Art Making in El Salvador
In the spring of 2010, my husband’s company asked him if he would move to Europe for a few years. As long as he could quickly get to a major airport, we could chose where we went. As if playing parts in a fantasy game, we considered all the major cities of Europe and decided to move to Madrid. Mainly because we were so unfamiliar with it, and because Spanish seemed like the most useful language for Americans to acquire.
Learning Spanish turned out to be very difficult for my 50-something brain, but after two years of effort, I had learned enough to teach art classes in Spanish. Sort of. I needed at least one of my three teenage daughters nearby to assist. We were all up for a new adventure, so in June of 2012 the four of us plus another teenage friend, Maggie, went to El Salvador to teach art classes.
Arriving at the airport in San Salvador
Our hosts at Centro Arte Para La Paz, Art Center for Peace, in Suchitoto, were hungry for art supplies. They cannot easily be purchased in El Salvador, and they get ‘lost’ in the mail if ordered, so we took the maximum number of bags and filled them with papers, paints, brushes, oil pastels, colored pencils and so on.
El Centro Para La Paz, Suchitoto
The community art center, fondly referred to as El Centro, was established in 1986 on the site of a covent, built in 1917. The convent had been abandoned in 1980 due to the civil war. It was strange and wonderful to make art in the old chapel.
Art supplies bring joy!
It seems that oil pastels had never found their way to Suchitoto. Thank goodness we brought a vast quantity of high quality ones from art stores in Madrid.
Teaching art in a remote village
For El Salvador Suchitoto is relatively well off and even has a tourist trade. We really stepped into something new for us when we took a small ferry across the reservoir to teach art in El Sitio, a small farming village, only accessible by boat or by little used roads through the jungle.
Major Creative Fest!
I wish I could convey how much creative joy took place in this modest structure of cinderblocks and corrugated metal. Over the course of three hours each of the 80 children in El Sitio between the ages of 6 and 16 came through and made drawings of birds with oil pastels. Some stayed the whole time and made as many as four drawings.
Instant Art Exhibit
We assembled the drawings on the floor of the covered walkway. Boys and girls of all ages enjoyed seeing each others works. I expected them to find their drawings and go home with them, but instead there was a mad rush to grab the ones they liked. Then they traded them like baseball cards and playfully chased each other around to steal them.
Everyone loves an Exhibit
At the end of our two week stay, the students and family members in Suchitoto came to El Centro to enjoy the artwork and share food, much as we do for art receptions in Concord. But in Spanish, with fabulous Salvadoran food.
Given my limited Spanish, I don’t know that I was teaching so much as disseminating art supplies and offering activities. But the children and teens were so enthusiastic and fearless in making art, that was really all they needed. I am profoundly grateful to have been with them, and to have experienced the beautiful country of El Salvador.