Final Response - Race and Art

This was what my 18 year old male student created in response to an individual session we had where we were processing his feelings surrounding the recent uproar against police brutality and the failure of the 'justice' system. He is a West Indian boy living in a neighborhood where gang violence and encounters with the police are not new to him. He was personally very affected by the murder of Eric Garner and more so by the lack of accountability by the larger system. We had been talking a lot about race and his feelings of rage in the sessions leading up to this one and I thought that art would be a perfect segway to transcend words and express his emotions. A way of subliming the rage perhaps. 

I provided a large sketchpad, black charcoal pencils and a palette of paint with brushes. My directive to him was to create something that portrays or is inspired from our discussions about race in America. Given the heaviness of the topic, and the emotions with which I was also sitting with - it was really hard for me to be 'distanced' from him while he created this image. I found myself wanting to distract my thoughts by looking away and I eventually pulled a paper and started to doodle and painted on my own as it was hard for me to observe his process and not say anything. I also thought that I wanted to give him his privacy and personal space to create his art and sit with the emotions he was having. So for half an hour, we both sat in silence - he creating his art while I painted on my own. During the times that I looked at him, I noticed that he was very intent, and seemed to have a clear idea of what he was creating. His sketches were very purposeful and he hardly changed his mind about what he drew. He used red paint to fill in the spaces as shown in the drawing. 

Processing the art: 

When he was done, we both looked at the final piece and there was a heavy silence. I broke the silence by asking him to talk to me about the face staring at us. He began by describing how he liked to sketch faces and liked the easiness of the charcoal to do that. He also wanted to split the face into 2 as that was how he felt he and the rest of society is not split into - whitewashed/white Vs Black and pained. He went on to talk about how he feels sometimes people choose not to see or feel even if they have eyes, which was why he chose to not draw in any features on half of the face. In the other half, he said he chose red as it meant struggle and blood. It was also very bright and could catch the attention of anyone looking. He said that people who have been oppressed feel as such. That they are screaming out to be seen and often are, but never acknowledged. I asked which half he related more to. He said that it was the pained side with the eyes and red paint. But he did say that he was moving towards indifference and wanted to be empty like the other half but didn't know how to. I mostly listened intently to his interpretations of the drawing and pointed out observations about his drawing that struck me (eg. the red eye). 

Our time was up before I felt we had sufficiently wrapped up the topic. He had to return back to class and I felt torn between wanting to finish processing the exercise and keeping to time. I asked him how he felt about it at the end of the activity and he said that it felt good to draw it out and he wanted more of this in future sessions. I also remarked that he seemed very comfortable with the materials (esp sketching) and would definitely bring it in more. I reflected to him about my own feelings of anger and helplessness in light of the recent events and wanted him to know that I was a witness to his emotions in the hour that we had together. I thought that it was really important that I validate that for him as he had felt silenced in so many other areas in his life. 

I am going to bring back this portrait the next time I see him and plan to further our discussion about the man in the 'paper'. If he could bring him to life, what would he say? What would he want to tell him? I was thinking of even imagining a dialogue between the 2 halves of the face and acting it out in session. I am open to more suggestions on how I can further this from you'll too! 

I remember leaving this session feeling very heavy and needed to physically walk out of the room and tune out in order to shake away that feeling. The class on vicarious trauma came to mind and I acknowledge that working with this population, especially in a time like now where tensions are high, supervision and support are so important. I did get a chance to talk to my supervisor about this session and felt somewhat glad that this boy had a chance to create something out of his pain that he could feel proud about.