Expressing culture through art - art project

I have been blessed with the experience of teaching in the City School District of Rochester, New York, for 25 years. The rich ethnic diversity is always a welcome challenge in designing art curriculum to reinforce and reflect the cultural heritage of my students.

This project begins with a discussion of the cultural origin and dimensions of the lesson. We start with a series of drawings on white paper using a dark crayon, teaching symmetrical and asymmetrical patterns.

The unit was created as a result of my observations of the ethnic clothing that some of my fellow educators wear, which has its origin in the West African country of Ghana. The clothing or fabric is called "mud cloth" and there is limited literature available on how the cloth is created.

One reference that I found referred to a process of alternately coloring the fabric with a yellow plant dye, and then applying a mixture of leaves and mud that has been aged for a year, to the surface of the fabric in the desired pattern. This is then washed off and the process is repeated two or three times, producing designs of yellow on a dark background when aged in the sun.

The yellow design is then painted with a heated mixture of peanuts, caustic soda, millet bran and water, which turns the yellow coloring dark brown. The fabric is then left to dry in the sun for a week. The soda soap is then washed off, resulting in the design appearing as white on a dark background.

On observing some of the fabric, I decided that I could possibly produce a similar effect by using a resist method with mud, similar to batik (wax) or Adira eleko (cassava flour starch resist). I have tried both batik and starch resist with very limited success at the elementary level.

I experimented with reducing leftover dried clay scraps to the consistency of slip and strained the mixture to remove lumps. I applied this mixture to the fabric, but observed that when it dried, it flaked off. To alleviate the flaking, I added about a tablespoon of white glue to a pint of slip and then thinned it to a slip consistency again with water. The mixture didn't flake off and brushed on the fabric easily. When I made sure the clay was on thick enough to cover the weave of the fabric, I let it dry overnight.

During the next class, we stretched the fabric tightly on a piece of scrap paper that was laid over heavy cardboard and held down with pushpins. We then brushed acrylic paint, straight from the bottle, across the full piece of fabric with a large brush. We did this as quickly as possible, so as to not let the water in the acrylic paint loosen up the clay resist. Letting the paint dry overnight will set the acrylic paint; leaving it for two to three days will set the color in the fabric even darker. The longer you leave it to dry after three days, the more difficult it is to wash off.

The next step is to wash the fabric in the sink, using cool to lukewarm water with a light scrubbing motion of fabric against fabric. Wash the fabric until all of the clay comes off and the slimy feeling of excess paint is gone. Hang the piece up to dry; then, it is best to starch and iron the piece so it is wrinkle-free and flat.

I have only used two different fabrics with my children at the elementary level: a medium-weight, all-cotton, unbleached muslin; and a cotton/polyester blend, bleached-white shirting material.

The advantage of the muslin is that the paint does not go all the way through to the back of the fabric, and the paint remains a more uniform color on the finished piece. The disadvantages are that it takes a couple of light layers of clay for the resist, and the design is only on one side of the fabric.

The advantages of the shirting material are that it is easier to apply the clay resist and the design will be on both sides of the fabric. The disadvantages are that the color will not be as uniform, and the acrylic paint sometimes bleeds all the way the fabric, coming from behind to obscure of the design.

It is important to wash all fabric before using in order to remove the sizing. It is also helpful to steam iron the fabric to make it easier to work with.

Some kinds of clay lay better than others, and other kinds of clay leave a faint stain on the fabric. The clay resist with white glue should be discarded at the end of the day because the casein in the glue reacts with the clay and starts to give off an odor after a day or so.

I use an acrylic paint that comes in a two-liter bottle and is used full-strength, right out of the bottle. There is a textile medium that can be added to the paint in a ratio of two parts paint to one part medium to promote permanence. I have not yet been able to obtain a bottle of the medium with which to experiment.

We have done individual 11"x 14" pieces that were then sewn together with the idea that we were each contributing to a community effort in completing a quilt hanging. Head scarves and bandanas, as well as matted and flamed pieces, have also been done.

The most successful display of completed mud cloth was at a "moving up" ceremony for sixth-graders, where each girl wore a 5' x 5" sash over her shoulder and each boy wore one around his neck. Each student used the mud-cloth technique in creating his or her own unique piece, which was then painted blue, washed, starched and ironed.

Unbeknownst to us, the guest speaker for the ceremony arrived in a genuine African mud-cloth dress and spoke about the significance of cultural heritage, and of each individual and his or her potential as a contributor to society. She also spoke to them about the significance of mud cloth and explained her role as the Queen Mother of the nation of Ghana, where she visits each summer.

Some may question the significance of relating the curriculum to the ethnic population being taught. One of my first-graders realized this significance when she asked, "Why don't more of my teachers teach me im my culture?"

My lessons with mud cloth have been done with second- through sixth-graders. I plan on doing puppets with the same technique with first-graders this year.

OBJECTIVES

Students will ...

* discuss their own cultural heritage and how it affects art that is created.

* create a work of art that represents their own cultural heritage and/or reflects diverse cultural influences.

* create a piece of mud cloth using good design principles and craftsmanship.

* critique function, design and craftsmanship of their piece of mud cloth.

RESOURCES

* Picton, John and Mack, John, African Textiles. Harper and Row Publishers, 1989.

* Schumon, Miles, Art From Many Hands: Multicultural Art Projects. Davis Publications, Inc., 1981.

* Shepard, Lisa, African Accents: Fabrics to Decorate Your Home. Krause Publications, 1999.

* African Fabric Design, by Shirley Fried land and Leslie Pina. Schiffer Publishing, 1999, page 9.

* African Textiles, by Christopher Spring. Crescent Books and Crown Publishers Inc., 1989, page 6.

Jeffrey A. Nicholson is an educator (grades K-6) Lincoln Park School #44 Rochester, N.Y.

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