For the past eight years I have taught art to women and children living with HIV/ AIDS in Maine, Rhode Island, and New Jersey at summer camps called the Healing Community. As an artist/teacher, I created 36 portraits from this Healing Community and recently used them as part of an educational unit on artists for my eighth grade students.
The student responses to the presentation, which included music and visuals, was excellent. The questions from the students about the paintings, the people portrayed, AIDS and HIV, and drug use in particular, were profound. The design is for a more extensive unit around the visual body of paintings. It is important to note that the racial composition of the people who attend the Healing Community is similar to that of the students I teach. The images portrayed in the series provoked responses from the students in a way which connected them to their own community. The paintings are a celebration of life and do not focus upon the fear and pain. Yet, the impact of the images and living with HIV/ AIDS is felt.
A discussion of AIDS, the health conditions of children, support from the community, and the artistic process of why and how the series was painted arose from the three groups of students who saw the presentation. The focus of this venture is to concentrate on wellness, not disease, and to experience, through the art process, the positive aspects of portraiture as it relates to the Healing Community. Art as a healing force goes beyond AIDS and is a possible option for everyone, including middle school students.
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The unit is built upon issues of ethnicity in the context of the Healing Community and explores the role of dissent of people treated like the lepers of the 20th century, because of fear and lack of compassion. Art is used as the primary source of information, the subjects of privacy, confidentiality, security, and spiritual wellness are explored in the context of the paintings of the Healing Community.
