worked for, CasaSito Association. the fund raiser would pair up practicing artists with middle school aged young artists from Antigua and both would create a painting in 90 minutes which would be auctioned off at the end of the 90 mins to the highest bidder, the proceeds going to the NGO's. We were already going to be working with CasaSito on the mural in Santiago Zamora, and our whole group was excited to be asked to participate in the fund raiser.
At the same time that I was preparing to go to Guatemala, I was continuing to work on my Maya portfolio in my new portfolio class. I also started this blog, so all my earlier posts are from this point on. In my portfolio course I wanted to continue to work on expanding my media choices and the large scale portraits I had started the semester before.
In February 2011 my godson Jonathan was born and the angle of my portfolio took shape. I created his portrait and started working with a wide range of colors, something I had been extremely hesitant to do by that time.
Other than Jonathan's piece, and the continued growth of The Boston Codex, I waited to start a new project until after I had gone to Guatemala in March. I had gotten some very good critiques after the fall semester about my Maya Portfolio and there was a question that I couldn't answer; am I respecting the Maya culture through my art, or am I just stealing pieces of it?
One of my Professors had been uncomfortable with my work because he questioned whether or not I had the right to use the imagery and culture the way I was, and his questions really challenged me to look at my work and question what I was doing. I wanted to use the trip to Guatemala to try to find an answer to this dilemma; I felt that I was respecting the culture, but would the Maya people feel the same way? Did I have the right to do what I was doing?
This trip was exactly what I needed for where I had found myself; I was at a point in my art historical studies where I was anxious to look at the art and archaeology in person, I needed to meet the Maya people as an artist who uses their imagery and symbolism as the foundation of my art practice, and I wanted to stretch the limits of my education practice by working with art students from a completely different culture.
Part Five will start with leaving for Guatemala March 2011!
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