Día de los Muertos

Our students have been working on some really cool Day of the Dead projects this past week. This is one of our favorite themes - a great springboard to teach students about cultures, symbolism, cycles in nature, Mexican and Aztec history, etc.



Students are cutting their own papel picado, and learned about graphic designer Jose Posada and his drawings in Mexico 100 years back that influenced much of the Día de los Muertos imagery we see today.



They are creating their own calveras, putting their own personal cultural spins on them. So far, we’ve seen a few with ipods, one with a helmet to represent skateboarding, a student who is into drawing who gave his pencils for teeth, another student of Japanese heritage gave his the rice hat that is grandfather wears.



Watch for more photos as the students begin to complete their projects!

Lots of exciting work!

Living Histories is back in action and back to school!

We are working with several Green Dot charter high schools in a partnership with Champions; we are currently at Animo South LA, Animo Pat Brown, and Animo Bunche, where teachers Jennifer and Steve are working with some amazing students doing photography.

The students this session are focused on learning core ideas in composition, looking at the work of other photographers, developing their own portfolios, and doing conceptual projects around their own identity and role in their community. They also keep journals and practice various printmaking and painting techniques to give them creative ideas; a bit focus on the class is the creative process itself.

We are so excited to see the work they are producing!


student project at animo bunche

A show is in the works for December - more info soon - but in the meantime, check out what they are doing on their blogs:

http://www.animophotography.blogspot.com/
http://patbrownphoto.blogspot.com/

We also just started up at New LA Charter, a middle school. Steve is teaching a "DIY Graphic Design" class to students there. Right now, they are making some very cool Día de los Muertos posters, having learned about Mexican graphic designer Jose Posada. They'll soon be embarking on some cool projects, including creating logos, a website, a magazine, designing their own business, and picking a community project to apply their new design skills too. They are a great group of students, and we are excited to be working with them!



Miss Tiffany is back at Hamilton Elementary in Pasadena, as part of our on going partnership with the Pasadena LEARNs program. She is teaching classes to some K-2nd graders; right now, the students are focused on learning about concepts connected to community, culture and identity (and they too are doing some Día de los Muertos projects as part of their culture explorations) and will soon be engaged in learning about water issues around the globe, engaging in art and writing projects connected to such, and then taking part in a group service project to bring a needing community clean water. We are very excited to get them started on this!

We also promise to have more regular updates - needless to say, it's been a busy 6 or 7 weeks starting this school year up, but we can't want to share more of what our students create!

-Brande