Art Teacher

I have fully embraced my role as teacher yet again here in Give a Heart to Africa’s Vocations class. We are just wrapping up the first project that I have seen from start to finish. The idea of this class is to give students marketable skills that they can make a direct (or sometimes indirect) profit from. When I arrived eight weeks ago, they were learning the art of hair braiding and cornrows—a popular business here. The most recent project was painting coconut pods.

Coconut pods come from coconut trees and are mainly used as firewood locally. A previous volunteer brought the idea of painted pods with her because she had seen them sold at a market in Mexico. She brought the supplies and an example; I was left to figure out the rest.

I wouldn't exactly call myself the artistic type. I was the type of kid in art class to use it as a social hour, and impatience usually beat out perfection when it came to the final product. (Unless we’re talking pottery class, but that’s another story!) Nevertheless, I appreciate beautiful things and can certainly guide students to get their creative juices flowing… easier said than done.

The process has been quite time-intensive. We started practicing with watercolors on paper, and I explained the idea of primary versus secondary colors and concrete versus abstract designs. We then practiced on scrap pieces while students collected the pods from around their neighborhoods. 

Then the painting began! I had to let go of any perfectionist desires I may have had (holla at my fellow virgos) during this exercise. It also took a great deal of patience explaining the painting process right down to the amount of paint to put on the brush. There were many trial and errors for the right water to paint ratio. We also practiced the English phrase, "make it even" quite a bit! 

We plan to sell the pods at the new GHTA co-op. Students that have already graduated are selected to work at the co-op for a year. They make products and sell them in the co-op with the idea of building a market and gaining hands-on business experience.

Next up is tie-dying! Thank you Saint Michael’s College for the extensive tie-dye training. :) I'm enjoying teaching outside of my comfort zone. Now I can check off art teacher off the bucket list.