I AM, Paint & Stitch

This project is based on artist Susan Shie, who's art incorporates

bold images and colors, journal writing, and stitch

Students were challenged to create a painting on fabric that expressed who they are

for the HumanThread I AM juried student exhibition

This is my example. I tried to show how I use arts education

to lead the way to make the world a better place.

My art is centered around social issues and created using my sewing machine

In the apple I stitched, "learn" because

I am a life-long learner and teacher

The stitching is used as another layer of artistry

Students made a watercolor draft using sharpies for bold outlines

Then recreated their images onto muslin using a Rub-a-Dub

fabric sharpie (it does not bleed)

Once the painting was finished students layered the piece

on top of felt and stitched it together

At the end of the project we had a class critique.

Overall the students liked the project, enjoyed sewing,

and recommended I do it again next year.

The following pieces were accepted into the HumanThread I AM exhibition

Job with his watercolor draft

Final piece

Artist's Statement: Content

Every artist knows great art comes from the heart. Art can be described as, the creation of illusions. It benefits anyone who accepts it’s message and understands it’s meaning. I Believe that art is a way to express yourself, so whenever am working on a piece, I focus mainly on my goals and ethnicity. I am from a place not known for many positive contributions to society, so art to me is a way of representing my country.

Veronica: Stepping On My Enemies

My piece is about bullying. I have been bullied all of my life and that’s a huge part of what I stand up against. I incorporated something that really represents me, which is my high-heeled shoe.  The little raindrops represent my tears and once they reach the ground they turn into a little puddle. In that puddle there is one tiny drop falling into it and you can see that there are many ripples that represent how strong my feelings were and the emotional pain I’ve experienced. I showed myself stomping all these negative words that many people would say and turning them into positive words. My piece is about not caring what others think of you, because the most important thing is others may knock you down, but you will always have the strength to get back up.

Sarai: We Can Do It 

For my piece I decided to explain how I support women’s rights. I support women’s rights because I believe women deserve to be as independent as men. Growing up watching my mom being a mom and dad for me, working full-time, coming home to take care of the house, and me made me realize women can be even stronger and smarter than men. My mom was my role model because she accomplished so much by herself. She raised me all by herself and she did a good job.

Zed: Fire Ball

In my piece I am wearing a basketball jersey and holding a ball in my hand. I chose to use basketball because the sport best expresses who I am. Basketball to me is not only a method to discipline myself, but also it is a way for me to have fun. I drew the ball on fire because it symbolizes my passion for the sport. I was both shocked and thrilled when I went to Yemen about a year ago, and found that basketball had made its way there. I look forward to it changing the lives of people in my country. On my jersey is the number 19. That number has followed me everywhere on the competitive court. I try to be as realistic as possible in my drawings, so when I was given the opportunity to draw me, it gave me the chance to show off who I am.

Jennifer: Unseen

In my piece I am holding a heart in one hand, and a book in the other. The heart represents the people I care about dearly, such as my family and friends. I wouldn’t be able to live without them. They play a major role in my life and how I control my life. The book is important to me because reading a book helps my mind relax and not think about anything that is happening in my life. Reading a book makes my mind focus on the story and helps me forget everything else. The musical notes represent the love for music. I’ve always loved music and I enjoyed the years I spent playing an instrument. I love hearing the different parts of an instrument play in a song and how they sound all together. The colors represent how calming I can be and that I don’t need to be the same or different from everyone to be unique.

Jerelly: Crossed Lips

Won Honorable Mention 

Have you ever felt like your voice wasn’t being heard? Well, I purposefully don’t speak up. I keep to myself and tend to stay quiet when I wish to speak the most. I’m not as open as many people. This shyness and reserved personality of mine have caused me to feel depressed. My piece represents withholding thoughts and emotions.  It is almost as if your thoughts are really loud but your voice isn’t being heard. It shows how you can only hold in so much before it all comes bursting out. The woman in the bottom left is shown to represent whoever isn’t speaking up and the worm like figures represent all the words, thoughts, and emotions left unshared.

Saniya: Known, Yet Unknown

My piece is about a girl, who represents me, that has gone through so many difficult phases in life. The ridged tree symbolizes the difficult times and events in my life that made me who I am today. How I made my way through the top of the tree, which is bright green and yellow. The leaves represent freedom and superiority that I carry over my personal problems and hardships. The background, red and black heartbeat, represents my anger and my problems in the past, which made my heart strong and less emotional or sentimental. The flower represents my positive attitude, which keeps on going, and gives me strength to keep walking everyday holding my head up high and represents my pride. 

Zak: Corruption in The Air

I expressed my pure passion for art when I had done this piece. What I mean is that I took time and thought out my project by making multiple drafts, and trying to put every detail expressed into one complete piece of work. I expressed who I am metaphorically, and by that I mean that I thought of my moralities and beliefs and in a way fused it into one. A couple of beliefs I had on my work were of the Illuminati which I believe  covers and corrupts government conspiracies, global warming which I believe is part of natures cycle not a mistake by man , and most and foremost the things broadcast on the media and how they control how everyone should feel about things and how you react " figures". In conclusion I believe my painting represents me as a person, and student in more ways then one.

Gustavo: Unmasked

I’ve suffered a lot over my 17 years of existence. Blood, scars, and tears are only some of the results of the hardest time of my life. Being the only child, I was left alone to suffer and figure out how to survive in this ferocious world. However, I am thankful for those that punished me for no reason at all and ruined my childhood, because thanks to them, I now have the strength to fight not only for myself, but for those that I love and anyone else that is going through what I went through. The pain still exists, the scars still mark my body, and the taste of blood remains in my mouth, but they just give me the strength to keep moving forward. These are my motivations and what I demonstrate to show myself and who I am.

Stanislaw: Peace Around

My piece is about creating peace between others and keeping the world clean and sparkly. It isn’t just a painting that was made to look at, it was made to inspire others to try and be helpful and nice to others. The person in the middle is trying to inspire his followers which are the people sitting on the ground facing at him raising their fists in the air holding peace signs, and the people climbing up the hill are people cleaning the environment.

Mariah: I Am Just Me

My piece resembles me in many ways. I chose four things that represent me: Unity, Future, Family, and Love. Unity, because I believe that everyone should come together and be one. My future means the most, because I want to become something big in life, and I want to live a life worth every minute. Lastly, I chose family and love, which tie together. Family and love has the biggest impact on my life because without my family, I wouldn’t have support, and without love my life, it would be pointless.

Amaney: Heal The World 

My piece says quite a lot about me; I am a humanitarian at heart. One of my biggest goals in life is to travel to the Middle East and provide aid to the less fortunate in not only my homeland of Yemen, but neighboring countries such as Syria and Palestine also. The red pathway symbolizes all the bloodshed and war still happening today that I believe must come to an end so peace and prosperity can come.

Sydney: Achieve & Blossom

I felt I could show who I am by literally showing myself, in a self-portrait. I drew an outline of myself, however I didn’t add facial features, because I wanted to use more symbols to express myself. I painted a big heart in the middle of my piece because I have a big heart to achieve many things. I painted two flowers to represent me because I think that most people my age are like flowers, and we are always growing. In the corner of my piece I drew a few bubbles, and wrote words to live by inside, because I think there are many options above me and all I have to do is grab them, just like bubbles. Lastly, I drew a butterfly, flying to the side of my face. Butterflies are simple beauties you can appreciate if you stop and look at them. And I like to stop and look at the butterflies.

Hunaina: I Am Who I Am!

My piece is about what I feel I stand for and the type of person I am. In the center of my piece I use a giant heart to represent how much love is a big part of me. I feel that I am a very loving and caring person and everyone should be that.  Which is also why I use hands of different sizes and colors inside the heart overlapping with swirls spreading everywhere, because everyone of all races, ages, and shapes should be caring and kind to each other. Then I drew a paintbrush with vibrant colored paint because I ‘am an artist, art helps me express myself, it’s something I am passionate about. I made the background of the piece look starry and galaxy colored because sometimes I wish to get away from negative people and be alone. I wish to be in a place where I could shine bright as stars. That is why I drew these objects in my “I Am” piece.

Leilani: The Warrior, The Scholar, The Artist…. Just me

 I visually represented myself within my piece by creating a character that looks similar to me. The piece expresses my personality and what I personally value in my life. I visually represented my values using typical and simple symbolisms within my piece. The elements I used in the piece are there because I feel that symbolism is the only way to express how I am and the way that my art works. That’s how my style is, and that’s why I chose what I did for the piece, and that’s how I express myself.

Max: Fire Wall

My piece reflects my two biggest joys in life: cooking and coding. The two actions are reflected in the computer screens and fire that surround me in the piece. The computer screens, with a random line of code journaled on them, stand behind me, as a message that my future and passion to come is with coding, but for now my true passion is to cook. This is conveyed through the fire surrounding me in the foreground. The fire itself is covered in recipe fragments, to convey its affiliation with cooking.

Selena: I am Infinite 

I am infinite. I am a book with no cover, waiting for someone to unravel me and see that there is more to me than physical appearance. I am a piece of perfect imperfections. I am strong and capable. I am a journey of emotions and experiences. I am Selena and I am infinite.

 Maria: I Care. Do you? 

My piece is about poverty in the world and the lack of help. The girl represents me because I care about those people who are only living on $1.25 a day. Those people are born into poverty, raised in poverty, and die in poverty. That is why the girl's face says, "I care. Do you?” The man on the left represents the wealth of this world, or the people who have enough money to feed themselves and many others. The man on the right represents the working class, or the people who struggle to live day-by-day. The black space represents the selfishness that there is in the world. We worry about only us. We are self-centered because we don't choose to help other people. The green space represents the few people who care about poverty and do help overcome it, but the space is very little compared to the black space, because there are few people who help.

Jessica: Chained

I believe that people should not allow money to control them. People are prisoners of money and need to break away from it. In my picture, I drew myself on the beach with a box of money. It can be seen in the picture that I am breaking away from money. By breaking away from money, I am no longer a prisoner and am free to live my life happily. I believe in peace, love, and harmony, symbolized in the sky. 

Isabella: Onward and Forward

I AM on the path to a better life. I am stepping out of the bad and into the good. My eyes are open, and I am seeking answers to find positivity and change.

Some more of the pieces that were not included in the I AM exhibition