‘For generations to come’: Providence students’ murals tell of grief and hope
In fall 2017, Providence, R.I.’s Juanita Sanchez Educational Complex launched an ongoing project of making art that amplifies student voices and speaks to social justice themes. The JSEC Arts Program, led by artist and 25-year teaching veteran Susan Garland, experimented with different art forms but kept coming back to the power of murals. In just a short time, mural-making became a school tradition.
JSEC is now literally illuminated by the vision of Garland’s students — home to dazzling hallway art that speaks to students’ experiences and beliefs around social justice, including liberation, personal growth, healing, empowerment, anti-colonialism and, Garland notes, “even some mystical realms.” The JSEC artists were honored in January 2021 with an exhibit sponsored by the University of Rhode Island Providence Campus Gallery: “Speaking Out — a Call to Action: The Art of Protest — Agents of Change in Rhode Island.”
The murals illustrate the importance of a well-rounded, joyful education for Providence students. Sadly, this lesson seems to be lost on leaders of the state takeover of the Providence schools, which began in November 2019. They have already cut a 20-year-old dance program at JSEC, closed two middle school libraries and “consolidated out” drama class at Nathan Bishop Middle School, replacing it with a computer science elective over parent and student protests.
AFT Voices spoke with Garland about how she and her students create living works of art.
How did mural-making become a focus for arts instruction in your classes?
This project has its roots at the first school I worked at, Oliver Hazard Perry Middle School. On my first day, the principal said to me, “The good news is that you’ll have a classroom. The bad news is there are no materials and no furniture.” But the school had just been given a donation of latex indoor paint from a hardware store. And they’d also just put some science tables in the dumpster. These were extremely heavy oak science tables from the 1920s, when the school was built. They had 80 years of pretty cool graffiti carved into them, and they were long and way too narrow for modern usage, but they were ours. I decided my classes would redo them and make them works of art. This included days of sanding by hand and then applying wood filler to the deepest grooves of graffiti. We went on to paint murals, walls, just about anything. The joke at Perry was that if you stood in my classroom long enough, you’d eventually be painted.
What kicked off mural-making at JSEC?
When I first came to JSEC, 20 years ago, the building was new — so over the years, whoever was principal at the time would always tell me we couldn’t paint the walls. Eventually, I just stopped asking. But I felt deeply sad about it. Mural-making is something kids love so much. Then, four years ago, we received an Arts Talk grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. As we were deciding on the focus of our Arts Talk grant, our assistant principal, Ariana Testa, asked me why we never painted murals because she really wanted to work in a school that was more colorful. She thought I’d never considered painting the drab walls. I told her about the history, and how happy I’d be for my classes to have the chance to do murals! In a way, her question revitalized my career as an art teacher.
At the beginning of our Arts Talk mural project, my classes had the privilege of working with our incredible local artist, Christopher Johnson, a spoken-word artist and playwright. His poetry and plays are about social justice and race in America. Working with Christopher, students dug deep into some rigorous racial justice learning, culminating in a hallway gallery of showstopping murals.
Our approach starts by homing in on specific social justice themes, and specific words. Then we bring those words and concepts into our visual artwork. By starting with words and evolving into murals, students get to think about how words become symbols. Students use a process of inquiry to help understand how to decode words and put the meaning back into the painting.
Can you give an example of how this process played out with a specific mural?
My student Jaleel Addison was inspired by the initial intense, challenging class discussions with Mr. Johnson about the important societal roles and responsibilities of Black artists, and also by the excitement over the movie Black Panther, which had just come out. Jaleel’s creative fire was lit. Over the next couple of years, in his free time, he would regularly stop by the art studio to draw and chat. We’d always get back to his first hallway mural, which featured a quote from Black Panther’s Killmonger: “Bury me in the ocean where my ancestors jumped from ships, because they knew death was better than bondage.”
Jaleel wanted to bring his original work to the next level. This past summer, when we were finally allowed back into our school building to paint at a social distance, he came back and created a masterpiece. It had taken some time though. We processed and strategized, and Jaleel sketched and sketched. Meanwhile, some sobering events played out on the national stage, such as the racial injustice that has always plagued this country finally getting mainstream attention. Locally, there was a controversy about children of color receiving free swim lessons in Providence. [Drowning rates are higher among populations of color, and the New York Times recently ran an article urging renewed attention to water safety for children.]
In the midst of all that, the worst tragedy happened. One of our own beloved JSEC students died in a drowning accident. We grieved hard.
How were grief and hope expressed in Jaleel’s final mural, “The Buoyancy of Black Joy”?
As an artist, Jaleel was able to take all that pain and transmute it. The new version still uses Killmonger’s quote as a starting point. The ancestors, from the ocean floor, hold the mural up for future generations. [The ancestors refer to Jason deCaires Taylor’s underwater sculpture off the Grenada coast, “Vicissitudes,” which some have interpreted as a tribute to the 1 million Africans who died on the Middle Passage from Africa to the Americas on slave ships.]
In the mural, the ancestors are grounding today’s youth, while also lifting them up by sending liberating energy. The playfully swimming kids are protected and nourished by this golden aura. It gives them power and allows them to take their rightful place, so that we can know that our youth will swim us free.
The mural “Trauma” is certainly more meaningful than ever right now.
My student Cindy Giron and her team wanted to look at not just injustice but liberation. [The mural reads, “Trauma creates changes you don’t choose. Healing is about creating change you do choose.”] She wanted to say, “All of us have trauma. We have the power to make a choice toward healing.”
People don’t realize yet the reverberations this pandemic will have through the years. Trauma-informed professional development is really needed. JSEC has been open all year, but attendance has been very down, sometimes only one student in class. Kids disappear and then come in crying. They don’t know how to talk about what they’ve suffered. We need a lot of work, and understanding, and making sure we’re open and inviting, for students to come back. Otherwise, they’ll get lost. We saw this in non-COVID times. Now that trust is even more important.
What inspired the “Viva La Libertad de Puerto Rico” mural?
It was done by a student, Evel Bernardi, who just finished his senior year with another fantastic mural. He was then in the 10th grade. The mural was conceptualized around what was happening in Puerto Rico, not just the hurricane and recovery, but also the issue of self-determination, and the idea that people in Puerto Rico have the choice. He was very aware of the debate on Puerto Rican statehood, his family talked about it a lot. He wanted to make a statement of strength, the strength of his people. That mural is underneath a window, and when the sun shines, it sparkles.
The multicolored face is an intriguing and powerful image.
It was painted by Kevin Negron, a student who was simultaneously doing a program at the Rhode Island School of Design through Project Open Door, which opened his eyes to a whole new world of making art. This image came to him, and he felt it was really important. He wouldn’t put words to it. He wanted to trust that his viewers would take their own explanation. As you can see, there are stitches on the face in the mural. He is saying that there are guys out there in pieces having to stitch themselves back together, men of color specifically. They are out there, scarred but beautiful.
The names on the Girl Power mural are so engaging. Who chose them?
The students wanted to honor courageous women, and they picked the women’s names themselves. What I love about that one, is that there are names you might know, such as Harriet Tubman and Wilma Mankiller, alongside names you might not know [such as Petra Herrera, who dressed as a man to fight in the Mexican Revolution, marshalling a 400-strong all-female fighting corps, or the Public Universal Friend, a nonbinary, nonconformist preacher who was a key figure in colonial New England during the First Great Awakening]. Now that the mural is there, as different students come through, we’ll see new names added.
How does it feel for students when they finish a mural?
When they’re done, there’s a celebratory energy but also a reflective energy. It’s almost like they’re a little bit not sure. They’ve just put themselves out there in such a huge way. For many students, it’s the first time they’ve done that. They’ve made something that will be seen by generations to come. There’s almost a moment of “Oh whoa, what did I just do?” So for some students, they have that moment of trepidation. Now, all of a sudden, they have ownership of this message that their younger brothers and sisters will see, potentially their own kids will see.
Did you grow up wanting to be a teacher, as so many teachers do? [Garland has a B.A. in Studio Art and B.S. in Art Education from Rhode Island College.]
I never intended to become an art teacher. But my mom was adamant that, as a woman, I needed to be able to support myself. Since she loved being a teacher, she figured I would, too. I figured she was wrong, but for some reason, this particular advice stuck. As soon as I graduated, I contracted bacterial meningitis. The recovery was long and arduous. The MFA program I’d set my heart on was no longer a priority. With my teaching degree, I could be a substitute teacher on the days I felt well enough to work. Providence hired me as a sub almost immediately. And, almost immediately, teaching in Providence struck a deep inner bell that I never knew existed.
Over the years, here and there, I was making some art, but after 21 years on the job, I realized that I’d lost my artistic voice, the voice I work with my students to help them find. So I started back down a familiar path, just in a fresh, more experienced way — trying to make art that would be truly from my heart. The week of my 23rd-teaching anniversary, I finished four brand-new pieces. I’ve reunited with a piece of myself, which I think will continue to energize me and allow me to teach for at least another 25 years!
What’s ahead for the JSEC mural program?
Our school has been labeled “low performing” and “failing.” I hate these labels about who we are. Our kids are so wonderful to work with. They’re some of the most loving, kind, talented kids. They are very, very appreciative of each other’s work. Their murals have changed the whole character of the school building. In a sense, they’re really making history.
So now that we’ve gotten the green light, we’re going to keep going. I told my assistant principal, I don’t think you realize what you’ve gotten yourself into!
Artist and 25-year teaching veteran Susan Garland, who leads the Juanita Sanchez Educational Complex mural project.
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