Pillowcase Project

Project Title: Pillowcase Project

Artistic Noise Year: Ongoing

Description: The Pillow Project is an ongoing lesson plan that we conduct with incarcerated youth. Participants of this project are asked to illustrate their dreams onto pillowcases. They interpreted the definition of a dream as fragmented visions they remember from their subconscious state, or as an aspiration for the future.

These paintings represent the creative minds of the youth artists involved and are intended to share personal insight into a universal human experience. This is of particular importance with teens involved in the juvenile justice system, as it confronts viewers to consider the youth as individuals rather than statistics.

Objectives and Goals: This mixed media project allows youth to create an individual piece that is part of a larger collaborative ongoing project at Artistic Noise.

Creative/Technical Skills: Youth artists learn how to build a visually unified painted piece from mixed media collages, learn basic concepts of composition and cropping, and gain experience telling a story through visual media.

Critical/Conceptual Skills: Youth Artists learn how to explore the concepts of dreams and create a piece from this exploration. They are encouraged to express a personal dream through their imagery. They are asked to consider compositional issues. Youth artists will use their own stream of consciousness writing as a point of departure for creating their final piece. Youth artists will write and speak about their work, and other’s work, developing their ability to think critically.

Materials: Pillowcases, scissors, glue sticks, bristol board, magazines, view finders cut in various sizes in proportion to pillowcases, Sharpie markers, gouache, good quality brushes, water cans.

Process: 1) Free Writing Exercise - Have the youth artists spend a period of time free writing.

- Use the prompt: Anything related to dreams.

- Examples: When I close my eyes I dream; I have a dream that…; the most memorable dream I ever had was...

2) Critical Viewing - Spend a period of time with the youth artists looking at and talking about these well known artworks: Salvador Dali - Persistence of Memory, Rene Magritte - The Large Family, The False Mirror, Wangechi Mutu - Forbidden Fruit Picker, Romare Bearden - Young Students, The Lantern.

3) Artmaking - Using the magazines, have the young people create a collage that represents their interpretation of dreams. Encourage surrealist imagery.

- Using the viewfinders, each participant should find a section of their collage that is interesting conceptually and compositionally.

- The youth artist should then create a linear tracing of that section of the collage they have chosen.

- The teaching artist should create large-scale copies of these tracings.

4) Artmaking (continued) - Have the youth artists place the large copy onto their pillowcase using sharpie or pencil.

- They should then paint their pillowcases using gouache.

5) Wrap-up - Ask the youth artists what theme they chose and ask them to write about it.

(Ask them: What does your piece mean? What do the images in the piece symbolize?).

- Put all the pillowcases up on the wall, and have a group critique/discussion.

(Ask them to choose a piece that they like and to talk about it. What do

they like about it? What is interesting about it? Does it tell a story? Does it express an idea or mood? In what way is it surreal?)

Example:

Youth Artist: Eli Title: Lone Wolf "When I just about fall asleep I forget that I am awake. I soar and bask in the cloudiness of thought. Too asleep to respond but awake enough to be conscious.

As I fall under a shape of drowsiness, I lose myself and my self awareness. I am no longer physically aware but in my mental state I am at my highest. Awake, I'm low but dreaming, I am high. My higher state, my higher self. Which direction can I go?

There are messages in here and words with no letters, sights with no sound, there's no left or right or up or down. Am I dreaming? Red lights, green lights. I can feel my body again, fingers and lips refreshed with life. What time is it? What do I have to do today? Oh it's cold. When I get up I turn the AC off and the heater on. I'm waking up. Thanks for the sleep."