September 2020 Distance Learning Art Blog

Kentfield School District 

Better Together/Racial Justice T-Shirt Artwork & Instruction Videos

“We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of this tapestry are equal in value no matter their color.” 

- Maya Angelou

Many artists create work that intersects with political activism and social justice causes. Throughout history, art has been used as an accessible tool for communication, raising awareness about social issues and affecting positive change. 

My personal artwork is a natural way of expressing my ideas about how I see the world, through shapes, lines, textures and colors. Exploring social justice subjects in my personal artwork is a new and scary territory. I have immersed myself in reading about social justice, have joined a book club formed by colleagues and I have been serving on the Marin County Social Justice Curriculum Writing Group. This work has truly been eye opening for me. While self-reflecting, I feel shame and outrage at my own complicity with racism and what continues to go in the USA, the world, and here in Marin County, and have been processing this deep understanding and self-study through visual responses. 

I created the “Love Not Hate'' artwork through moments of struggle, frustration, confusion, hope and love. With this artwork I strive to share my passion of educating students, to help them speak their truths and to foster growing ideas that we’re better together as we create stamina to shape our communities and the world. By all means, I am not an expert in leading others through challenging topics like racial and social justice, but I am willing to try. I am willing to show my vulnerability. I am using the organic language of visual arts to communicate, to spark conversations and to advocate for change and equality. 

With my art partner, Kent parent and artist/printmaker, Anna Rochester we believe we are Better Together. We created mini video lessons based on the 6 Elements of Social Justice Curriculum Design and our personal artworks to help jumpstart conversations in your classrooms. This first set of videos explores: Element 1: Self Love and Knowledge and, Element 2: Respect for Others. This work continues as we create more video lessons to tap into Elements 3-4. Links to the videos and playlist are here: Social Justice Instruction Videos  Please feel free to explore these videos with your students. 

Thank you for your support.

Warmly, Barbara Libby-Steinmann Bacich Art Teacher

Artwork by Barbara Libby-Steinmann

During the summer I joined a group of Bacich/Kent teachers to serve on the Marin County Social Justice Curriculum Writing Committee. With the support of the KSD administrative team, Bacich teachers and I engaged in developing a schoolwide social justice unit titled “My Skin": Living Armor Evolving Identity”. 

The Social Justice curriculum design is based on 6 elements:

Six Elements of Social Justice Curriculum Design:

Element 1: Self Love and Knowledge

Element  2: Respect for Others

Element 3: Issues of Social Injustice

Element 4: Social Movements and Social Change

Element 5: Awareness Raising

Element 6: Social Action Conclusion References 

Visual arts is a wonderful, organic way to engage our students in conversation about skin colors, self love, respect for others, race and diversity. Through our county wide collaboration, we learned that Arts Integration is a valuable tool in implementing the Six Elements of Social Justice and a nice vehicle to get past Elements 1 and 2. The Baich Social Justice committee will help teachers with the expansion and integration opportunities of the skin unit in Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies. 

Our school wide “Skin” unit has an overarching art component which I will be implementing in all grade levels K-4th grade. Inspired by photographer Angelica Dass and her stunning skin color study titled Humanæ. Students will engage in a self-study about their skin color and the skin of their peers, family and community. Students will create a self-portrait featuring their skin colors. A school wide virtual art gallery featuring students' skin colors self-portraits will be the culmination of this visual study. 

The book "The Skin You Live In" written by Michael Tyler, illustrated by David Lee Csicsko is  a great introduction for students to share observations about their skin. After the read aloud, I am teaching students to paint with watercolors creating color recipe charts to mix their own skin tones and using creative words to name and describe their skin colors. Students paint one entire page of their sketchbooks with their skin tone and write their name of their skin color at the bottom of the page.

Students continue the study of their skin by contemplating the question: “How many colors are there in the human rainbow?”  By artist  Angélica Dass’ count, at least 4,000. Since 2012, the Brazilian artist has been photographing people of every color and matching each subject’s skin tone to hues from the Pantone printing color chart to codify a unique chromatic inventory.

Dass’s project, titled “Humanæ,” has traveled the world and is featured in National Geographic, which focuses on the idea of race as a social construct, rather than a biological one. 

Inspired by Dass’ work students draw and layer their self-portrait on top of their skin color paper. I guide students through basic facial proportions and facial features leaving room for personal expression and details. Students use art media of their choice such as watercolor, marker, color pencil and crayons to paint hair, eye and lip colors. Completed self-portraits will be photographed and incorporated into the school wide virtual art gallery.

As an extension 3rd and 4th grade students will have the option to create a digital self-portrait.  Using the free online platform sketchbook.app, students will learn how to import a selfie photo with a white/blank background, Students will learn how to use digital tools to determine their skin color and use their skin color to fill in the background. Students will use tools in the app to creatively alter their self portrait and add their creative, descriptive name for their skin color. Students will have a choice to submit either their digital, or hand drawn/painted skin study self-portrait to the school wide virtual art gallery.

Hand painted self-portrait by Kindergarten student and digital self-portrait by Mrs. Libby

4th GRADE: 

Fourth grade students were excited to pick up sketchbooks and watercolor sets for their 3 weeks virtual visual arts rotation. Students were introduced to the works for California Artist Wayne Thiebaud (TEE-boh); born November 15, 1920). Thiebaud is known for his colorful works depicting commonplace objects, pies, lipsticks, paint cans, ice cream cones, pastries, and hot dogs, as well as for his landscapes and figure paintings.

This projects introduced students to basic watercolor techniques, transforming a flat round shape into a three-dimensional, yummy looking doughnut. Students practiced skills such as mixing light and dark values of a hue, shading and highlighting.

Art Supplies: 

In order for all students to be able to participate in the above described projects during distance learning, I have organized art supply pickups per grade level rotation. During my virtual art classes student will learn how to properly use and take care of their supplies.