Art-making in Childhood As a Form of Human Connection.

I witness students in my elementary art classes who are new to the school and who are often new to this country, arriving with little language proficiency, but who use their artwork to demonstrate to their peers that they have capabilities and talent, value and intelligence. The generous spirit of the other students who recognize a new student’s efforts and reach out to their new classmate moves me. Just this week, an immigrant child from China won the admiration of her peers by rapidly and proficiently completing a drawing of a lion, our school mascot. Everyone was making a portrait of a lion for the Art Tile Fundraiser for our new Fieldhouse. As this particular student entered and demonstrated her skills, she made new connections to her classmates, possibly building new friendships through the use of a visual language. This is a quality of art production that has strong and lasting social implications for a person in a strange new environment. Here is a story of just such an individual who, now as an adult is reminded of such an experience.

Childhood Revisited.

In the Fall of 2002, I saw an art show at the Aliya Gallery which was a nine-artist group exhibition titled “Childhood Revisited.” The curator described the premise of the show as:

“Childhood is something that we all share, for better or worse. The experiences of childhood can define who we will be as adults. I have invited this group of nine artists to reconsider their early formative experiences and create works of art that reflect their memories of this time. This exhibition promises to be a rare glimpse into the minds of visual artists.”

I found much of the work engaging and I was particularly enlightened by the text that accompanied the artwork, which the individual artists wrote to explain their creations. The written passages added an extra dimension to the work, describing the memories that motivated the imagery, whether distinct and graphic memories, or of an overall mood of the artist’s childhood.

The work of one artist I found especially emotion and thought provoking, that of the Vietnamese born Duy Huynh (pronounced yee wun). In his painting “Chalkboard Child,” he painted himself as a child on a chalkboard green canvas with many repetitions of scrawled chalk-like lettering, “I will not draw in class, I will not draw in class.” There we witnessed a situation depicted where Duy’s incessant drawing may have been a refugee boy’s way of coping with the strange newness of an adopted land and it’s educational institutions. As the artist wrote:

“I received my first art commission in the third grade – an eight and a half by eleven inch pencil drawing of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I was paid two dollars and chocolate milk for a week. It was around this time that I started drawing, and consequently began building friendships with some classmates who would normally not acknowledge me before. For a nine-year-old refugee from Vietnam who spoke very little English, this was monumental. I soon realized that I could use art as a means of dealing with the overwhelming sense of displacement experienced throughout my childhood.”

You may view this painting by clicking on the thumbnail image found on the artist's website amongst images on his fifth gallery page titled, "Origamic Dream" http://www.duyhuynh.com/

Another one of this artist’s work was equally wrenching and powerfully graphic, depicting an environment of destruction and loss. The painting is of two individuals climbing into a tree as floodwaters rise – “The Flood.” Duy Huynh’s paintings have been described as poetic and contemplative, which symbolically reflect geographical and cultural displacement. I would refer you to his recent work at the Matre Gallery, on Bennett Street in Atlanta, GA: http://www.matregallery.com/huynh/, and to his own website: http://www.duyhuynh.com/ to see examples of his paintings. I am including several images below…and here you can see some persistent themes of motion and emotion in figures that portray the triumph of the human spirit as journeys are undertaken and destinations are reached.

Art experiences help to heal a lonely or fearful child.

The artwork was one way I also found my place in an elementary school community when I moved to a new township in Ohio as an eight-year-old child. I was shy and uncertain and unsure of how to make friends. However, I drew constantly and soon had my classmates asking me to make funny drawings of people. My caricatures often included word=play as well, such as “Jimmy Vanetti all covered with spaghetti.” A decade ago, I rediscovered many of these drawings when I cleared out my parents’ house after their deaths and the sale of the family home. I can relate to the profound and lasting experiences of making art as a child that were so seminal to Duy Huynh's development as an artist. The act of communicating through one’s art can help an unsettled child find a sense of belonging, a human connection in a new environment…a source of solace. I believe childhood memories can be a rich source of imagery, worth revisiting for any artist.

Here are links to some of Duy Huynh's paintings:

http://www.matregallery.com/huynh/single-gallery/4261822 "Crane Wife"

http://www.matregallery.com/huynh/single-gallery/1424124 "Embarkment"

http://www.matregallery.com/huynh/single-gallery/3849705 "All Is Transient"