Artist in Residence
Best Self/Worst Self Symbols and Mediation Chairs/Resolving Conflict* Through Art
Sample of stencil prints – on canvas covers for Peer Mediation Chairs – and framed, by students in 10th and 11th grade art classes, at the Port of Los Angeles High School, in San Pedro, CA. The work of all students offered art classes was shared in an opening celebration for families and the general public at Findings Art Gallery, during the monthly downtown San Pedro Art Walk, June 2011.
Interdisciplinary course. Students were introduced to strategies useful in solving personal issues, techniques for mediating conflict, and art skills to draft symbols that reflected themselves in conflict and at peace. How do ideas like empathy, respect, and an engaging tranquility, get transformed into visual images that reflect productive win-win solutions for all involved? How do we visually represent ideas about disagreements, arguments, hurt, protracted destruction such as war, and violence that escalates resulting in death? Student cut stencils and print images on canvas covers for mediation chairs.
Artist in Residence, sponsored by Angels Gate Cultural Center, San Pedro, CA
*Conflict Resolution Lessons adapted from: Lieber, Lantieri, and Roderick, Conflict Resolution in the High School, publisher Educators for Social Responsibility, Cambridge, MA, c1998; and Aldridge, Giggans, Friedman, In Touch with Teens: A Relationship Violence Prevention Curriculum for Youth Ages 12-19, publisher Peace Over Violence, Los Angeles, CA, c2008
Photo Documentation Jayn Gormley
