National Museum of Mexican Art -Elisa Arce

Week 3

This week has truly been something else. Not that it’s gone bad, but the transportation journey sure has. I know I keep talking about transportation but it’s nearly half of my day!  Just the past Saturday before starting the week, a young girl was kidnapped at the Union Station where I get on and off every day. It’s been sort of intimidating to get to the museum since then. Now that that’s out of the way, the actual internship component went GREAT!!! I even got to see the Governor of Illinois J.B. Pritzker at our museum.
The weekly schedule stayed the same so Don Miguel was back with the shadow story-telling project. They had to finalize their stories so that they could present on Wednesday. Students continued to work on backgrounds/settings, characters, and other props.

I did the neck and head on this one Haha.
In the Afternoon Ms.Gabby started another mask-making project that was now focused on jaguars. Before they started Ms.Gabby brought an art game where they had to collectively create characters by drawing a part of their body. Then, they gave the paper to someone else to continue it. The results were hilarious since no one was able to peak back at how it looked like before drawing. Here are some pictures of some results.
Sone student drew some louis vuitton's o
I love the shoes on this one
We also watched an informative video during this time to learn about the jaguar masks that originate from Guerrero, Mexico, where my family is from! I learned that they were made for when they dance to their gods to ask for water, growth in their crops, and other favors. It was truly intriguing to learn about my family’s home country and traditions. This gave me a flashback to Washington Week because we would bring up topics about how it is that we can represent our cultures better. I remember that Nancy Molina family was going to bring more representation among the Latino Community. This project made me feel like that since the students were doing this for their gallery display. 

This is Isabella working on her mask
Another interesting part of the week was seeing the Governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker come to the museum to sign two bills to protect immigrant children and families. Also, some of the students took my Ford water-bottle and "mummified" it.


Ford has been mummified
Jumping to Thursday, we took the class to the Field Museum. I can’t forget to mention that we had a special time to meet at the “bug show” part of the museum, where I saw many centipedes that sharpened my phobia of them. We also learned about the Egyptian slaves and even tried to carry one of the pyramid blocks/bricks (we didn’t move it at all!). The museum was quite enormous so we, unfortunately, didn’t have the opportunity to explore everything

The Students at the Field Museum pretending to cook
On Friday, I had the “Tito Puente” story-time at the Archer Heights Branch Library, with Brenda! Brenda and I found instruments in a bin and were able to implement those to the story-telling part. This actually became the children’s most favorite part. The activity part was even more entertaining as we went in a circle sharing a story with any instrument that we wanted. My favorite story was Brenda’s. She explained that the maraca sounded like the rice when she pours it out of the bag to a container -this reminded her of home and cooking.
With Brenda at the story-telling.

Working on the activity packet with the guests
To conclude, this week was more adventurous than the others! I am looking forward to seeing the final performance and gallery of the students. They have gotten more precise at their dance as well. The National Museum of Mexican Art is teaching them so much about their culture and traditions through this program, that it is truly impactful.

Hasta La Proxima y Ultima Vez,

Elisa Arce


Word of the week: Adventure!

Action of the week: Learning about culture

Metra experience of the week: A woman who was with her son (he had a broken arm because his ex girlfriend broke it -he quoted). Well, his mom was trying to convince to marry him the whole train ride. I am safe now.

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