Creating characters with artists (who happen to be 7th graders)

I am grateful for the many creative projects I have going at any given time.  And I am grateful for those in which I see a real change in my fellow artists through the outstanding work that they do.   In one recent case I saw such a change.  It just so happened that my fellow artists were 7th graders at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel-Benedicta in the Port Richmond neighborhood of Staten Island.

Inspired by the production of Beauty and the Beast at Wagner College and the classroom curriculum on Greek myths, student artists, in small groups, over the course of 4 sessions, created characters from inanimate objects — a tube of paint, a paintbrush, a ladle, a water bottle, a box of couscous — through biographies, monologues and costume renderings.