I Happily Quit The Work Out

Week 2,  National Museum of Mexican Art

*Walking down Damen street* I made it to my internship 20 minutes before it started. What can I say? I have mastered Chicago’s transportation system (just kidding, I wouldn’t say mastered -but I figured it out!). This week just flew by and I honestly don’t want this internship to end. I was very comfortable last week but this week was different because the students and I finally got to know each other.

On Monday the students continued their same routine except that they started on new art projects. Don Miguel brought a project where they had to create a story using a shadow box. He already had some pre-cut pieces for the characters and backgrounds so they either made a story based on those, or they created their own. This reminded me of Washington week because we would talk about various ways of telling stories such as through food, clothing, artifacts and now I learned about using shadows. Using shadow boxes is pretty challenging. One has to think of the best ways to move the characters and setting when necessary. I also got the idea to play background music while they performed their stories. I would have never thought to type, “music for robbing a bank” on a search bar (A-ha ha).

Here are some images of the shadow stories in progress:


Students presenting with a shadow box
Students presenting with the projector
The second art session consisted of them creating alebrijes. Luckily, I didn’t have to glue anything this time (my thumb is still healing from last week’s project). Historically, alebrijes originate from Mexico. Pablo Linares Lopez created these to represent the imaginary creatures/animals that he saw in his dreams. The students created different mixes of animals like a snake unicorn. They got really creative on this one…
The alebrijes! mines the tiger monkey at the bottom right :D
Once they completed their alebrije they moved on to create a world where their creation would be living. Mrs.Marilyn started them on canvases with acrylic markers then oil pastels. These projects made them think about the story behind their creations and how their environment would be determining the way their alebrije acts. Does is swim? Does it eat apples? Does it live like a human? In the end, they looked great and super colorful!

these two students love to draw c: they always go all out as you can see

Another part of the week was taking the students to the court-yard. The girls of the group have actually began a loom bracelets business that bought them ice-cream during recess. We also like to play connect 4 competitively. We made bets that the loser would dress up as the other for Fridays “dress like an artist” theme. I was happily undefeated until Don Jaime won twice and I ended up keeping my word.
Dressing up as Don Jaime (he wears superheroes shirts everyday and carries a rubik's cube!)
Friday is always a special day. This week it was dress like an artist and video game day.

Hasta la Proxima,

Elisa Arce

Word of the week:  FORD <3

Action of the week: Creating new stories!

Metra experience of the week: This 48yr old lady that was ranting to me about her CD collection and how she wishes her father would stop talking about it.


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