I created a simple mixed media reflection project to help immigrant women and children who are seeking asylum in the U.S. from violence in their homelands to understand the context of where they are being detained (in South Texas) and where their family member is awaiting them in diverse places across the (vast) U.S.
I had prepared 8-1/2 x 11 card stock watercolor paper with a stenciled image of a map of the U.S. I spritzed diluted watercolors ahead of time so the project would be easy to facilitate inside the incarceration center.
I also had the scripture verse summary printed in Spanish (from the English shown here):
In
Exodus 3:7-9, YHWH is a big, self-assertive talker. God resolved:
I have seen their misery.
I have heard their cry.
I know their sufferings.
I have come down to deliver.
I will bring them to a good and broad
land.
For I have seen how the Egyptians
oppress them.
The exercise integrates the theology of God's care for the Israelite people when God saw their suffering and brought them out of bondage to the Promised Land. I also had a fun step-by-step exercise to draw a simple face "portrait" based upon a wonderful "how to" included in recently released Drawing and Painting Beautiful Faces with Jane Davenport. Her illustrated and numbered process takes the fear out of being able to draw a "good" portrait. The kids and mothers practiced on the back of the map and then drew mini versions of the portraits on the front to symbolize their family members in detention in Texas and the family member(s) awaiting them somewhere in the U.S.A.
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| My simple show-and-tell sample. The significance of the art was really identifying WHERE the detention center is compared to where the detained family still hopes to travel to join their loved one in the U.S.A. |
