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May 17, 2016

The Demandments Program: Empowering Children to Change the World Through Art.

 

bees are dying

Don’t Litter, Bees are Dying. Southside Family Charter School Morning Program, Minneapolis, MN, grades 1-4

 

Art comes in many forms. The most precious form is art that flows from the minds of children.

The artwork illustrating this post is from a pilot program called The Demandments, where teachers access a free online art assignment to guide students in creating a meaningful and thoughtful demand.

The website offers printer-friendly resources, tools, and inspiration that can be adapted to all ages and settings. The website is the central hub for for the program’s blog and social media streams, all of which serve as a public forum for students to express their demands and where projects and ideas are shared and archived.

The program has multiple steps that illustrate creative ways to move from A to B, how to express a felt need or ideal, a path to a positive solution, and promote awareness of it.

Awareness is change.

 

Our goal is to launch on a national scale for four-year (2016-2020.) Assistance is needed to spread the word thought news outlets, print and mail postcards to reach teachers, and offer free mural kits to schools to jump-start the lesson. A professional part-time team is set for action.

parenting

I Demand all Parents Look After their Children. Todd Hall Elementary, grades 7-8

The Demandment Program has very strong legs, however, it now needs a pair of mighty wings to fly.

I am an artist and founder of The Demandments Program. I paint, draw, make things, and dream. It is a good life, but sometimes I become agitated and lose focus. My internal world battles this external one. As a young girl I had a vibrant imagination and was able to walk through an ideal landscape. It was a healthy earthy environment, a paradise, loving but textured, cultivated by people. Believing that humans could create such a world was central to my outlook. Today I cling to that notion. It frustrates me that we let so many chances get away.

In 2010, I grappled with the definition of hope and whether I had any. Though my art education is firmly based in formal issues, where the responsibility of art is to be art foremost, testing beyond these boundaries became an essential quest.

It was cathartic to invent a new body of work that would be responsive to current affairs and sensitive to the conflict witnessed in our world.

I began a series of works on paper, large 55”x 40” sheets, using imperative text to name issues while identifying common sense solutions that had nothing to do with ideology. I avoided political dogma so as not to waste time with stalemate ploys. We move too quickly to arguing solutions. Perhaps, agreeing on our immediate problems is the missing step.

But, could adults manage to implement this? I wondered. I still wonder.

Art saves me. Art returns me to my youthful idealism. Art gives me tenacity.

My practice suspends me in a room of possibility because the door for expression stays wide open.

It is five years later and I am almost done with 110 works on paper called The Demandments. This body of work changed me and along the way something unexpected happened. After seeing some of my Demandments, children in classrooms began to make their own demands. Boldly.

 

BULLYING copy

Bully. Richard Edwards Elementary School, Chicago, IL. 7th and 8th grade classroom.

My new series became useful as an effective art assignment for the young. Their words have moved me; their opinions have passion and their desires have strength.

My mission is to implement a national art program to engage students in ethics, empathy, and respect.

The assignment is a doorway for them to learn how to structure their voices creatively with courage. Through art, students have the potential to communicate, educate, and create an experience centered on an important issue on their minds. Creating personal demands in the classroom encourages an optimistic outlook by stimulating imaginations with positive actions and methods to enact them. The Demandments program creates a lasting impression not only reminding youth of their expressive powers but motivating both children and adults to push forward the inimitable power of change from its most elemental roots.

Historically, creativity has provided beauty and the foundation for the humanities. Art can be intentionally useful in social commentary. It is quite possible for art to stir things up. Changing our world by revolution or by increments are both worthy pursuits. The Demandments program is a microphone. It is an online public forum for young students to join their voices with others’. Adults can listen. It is possible that we don’t look for hope, but actually spark hope within our youth. In itself, that is change.

stop tigers

Stop Tigers are Going Extinct. Southside Family Charter School Morning Program, Minneapolis, MN, grades 1-4

What can art do for us? Art encourages students to express their concerns and insert them into the public sphere with confidence.

The Demandments Program is a tool that enables students to realize their influence in shaping their world. A virtual room of possibility showcasing the demands of children may give us all the tenacity needed for the change that must save us.

 

If you wish to support The Demandments Program, you can make a tax-deductible donation! Please visit my fiscal sponsor, Fractured Atlas, a 501(c)(3) public charity, to make a donation and receive the necessary paperwork for tax purposes. 

 

 

 

 

Author: Lee Tracy

Editor: Renée Picard

Images: courtesy of the author

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