Resurrecting the Values of a Forgotten People
By Alberto Muro & Denae Ayala
Art and reading students at Taft College worked together to create artistic pieces of literature.
For the spring semester, Professors Debora Rodenhauser and Kamala Carlson combined their classes for a literature project that consists of two minds utilizing their critical thinking skills.
Students from Professor Carlson’s reading class had to read “The Lakota Tribe,” and in their own words, they had to write a response about the Native American culture. When finished with their response paper, they got together with Rodenhauser’s art students to begin their collaboration.
Each of the student’s art pieces represented the culture and tradition of Lakota people. Love, respect, emotion, and truth are just a few characteristics that are represented in the art work.
“The art work and the written work reflects the values of the Lakota Way people,” stated Rodenhauser.
Art History Professor Gaysha Smith has been running the Art Gallery for the past two years; the friendly persona of Professor Smith’s attitude has accompanied many shows here at TC.
Smith has actively been involved in the art shows and provides a comforting atmosphere for people to come out and support the art/reading students.
“It was a good collaborated effort,” Smith commented.
Diego Salgado and Hannah Glover presented their piece of work titled “Humility.” The word derives from the idea of being humble. Diego was able to relate to the word and had no problem writing about it, “I was raised to always be caring and treat people right, so writing about humility felt like a reflective paper about myself,” he said. With her extraordinary creativity and patience, Glover created a rabbit’s skull with plaster material. Hannah says, “To me the rabbit symbolized a humble animal, although this project took me three days to complete, I was able to remain focused.”
Students Andrew Hinojosa and Laura Russell relied on brush strokes and created two pictures on one canvas for their project called “Sacrifice.” On one side of the picture, there was a Native American woman holding her child and waving to warriors leaving for battle.
The bottom half of the portrait has a soldier hugging his family member as he prepares to board a bus to fight a war. Hinojosa talked about the importance of sacrifice and how it often takes a toll on the human spirit.
“I had a buddy that was in the Army for 6 years, and the sacrifice he made was not being able to see his kid grow up,” he said.
The student project provided insight for spectators to learn about the importance of culture appreciation.
The Taft College Art gallery is located in the Technology Building, T-11 and is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday- Friday.