You & Me / Me & You
The Painted Cloud, a Brooklyn-based arts education studio, recently devised a unique, student-directed, and caregiver-active project for a residency with PS 18 Multilingual Neighborhood School in Williamsburg.
The project took the concept ‘Our Independence Co-exists with Connection to Others’ and channeled it through four multimedia components: an original song, a 10’ x 40’ mural, a self-portrait coffee table book, and an original music video. Every family participated and every student in grades K-5 worked on all components of the project.
Instead of coming to PS 18 with a pre-planned idea for each component, The Painted Cloud arrived with only the project’s concept, but no predetermined outcome for the exact content or how anything would look or sound.
For the project, creating a way for all caregivers to easily participate was a priority. Artists Sarah Conarro and Julian Bozeman (who run The Painted Cloud) are parents with children in the NYC Public School system. They know firsthand how time constraints, day jobs, and economic difficulties often inhibit parents from becoming authentic partners in their children’s work at school. To bridge this gap, Conarro and Bozeman shared a questionnaire with all PS18 caregivers asking fun-yet-personal questions about their children (such as positive traits and terms of endearment). This opportunity invited caregivers to share key content that students would later use to determine the look and sound of the project. Because the school is multilingual (English, Spanish, and German), The Painted Cloud offered the questionnaire in all three languages. This distinctive use of crowdsourced content for collaboration encouraged active student-caregiver participation while respecting caregivers' hectic schedules and potential language barriers.
With a compilation of caregivers’ answers in hand, PS18 students took center stage as genuine collaborators with The Painted Cloud on all four components of the project.
Original Song
For the original song, the students helped find rhyme and slant rhyme in their caregivers’ English, Spanish and German answers to form lyrics. Following a series of in-school recording sessions, every students’ voice is featured on the final song.
Mural
For the mural, The Painted Cloud led skill-building and process-based exercises as a jumping-off point for students to paint collaborative abstract designs. Integrating vocabulary words such as ‘independent’ and ‘coexist’ into the painting exercises broadened students’ understanding and relationship to the project concept. Students painted the lyrics of their new song on the mural, which now hangs in their schoolyard.
Self-Portrait
After collaborating with abstract methods, students turned their attention to individual self portraits, learning technical drawing skills paired with process-based watercolor. Every student worked one-on-one with The Painted Cloud to review the specific answers shared by their caregivers - ie ‘Your mom said you’re kind-hearted and vivacious - and added these answers as “I am” statements to their self portraits. The Painted Cloud documented and compiled the self portraits for the school coffee table book. Highlighting the concept of independence, connection, and coexisting, the pages of the book alternate between self-portraits and pie charts that feature similarities in answers from the caregivers’ questionnaire. Students brought their original self portraits home to share with their caregivers, bringing connection outside of the school full circle.
Music Video
Lastly, throughout the process of making the song, mural, and self portraits, The Painted Cloud worked with students to film moments of collaborating and working independently. The Painted Cloud edited this footage together, along with clips of dance moves, high fives, and students around the school. The result is a collaborative music video with the original song for the PS18 community to share with the world at-large.
Through the project, students felt connected with their caregivers, with each other, and the PS 18 community more than before! This connection extends beyond The Painted Cloud’s residency. Creating and reflecting on the four components gives students a forever reminder of their similarities and connections as well as the importance of their own independence.
You and Me / Me and You
we’re not that different
we are what we are supposed to be
you’ve got things that make you you
and i’ve got things that make me me
we’re respectful and reliable and sociable we’re activo
adaptable ambitious friendly passionate
and playful and vivacious juguetones loving
patient selfless spunky and kind of heart
…and that is who we are
who are we
we are who we are
i am me
you are who you are
you say things to me to show you’re there
i say things to show you i see you
we use different words to show we care
they might be different but they’re all true
we say mi amor i love you chichi you are worthy
mi chiquita peanut my belita little mouse
y mi muñeca schatzi queen my bubu baby
you are the angel of my heart
…and that is who we are
who are we
we are who we are
i am me
you are who you are
i like when we’re together that’s true
and i like to be on my own too
so many things that we can do
you and me
me and you
we are shaped by all of our traits
lots of our traits are the same
we are dots connected by thoughts
you and me
all of us
we are independent ~yes!~
and our connection to each other coexists
we’re creative caring happy helpful
joyful disponibilidad positive respectful
adventurous we’re free spirits
funny humble independent muy cariñosa
and honest you can tell that we’re smart
…and that is who we are
who are we
we are who we are
i am me
you are who you are
i like when we’re together that’s true
and i like to be on my own too
so many things that we can do
you and me
me and you
