ARTISTIC MENTORSHIP WITH TWO MAYAN ARTISTS AS A SOURCE FOR CURRICULAR AND PEDAGOGICAL TRANSFORMATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION  

Kryssi Staikidis
Northern Illinois University
U. S. A.

Inroads: Art Education

There is still a tendency in higher education to teach the introductory-level art from a Eurocentric skills-based perspective that often excludes female and indigenous ways of knowing (Becker, 1996; Pio, 1997; Singerman, 1999). Providing an inclusive studio art and art education curriculum whose methods of teaching incorporate a holistic approach to making art in formal schooling settings is a critical challenge facing art educators. Kincheloe and Semali (1999) argue that the characteristics that scientific modernism has defined as basic to life may be called “living” and “non-living.” In contrast, indigenous perspectives consider life as multidimensionally intertwined; thus all aspects of the universe are perceived as interrelated. Artistic research that reaches out to indigenous cultures relying on experiential learning in the field attempts to become familiar with such cultures on their own terms, and as such, becomes useful to the expansion and transformation of curricula in higher education. [paragraph 1]

In my search for methods of teaching that integrate what artists experience on a daily basis, I went to cultures that had been schooled outside of Euro-American models¹. This study with Mayan artists locates lived experience within the teaching of painting. Pedro Rafael Gonzalez Chavajay and Paula Nicho Cumez taught me from inside their cultures. I began to see and think in new ways. Throughout this study I have referred to Ecker’s (1998) contention that cross-cultural aesthetic inquiry requires participation in an artistic activity of another culture in order to understand that culture on its own terms. I am not sure that this is really possible. I walked away from my painting studies with both new and altered understandings. [paragraph 2]

The experience of study in Mayan art studios becomes a site for knowledge construction that is transformative in nature (Sullivan, 2004). Changes in my philosophical orientations occurred in the areas of my studio and teaching practices as a result of apprenticeship, which is an investigative and collaborative research strategy. I was mentored through a trans-cultural artistic language comprised of philosophical and cultural orientations that were simultaneously unfamiliar and familiar to me; therefore, the research model evolved as did the teacher-student relationship. [paragraph 3]

Research methods that were used in Mayan artists’ studios included paintings as didactic works, art lessons, videotaped interviews, artist/researcher written field notes, visual artifacts as field notes, and cultural/local life as text. Tzutuhil and Kaqchikel Mayan teaching models incorporate mentoring in a situated learning context – the artist’s studio. These models place students’ and teachers’ lived experiences at the center of the teaching of painting. Relationship is the essential aspect of teaching and learning in a situated Mayan context, and I argue for research through mentorship that has the capacity to create permanent transformations in teacher and student. I also argue for their application in pre-service art education in a formal higher education setting. [paragraph 4]

Bridges: Ethnography

Artistic mentoring as an ethnographic model creates a two-way relational dynamic in which the autobiography of the researcher is present at all times. Art lessons become interchanges where skills and transcultural viewpoints are exchanged. The adoption model for research requires that student/artist/researcher participates in the daily lives of the collaborators (Tuhiwai-Smith, 1999). Reciprocity is part of the ethnographic process that ensures indigenous artists receive benefit from the study itself (Crazy Bull, 1997). Consulting with indigenous artists as experts and teachers of Tzutuhil and Kaqchikel artistic processes, philosophy, and pedagogy, as well as studying under their tutelage in educational cycles designed by them, creates bridges of understanding rather than invasive investigative practices. [paragraph 5]

This cooperative research model functions to dismantle ethnographic approaches in which the anthropologist sees herself as a researcher with “non-biased perception” (Desai, 2002, p. 310). Such notions of non-biased perception have been defeated (Clifford, 1988; Lassiter, 1998; Rosaldo, 1993). To be mentored by two Mayan artists requires that the student grapple with preconceptions, thus, self-reflection becomes inevitable. Neutrality, the formal structure upon which positivist perspectives in ethnography are based is impossible. Because artists’ practices are articulated through their own voices while teaching, the learner examines underlying assumptions she holds in areas such as art making, teaching, learning, and cultural (philosophical, historical, Western dominant culture) values simultaneously. Such an experience transcends observation and participation because new knowledge is constructed within the learner. Transmitted through the mentoring relationship, this new knowledge crosses borders and inspires expansion. Co-constructed knowledge creates an interspace where perspectives converge and relationships are formed. [paragraph 6]

Transformations: Sites for Learning

What is most intriguing about Mayan studies of painting is that they take place in artists’ studios, where knowledge is transformed through art making processes. Artistic knowledge is transmitted from an indigenous artist to a non-indigenous artist. Trans-cultural learning experiences that transpire in artists’ studios between adults underscore the potential for inter-cultural learning. [paragraph 7]

Studio as Site
The studio as a site for research provided me with insights into philosophical, pedagogical, and conceptual processes for making art in Tzutuhil and Kaqchikel cultures. Painting in Mayan artists’ studio contexts enabled me to see how paintings were made, to watch the stages of painting, and to grasp the actual painting processes. Within the studio and outlying communities (also considered the artist’s studio), artistic transmission took place in the following areas: observation of mentors’ painting; the presence and importance of culture and personal/cultural narrative in art making; the mental engraving and “carrying” of cultural images and the natural environment; the skills involved in drawing, paint application, color mixing, and composition. [paragraph 8]

Transmission of knowledge involved being asked to conceptualize the creation of paintings in an unfamiliar way that involved recording of images in the mind to transmit them later to canvas. This required me to work with my mind in ways that were different from any previous experiences. It involved concentrated looking and sensory feeling of natural surroundings that awakened me to seeing in new capacities. [paragraph 9]

Self as Site
I will consider the self as site in two areas: artist studio practice (transformations of self-concept and art works as a result of a transcultural learning experience) and teaching practice (changes in curricula and pedagogy). [paragraph 10]

Studio
I gained confidence from the Mayan mentorship dyads where my teachers appreciated my color sense, drawing, and painting ability. Additionally, the integration of culture with art making that I was exposed to by working within Mayan cultures enabled me to overcome my feelings of shyness and shame over the cultural hybridity that had haunted me “growing up in America’s classrooms, those places that are repressive agents of individual cultures” (Stuhr, 2004; Freedman, 2003). In addition to changes in narrative contents of paintings, formal changes took place as a result of the pedagogical experiences with Mayan painters. As a female student whose ways of knowing correspond to the “midwife” (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1996) pedagogical model, changes in the studio enabled me to identify with students, who like myself, had felt previously marginalized. [paragraph 11]

Pedagogy
Mayan Tzutuhil and Kaqchikel epistemologies are reflected in teaching strategies. Such strategies incorporate mentoring in a situated learning context, and teaching takes the following forms: personal and cultural narrative as the core of curriculum, importance of the mentoring relationship, a conceptual framework that I termed Imagined Realism, negotiated curriculum, a decentralized teaching model that incorporates expert novices, and collaboration (on art works and in groups). [paragraph 12]

Although it is not possible to create a one-to-one mentoring relationship in formal classroom settings, when lived experience becomes the core of teaching in art studios, dialogues as well as art works become vehicles for communication. This, in turn, creates paths in through which teachers can better understand their students, and students their teachers. Such changes in a formal classroom context bridge gaps among students and teachers’ lived realities, crossing borders, cultures, and generations. [paragraph 13]

An art educational setting, in which students initiate dialogue based on their interests, cultures, and needs as learners, makes room for multiple ways of knowing. Teaching processes can be decentralized by creating small peer groups through which information is passed along. On the elementary level, peer tutoring takes place all of the time, but as students grow older, opportunities for such dialogues and collaborations seem to subside. Classes are often teacher centered and use the banking model (Freire, 1970) where student interaction occurs at a minimum. In contrast, novice teaching structures, a natural outcome of situated learning contexts, can broaden opportunities for co-construction of knowledge among students and teachers. [paragraph 14]

Curricula Transformed

Within the context of multicultural education, the implementation of transformative curricula in classrooms of higher education was advocated by Banks (1996) and others. Consequently, it can be asked: How can curricula be modified in ways that penetrate the “invisible paradigm” that does not include multiple perspectives in the field of art education but still remains at the center of art pedagogy? The literature is replete with interpretations of multicultural education that raise questions about how to teach and represent cultures of students within the classroom. Desai (2003) categorized multicultural art education as either mainstream or social reconstructionist. She argued that mainstream multicultural ideologies have at their core a cultural pluralism rooted in an “essentialist understanding of culture” (p. 148). In speaking of multicultural art education curricula, Sleeter (1996) observed, “To my dismay, I found that the great majority of the materials conceptualized multicultural art as the study of folk art, around the world (and usually long ago)” (p. xvi). Cahan and Kocur (1996) asserted that, in contrast, the most effective approaches place the study of art into a broader, cultural, social, political, and historical framework. I place this study in Mayan art studios in the latter framework, where Mayan teaching structures can become mechanisms that influence the core of the lessons offered in formal classroom settings. As models for curricular and pedagogical transformation, I focus specifically on Mayan teaching processes involving four teaching structures that evolved out of the study with Mayan painters. [paragraph 15]

Mayan Epistemologies as Methods for the Transformation of Curricula

I developed several lessons and curriculum units where I use the Mayan art studios model to transform curricula and explain how to use it in a methods class for pre-service art educators. I was asked to give a presentation and create a lesson for a methods class for secondary level pre-service art educators who were using two texts: Contemporary Art and Multicultural Education by Cahan and Kocur (1996), and Teaching Meaning in Artmaking by Sydney Walker (2001). Because students were using texts that revolve around contemporary art practice and its definitions, the lesson began with questioning assumptions about what it meant to be a contemporary artist in a postmodern context. The Tzutuhil and Kaqchikel painters are contemporary artists whose work might be considered “folk” or “primitive,” according to Western mainstream art circles. As many North American students’ versions of the postmodern or contemporary emerge from the course text, we discussed issues concerning stereotypes of folk art. Together we examined a painting made in 2004 by a Tzutuhil artist, Antonio Ixtamer from San Juan la Laguna, Guatemala. [paragraph 16]

In the absence of any information, and based solely on examining the image, students were asked six questions:

1. Who was the artist?
2. Where was this painting made?
3. When was this painting made?
4. Why was it made?
5. How was it made?
6. What genre? [paragraph 17]

After viewing the artwork, students were grouped into pairs and asked to develop responses to the six questions presented as assumptions since Mayan cultures and their contemporary painting movements had never been discussed in class. [paragraph 18]

Notions of the postmodern and its philosophical European birth and shaping were debated as were ideas about what defines the contemporary in art: Urban or rural? Text based? Male or female? European or Indigenous? Political commentary? If so, how is the political view expressed and what are the expectations for its expression? We began to dismantle stereotypes about terms such as contemporary art and artists in a postmodern art world. [paragraph 19]

Next, I reviewed my research in Mayan studios, explaining the form and content of teaching practices and the studio as site for research and pedagogy. I explained that I had studied with two Mayan painters, one male and one female, in order to bring to the higher education table philosophical thoughts and teaching outside of a Euro-American model for art education. I also asked students to think about “artistic language as a means of communicating across and through cultures” (Staikidis, 2004). I added that this study indicates that characteristics often associated with situated learning are in part transferable to a formal art teaching setting. [paragraph 20]

What emerged out of Mayan studios are the following teaching structures:

• Decentralized Teaching: Novices
• Collaboration
• Negotiated Curriculum
• Personal and Cultural Narrative

I led a discussion about these concepts and how they are defined within the context of the Mayan painting schools and we might define them in our own classrooms. I described the decentralization of teaching in Tzutuhil and Kaqchikel Mayan teaching practices: as the mentor guides according to learner input and level, novice students gradually become novice experts who go on to teach student colleagues. This teaching form transforms the "teacher as expert" model into a "group of expert novices who become teachers" model; thus, teaching becomes decentralized. Collaboration, another teaching strategy, happened when Paula Nicho Cumez and I worked on the images and surfaces of paintings together. Paintings were “co-authored,” becoming co-constructed visual narratives. Negotiated curriculum took the form of consensus between Paula and me, and other women artists who developed themes through initial dialogue before beginning paintings. Teacher and student, Paula and I, brainstormed until ideas were clarified, and then painted. Finally, in Mayan art, personal and cultural narratives always inform the subject matter of paintings; such paradigms are inherently part of the Tzutuhil and Kaqchikel painting panoramas. There is a unity between the author and the piece of work, his/her culture and daily life. Paintings, and the teaching of painting, become vehicles for the transmission of culture. Art and life are thoroughly integrated to tell the composite story of the artist and the collective cultural body. [paragraph 21]

After we examined the Mayan teaching structures, I distributed assignment folders to groups composed of four to five students. In each folder were copies of a lesson plan from their text, Contemporary Art and Multicultural Education. I asked students to consider the Mayan teaching structures and to brainstorm ideas for the transformation of a particular lesson plan. Lesson 32: Creating an Enemy became a vehicle for practicing curricular transformation. The teaching objectives of the lesson state that students will learn how racism directed towards people of Asian descent is used to mobilize support for war; students will use works of art and personal testimonies to analyze the impact of racism on individuals and society as a whole; and students will create mixed-media projects which challenge racist imagery in mass media. The assignment folders contained artist statements and examples of work by artists Ken Chu, Kristine Yuki Aono, and Epoxy Art Group. [paragraph 22]

I asked students to review the lesson plans and to change the objectives incorporating at least one, and as many as four, of the Mayan teaching structures discussed. Students, in groups of four, were asked to deconstruct the lesson plans and  apply them to middle or secondary level students. Solutions varied. One group incorporated the idea of personal and cultural narrative by asking students of same cultural backgrounds to gather and discuss stereotypes associated with their own histories, creating collages which they titled “myth busters.” During the dialogue the lesson became more personally meaningful. Another group incorporated the idea of collaboration by having students work on collages in pairs. One group integrated decentralized teaching by having students conduct class critiques in groups with facilitators rather than having a single teacher who led the discussion. Another group created a scenario in which students held discussions about racism and decided on an art project via consensus using negotiated curriculum as the primary platform for the art lesson. Each group of pre-service educators reported their transformations of the original lesson plan back to the larger group. As students listened, they became excited by each other’s ideas. [paragraph 23]

At the end of the class, when I asked students what they believed were my teaching objectives, one of their first comments was that teachers are often given a standardized curriculum and told to follow it. In order to accommodate individual learning needs, it is important to consider how to transform lesson plans and curriculum units, rather than accepting standardized lessons as non-negotiable. Thinking creatively as beginning teachers was cited as an important first step. Second, they appreciated the holistic Mayan model in which teachers do not separate form from content or curriculum from pedagogy. Students stated that to teach democratically the form of teaching (decentralizing the teacher as expert model) was important, as well as the transformation of the content of lessons. They also liked the idea that teaching multiculturally could involve learning about the artistic processes of other cultures without emulating them; rather, teachers can apply underlying structural processes to the teaching of lessons. Students stated that, at first, based on prior experiences with teaching multiculturally from an essentialist perspective, they felt this lesson would involve painting or weaving like the Mayans. Instead, the lesson incorporated Mayan approaches to teaching and painting, which were more integrally related to the lessons they would be teaching. This was the first time that students had experienced a holistic approach to the teaching of multicultural art education. Personally, I felt satisfied because the mentoring model through which I learned about another culture, and formed the basis of this study, was holistic in nature. Pre-service art educators stated that they liked using a holistic approach when teaching an art lesson. [paragraph 24]

Conclusion

“Border studies,” (Garber, 1995) can become paths into a world. My path in was the experience of being an artist-student under the tutelage of esteemed Tzutuhil and Kaqchikel painters. It was through relationships formed based on study with painters that I was able to partially understand the roles of teaching and painting in Mayan cultures. The dynamic that takes place in a trans-cultural artistic mentoring model can provide a true crossing of borders particularly suited for the field of art education, helping to minimize possibilities for cultural misrepresentations in formal art education settings. [paragraph 25]

Making art study, the core of research, and finding a mentor from another culture open doors that create opportunities for multiple understandings. I advocate shared experiences for art educators. Many have argued for studying art through cross-cultural perspectives that are active rather than passive (Ballengee-Morris, 2002; Bresler, 1994; Garber, 1995; Stokrocki, 1991). My recent cross-cultural experience tells me it is valuable to participate in artistic exchange. Additionally, “bringing back” and sharing lived experiences in a diverse Central American culture with art education students can revolutionize their approaches to teaching art lessons. [paragraph 26]

Endnote

1. I discovered that the founder of the Kaqchikel Indigenous Women’s Painting Collective had studied in Mexico and had been influenced by European painting and teaching. Therefore, the notion that schools can exist “outside of each other” without interacting in the least, or being influenced by each other, is not reality(s)-based.