“Thinking with her hands”

by Karen Leggett Abouraya

Maya Lin has built monuments in clay, granite, water, earth, glass and wood. Her most famous monument is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, an opportunity she won in a contest she entered anonymously as a college student.  It was controversial from the beginning.  Critics wondered why a person of Asian heritage should design a monument to veterans of a war fought against Asians. Others criticized what appeared to them as a black scar in the earth. But now this monument in Washington, D.C., is visited by more than three million people every year.

Vietnam Veterans Memorial/Creative Commons photo

Susan Goldman Rubin’s new and highly acclaimed biography of Maya Lin – Maya Lin: thinking with her hands - includes photos of the many more monuments and sculptures she has designed, along with her struggles about whether and how to design each one. 

                                    

“I try to understand the ‘why’ of a project before it’s a ‘what.’”

She used the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, to “give people an understanding of what that time period was about.”  She literally sculpted the earth to create a grassy Wave Field at the University of Michigan’s aerospace engineering building. She redesigned an old barn for a retreat center in Tennessee for the Children’s Defense Fund. 

Not only is Maya Lin: Thinking with her hands a thought-provoking story of how an artist works, it can spur conversations and writing as well.  It could be a perfect way to open a discussion of national and local monuments – including the many that are controversial right now - but you could also have students : 

·       Write about a monument or statue in your town. What does it mean to you? Why is it important for that statue to be in your town?

·       Do you think there are other monuments that could be added or removed from your town? Write a persuasive essay explaining your reasons.

·       If your school is named for a person, what sort of monument would you create to honor that person? This could be a class project, especially for younger children. (My own children’s elementary school in Montgomery County, Maryland, was always known just as “Barnsley.” Turns out it was the first Montgomery County school named for a woman. Lucy V. Barnsley not only taught for 35 years, but also donated books to start the first library in Rockville and started the Retired Teachers Association in the county.)

·       Design a monument to any person or event that is important to you and write an artist’s statement about your monument.  Maya Lin’s essay about her Vietnam Veterans Memorial competition entry is included in the book, but may also be read here.

Maya Lin expects her last commission to be a project called “What is Missing?” at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York. This ecological history of the planet invites scientists, conservationists and everyone to find ways to “learn enough from the past to rethink a different and better future.” And that can spark many many more writing ideas.

 https://childrensbookguild.org/index.php/karen-leggett-abouraya

Summer Memories & Quilts

by Karen Leggett Abouraya

Summer is a time for lemonade and summer camp, ball parks and swimming - and perhaps a visit to Grandma's house, with scrapbooks, old photos, soft quilts and other treasures with stories. Like the quilts of Gee's Bend. 

Susan Goldman Rubin celebrates The Quilts of Gee's Bend in her new picture book filled with colorful images of the practical artistry of several generations of women in Gee's Bend, Alabama.  In 1928, "when Nettie Young was eleven years old, her mother gave her a pile of cloth strips and told her to make a quilt all by herself." The cloth came from old work shirts, dress tails and aprons. Nettie arranged it all into a design she called "Stacked Bricks."

“When I was growing up, you threw nothing away,” said Nettie Young. “You found every good spot for a quilt piece and that’s how you made your quilts.”

The women of Gee's Bend, descended from slaves on the Pettway Plantation, have been making quilts for generations. The quilts had a practical purpose, but they were also beautiful works of art.  "Ought not two quilts ever be the same," explained Mensie Lee Pettway.

"How did the women come up with original ideas? Annie Mae Young said, ‘You find the colors and the shapes and certain fabrics that work out right, kind of like working a puzzle.'"

The Gee's Bend quilts can be inspiration for young writers too, whether they are writing at camp, in class or surrounded by trunks in Grandma's attic.

·       Help children collect a few pieces of old clothing - especially shirts or skirts that can be cut into strips or squares.  Have them design a quilt, individually or as a group, using these pieces. Give them time to think about their design. Then ask them to write about their designs:

o   What do you like about the colors you put together?

o   Does your quilt tell a story?

o   Write a true or imaginary story about some of the fabric pieces: who wore that shirt? Where has that dress been? In the kitchen? At a party? If possible, talk to the person who wore a piece of clothing and then write down your "interview." 

o   If the quilt includes pieces of cloth from your own clothing, write about something you enjoyed doing while wearing that shirt or dress.

·       Alternatively, have children talk to an older friend or relative about some special item – a vase, a photo, a piece of jewelry, a quilt – and then ask the child to write down that story, like a journalist bringing another person alive with words.

If you are feeling very ambitious, you can help youngsters make real quilt squares and then a real quilt following the directions in Rubin's book – making their own little piece of history.  

Mensie Lee Pettway said, “A lot of people make quilts for your bed, for to keep you warm. But a quilt is more. It represents safekeeping, it represents beauty and you could say it represents family history.”

 https://childrensbookguild.org/karen-leggett-abouraya