Good morning, everybody.

Have you had a chance to look at this artwork with your social studies teacher?

Yes.

Okay, great.

The artist is Nari Ward.

The artwork is called "We the People."

Today we began our Tapestry of New York project.

It's a multi-lesson art project where students are talking about what We the People means to them.

The Tapestry of New York project celebrates the 250th anniversary of the United States.

Students can explore through various media.

They could choose painting, drawing, collage, choosing a person from history, present day, their own lives, a community member that inspires them to think about how We the People is broadened.

We began by discussing two different artworks.

What are we noticing about this artwork?

It's made from like shoelaces and they try to create like a design of how you could spell "We the People" with it.

Yeah, "We the People" is made by shoelaces, right?

It's made out of shoelaces.

So would you like to build on that?

Each shoelace represents how, like, a person can be different, but they can still be together and united.

We all are wearing shoes.

We've all got shoelaces.

And that's something that can literally tie us together.

So the second artwork that we looked at was Bisa Butler's "Bring a Folding Chair," a portrait of Shirley Chisholm.

Shirley Chisholm is awesome.

She was alive from 1924 to 2005.

She's from New York.

She's from Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn.

She came to Congress in 1968, and then she was the first woman and first Black person to run for president in 1972.

What are we noticing in this portrait?

- She's holding up peace signs, and I feel like she's showing how she's calm and peaceful, and like, she's cool.

I see like, a bunch of chairs in the dress or skirt.

Yeah, that's right.

Shirley Chisholm is quoted as saying, "If they don't give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair."

So, what does that sort of mean to you guys when you hear it?

If people don't include you, how about you include yourself in it?

Yeah, I love that answer, right?

It's like, we show up for ourselves, we show up for our community, we create the world that we want to see, right?

As an art educator, it was great to partner with our social studies teachers.

The social studies teachers were instrumental in giving context to these two artworks by Nari Ward and Bisa Butler.

Does anyone know where "We the People" originally comes from?

It came from, like, a very, very old paper.

It said "We the People" on it, but it was really specifically for, like, white people, I thought.

Yeah, that's right.

"We the People" is part of the U.S.

Constitution, and it had a very narrow definition at the beginning, right?

It really only referred to white men in America.

But through all of the good work of people through civil rights, people like you and me, people like artists like Nari Ward, Bisa Butler, we're expanding that definition every day, right?

And so when we're bringing our own chair to the table, when we're pulling up our own seat, we are making space not only for ourselves, but for people who are just like us, who are in our communities, and we can all lift each other up.

Right?

- After discussing the artworks, we moved on to drawing a sketch of a person that they believed expanded the definition of "We the People."

I'm drawing Rosa Parks.

She was really brave for going in the front of the bus and didn't get up when a white person told her to.

And I think that's really inspirational.

She had a lot of courage for standing up for herself.

I really like drawing this because it makes me feel, like, comforted.

Because if it weren't for, like, Rosa Parks and everyone that helped during the Civil Rights Movement, I feel like a lot of us wouldn't be here.

I chose Betsy Ross.

The fact that she was one of the few women who worked on the American flag was a really big inspiration for me.

Look at this amazing hairdo she has.

Yeah, it's really pretty.

Right.

So do you remember what kind of lines we do for this?

Some squiggly lines.

Yeah, right.

Like kind of like squiggly lines, like some curly.

In my mind, art is a powerful tool for exploring any idea.

And I think so often in our classroom, students don't have the chance to express that part of themselves.

How does making an artwork expand your mind or help you think about yourself or the world differently?

- For my portrait, I was going to choose my grandma.

She is from the Caribbean.

She's from the darker side.

She went through discrimination and racism all of her life because of her color.

- Tell us about your portrait.

For my second portrait, I did the proportional guidelines.

In America, there are so many diverse people, and not everyone's the same.

So this is supposed to represent how everyone's different in their own ways.

After today, we will move forward into making collage portraits.

We are going to hand out all of our supplies, and you can get right to work.

Collage is a great medium to use for this project.

Not only does it fit with the Tapestry of New York theme, because a collage is made up of so many small pieces that come together to form a whole, similar to a tapestry or a quilt.

I think there is a lot of room for self-expression.

Yeah, cut from point to point.

What if we put another piece of bigger paper behind it so we can have some more to glue?

This was a fun choice, especially when we look at our reference image, because she's wearing a nice, bold pattern.

- Who did you choose?

- Abraham Lincoln.

- How come?

- Because even though the times he was in, slavery was common and everyone did it, he refused to do it and he fought for the slaves' freedom.

- Art is a meaning-making process.

And so in creating a piece of art, I hope that students go through the process of feeling what it's like to be a civically engaged citizen.

Their art matters, it's valuable.

There's a place for it in not only this school, but outside of this school.

They do have a place at the table.

They do belong.

Their ideas about what "We the People" means matters and that the art making process could actually be a really nice bridge to their future civic engagement so that they understand that their voices are part of our country, a part of our state, and that through this same similar process they can actualize that voice in a way that matters to them in their community.

The final step of our project is to have the students write an artist statement.

I think the artist statement is a really important piece of this project because it will help students link why it's important to make art representations of these people who are in our community, in our collective history.

I'm so excited for students to be able to see their work on the Tapestry of New York website.

It can be so good for students' self-esteem to see their work out in the public, to see other people witnessing what they have worked so hard on and created.

- My hope is that all students participate and that all teachers engage.

We want our students to feel connected.

The students are looking at this and saying, you know what?

That was me.

I had a part in that.

It's part of a bigger story.

It's the promise that our country is made up of many stories.

And I think that is so powerful in that display of that quilt that we will celebrate everyone's story.

This gives them a chance to think about their own identity as Americans, as students in the classroom, and to then create an artwork that represents that.

When we give students an opportunity to see the world through the lens of art, through making, they surprise us and surprise themselves.

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