What the Moment Requires of Us: Toward Egalitarian Relationships in Community Arts Mentoring

In this kind of relationship, no matter the age gap, the process is mutual. You teach and you learn. You make mistakes and have to apologize. You rejoice and you fret. It's a real relationship and if it is real, there is dialogue and a sense of the egalitarian.

—Sr. Bobby English, Sisters of Notre Dame,
Director, Julie Community Center, Baltimore, Maryland

I’m anticipating a great day at the Rec Center. During the last session, community art student Rafael[1] had youth working in groups painting backdrops for their clay superheroes prior to filming. Rafa had been able to sustain the excitement about using the video equipment throughout the afternoon. Today, however, as I pause to listen outside the door of the art room, it seems unusually noisy for the activities he had planned. Rather than the sound of a great “art buzz,” that low hum of focused energy and creativity, I hear the ominous sound of an activity spiraling out of control. I take a deep breath, open the door and prepare to be swept into the mentoring moment. I’m acutely aware that my response to whatever I’m about to witness will, in some way, impact the situation I’ll encounter, and perhaps impact Rafa’s growth as a community artist — a responsibility I don’t take lightly.

Since the summer of 2005, in addition to teaching, I have mentored graduate students in the Masters of Art in Community Arts (MACA) program at the Maryland Institute College of Art, responding to situations ranging from the one described above to those successful beyond all expectations. Each time I enter into the relationship, I am humbled by the responsibility it carries and excited about its potential. I have, at times, hit the bull’s eye in providing empowering support to my “mentees.” At others, I’ve missed the board entirely. Most often, my efforts lie somewhere along that spectrum. In the interest of improving my practice, I reflect on my experiences as a mentor, seeking opportunities to explore the mentor’s contribution to forging authentic, empowering relationships that further the goals of reciprocal, experiential learning. This reflection allows me to learn from those I’ve mentored and those who have mentored me, with the ultimate goal of improving my practice and sharing this learning with the field.

The insights and guiding principles in this paper represent a collaboration between myself and five former MACA students, two high-school interns in MACA’s summer program, and three of my own personal and professional mentors[2]. The former mentees responded to my request for feedback on their mentoring experience with me. I shared a list of my key reflection questions and suggested that any or all be used if they were helpful for the respondents’ own reflection. Alternatively, they could simply choose to share their thoughts in another form.[3] It is noteworthy that the act of generating the questions helped me identify the issues and themes that I was most keen to explore and helped to foster an ongoing dialogue. Simultaneously, I asked three of my own mentors to share insights into the mentoring process. Responses were rich and extremely thought provoking and I am grateful and inspired by everyone’s input, honesty and willingness to collaborate.

The Mentoring Contexts — MACA’s Summer Program and Artist Residencies

The Masters of Art in Community Art is a 13-and-a half-month program consisting of a six-week summer session and a ten-month community residency. Mentoring MACA students takes place in the context of these two distinct and multifaceted learning experiences. The intensive introductory six-week summer session in community begins with a week of orientation, training and relationship building. It prepares graduate students to teach art in pairs to neighborhood children while working alongside and mentoring two high-school interns who assist them. A faculty mentor is assigned to each site to support the MACA students and their high-school interns on a daily basis. Mentors meet regularly with the team, review lesson plans, visit while teaching and help problem solve and brainstorm about the organization, the art projects, the community and the participants.

MACA’s second mentoring setting is the subsequent ten-month community residency comprising the heart of its community art and service-learning program. Along with course work, residencies provide graduate students with real life experience — and guidance — in work with community organizations and nonprofit organizations. In this scenario, students choose a residency site of their own, integrate into the life of the organization, and often teach and mentor youth or adults as part of the experience. A faculty mentor is assigned to each student; as in the summer program, we maintain an ongoing dialogue with students about their experience. During semesters when I teach MACA classes as well as mentor individual students in their residencies, I find that the mentoring relationship carries over into the academic setting.

The Nature of Mentoring Relationships and Characteristics of Good Mentors

Against the backdrop of MACA’s evolving concept of student-faculty interaction, described as “ongoing support and supervision by MICA faculty,” I have worked to develop my own approach to mentoring. MACA’s underlying tenets of liberatory education dovetail my own philosophy and provide a framework for navigating the complex relationships in each of these mentoring contexts. Although Webster’s Dictionary defines a mentor as “a wise and faithful counselor,” I find the mentoring experience to be far more complex than counseling, which implies a one-way flow to wisdom and learning. In fact, it is the reciprocal exchange of knowledge and experience that forms the heart of the encounter — and potentially yields the greatest harvest for everyone.

One of my mentors, Sr. Bobby English, sees three “key actions” of a mentor: caring, building capacity and challenging. She maintains that mentoring is best accomplished when not thinking about being a mentor per se, but rather simply attempting to relate to a person:

You care enough to look into that person and see the best of what is inside, and promote that with all your heart. It's discovering the gift of the other and taking every opportunity to make it shine. In addition, it's helping people grow in their capacity, helping build their assets, and widen their network of support. There is also … challenging people to go beyond or get over or dig deeper.

These three actions — caring, building capacity and challenging — are worthy goals for mentoring to which I aspire.

What are the qualities of an effective mentor? All of my own mentors stress the importance of patience, open-mindedness, encouragement and the ability to listen deeply. MACA students shared a daunting list of the traits of a good mentor. It includes empathy, lack of ego, trust, commitment, intuition, perceptiveness, sense of humor, charisma, calmness, accountability and reliability. A genuine interest in the mentee’s learning needs and goals was also cited. Skills include the ability to listen well, to ask good questions, to inspire, to engage. A good mentor is also “able to closely relate to the mentee and to approach them as a unique individual with a personal set of circumstances that make up who they are,” stated MACA student Kristen Faber.

I personally draw on many experiences — tactile, intellectual and emotional — including but not limited to my own community art practice, youth development, adult education and organizational development. I draw from disciplines that include: education, fine arts, community organizing, nonprofit management, counseling, problem solving, conflict resolution, facilitation, child psychology and development, group dynamics, first aid and social-justice principals. I can think of few other pursuits besides mentoring that require such a multidisciplinary response to a person or situation.

Guiding Principles Emerging From the Work of Mentoring

A set of guiding principles, informed by the feedback shared for this paper, continue to emerge from my experience mentoring almost 30 MACA students and high-school interns since 2005. Patterns and themes reappear with each new group of MACA students; however fluid, these guiding principles may be helpful to others in the community arts and related fields even now. These guiding principles follow:

• An ongoing investment in and commitment to those we mentor is essential.
• Clarity about goals, roles, expectations and boundaries of relationships helps build the foundation for strong working relationships.
• Respect and awareness of the differences between us and those we mentor opens and enriches communication and helps build trust.
• Working from the lived experience of those we mentor helps them grow in a natural and empowered way.
• In order to nurture a reciprocal dialogue, a mentor must be willing to participate in it herself.
• A mentor must be willing to grow alongside her mentees; to learn from and share her own mistakes and experience.
• Keep the nature of the relationship positive and encouraging; enthusiasm will light the way.

Exploring the Guiding Principles of Mentoring

An ongoing investment in and commitment to those we mentor is essential.

MACA students stated that, above all, a good mentor must possess what peer Esha Janssens-Sannon defines as “a real human investment” — a genuine human commitment to the growth of others and to the relationship. Using an example from one of my teaching semesters in which the MACA class struggled greatly with issues of race, Janssens-Sannon states:

…what separates a mentor from a teacher or a colleague is that they are genuinely and personally invested in your growth. I think that takes a commitment beyond the classroom, and I felt that you did that many times, but in particular, when you had the whole class over to your house for our race potluck.

While she didn’t feel the conversation at the gathering was hugely significant for the group, Janssens-Sannon “walked away believing that you were genuinely ‘on our side.’ That you saw a hole in our class and offered us an opportunity to fill it.”

This investment in people is an ongoing commitment in itself, maintains a mentor of mine, Bryant “Spoon” Smith. First, time must be invested up front to find out where people’s skills are. “You’ve got to dig deep, listen, understand what people need.” Then, the ongoing work begins. “You can’t give [people] instructions on how to make a cake and then walk away and expect them to make an 18 tier wedding cake on their own.” High-school intern Cierra Carey’s suggestions that MACA provide more ongoing training throughout the summer session to support the mentoring bears this out: “I would suggest having more activities … to address issues such as communication, respecting one another and working together as a group. The idea sharing must be constantly flowing and the investment in people’s growth must be ongoing.

Levels of investment are also important. MACA student John Kovacs, whom I mentored during his residency, observes that, “in order for this type of relationship to be beneficial, it requires investment to the point of knowing what is happening on a macro and micro level.” John recalls a turning point in our relationship when, a few weeks into the semester, I visited his site to observe firsthand.

What a train wreck that day was! It is still very vivid in my mind. … you were able to see what was happening on the ground level. Obviously things weren’t well. By you seeing this, you were then able to respond. … that visit allowed me to be more honest with myself and with you about what was happening in my residency, what I needed and how you could help. Only then were you able to offer insight based on what you saw. It is important to have a first-hand understanding of each situation. I think that these experiences allowed us to get past the teacher/student and on to a genuine mentoring relationship.

This ongoing investment and commitment help everyone feel part of a genuine learning community.

Clarity about goals, roles, expectations and boundaries of relationships helps build the foundation for strong working relationships.

I have come to learn — sometimes painfully — that the complex relationships inherent in the MACA program require as much initial clarity as all players are able to muster from their perspective about the goals, roles, expectations and the boundaries of our relationships. Because success depends on all participants holding themselves accountable for their own actions, it is a worthwhile investment of time in building strong working relationships. “An effective mentor is able to set and communicate healthy boundaries between the professional and the private aspects of mentoring, but is also accepting that these boundaries … change as life circumstances, the mentee, and even the mentor/mentee relationship change,” states MACA student Kristen Faber. MACA student Tracie Pouliot illuminates why this clarity helped her feel accountable and enabled her to see the choices she made as having meaning.

When I’m not quite sure if I am bought into something, I can write it off and just do what needs to be done to get through it. [However,] if I know someone else genuinely cares what I am doing, and can connect what I do to something bigger, and can articulate this, it helps me notice I have the opportunity to do something meaningful.”

Working toward a mutual understanding role models for MACA students and high school interns how to do the same thing with people they in turn mentor.

Students bring many different expectations of the roles of a mentor. One expectation on the part of some students that clashes with my own is equating a mentor with a friend: While friendship could result from a mentoring relationship at the graduate level, it is not a goal or an expectation of mine up front, nor do I even feel it is appropriate at the outset within the context of a teacher-student relationship. Conversely, I believe that the more traditional hierarchy found in the notion of “clinical supervision” or the dictionary definition actually works against genuine mentoring relationships. However, approaching them as friendships seems to complicate a relationship that ultimately has a power differential of teacher—student behind it. To ignore this differential seems disingenuous; to acknowledge it and work towards clarity in our relationships, roles and expectations has been my goal.

Several factors work against the building of egalitarian mentoring relationships. MACA student John Kovacs cites two inter-related points about our relationship during his residency:

There was a tension at times between being a student, trying to learn, and being a professional. Second … coming from my educational experiences in the past, it was hard to see our relationship as a mentoring interaction when you were also my teacher. I think some of the pressure to have things together … to meet the mark in my schooling has been a singular effort for the most part.

John’s assessment is a call for clarity about the multiple roles and expectations for mentors and students from the outset of the relationship. It also speaks to the powerful lingering influences of traditional education’s emphasis on “a singular effort” — even as people enter the collaborative environment and reciprocal exchange of experiential education.

Respect and awareness of the differences between us and those we mentor opens and enriches communication and helps build trust.

“A mentor should not assume her ideas and beliefs are the same as her mentee, or that [they] should be,” states MACA student Tracie Pouliot. “There are thoughts and ideas and solutions out there that no one has said out loud yet, and with support, those ideas can come forward; but they don’t have a chance if we all have to agree from the get-go.” Awareness of and respect for the cultural and social differences that may exist in mentoring relationships helps keep communication flowing and helps build trust. One of my mentors, Bryant Spoon Smith, speaking of his work in some of Baltimore’s most beleaguered neighborhoods, shares:

Be aware and respectful of the different attitudes and life style conditions of those you mentor. Try to work with people. The big thing is judging. Lots of people expect to be in an environment like their own, and to be able to deal with people within the same [cultural] system. Be patient and non-judgmental.

The same applies to communication styles in Smith’s opinion:

In working with inner-city youth, there’s information you need to receive from kids in order to be successful teaching. So you must constantly be listening to them. Ask yourself: ‘What kind of information are they giving me?’ They’re sharing who they are, [things about] their environment; they are actually giving you insights into their life and how to communicate with them.

Smith’s advice resonates as artists move into communities that are different from their own and in academic settings as well. In some cases, however, those we work with cannot articulate this vital information, and we must seek it elsewhere.

At one summer site, MACA students I mentored were challenged by a small boy who had a very difficult time focusing on his art and who aggravated his peers in the process. He would only sit quietly and churn out stellar artwork when J., the male MACA student, sat with him to work. The minute J. moved on to assist other youth, this child was out of his seat disrupting others again. In this case, the child was African-American and both MACA students were white; it was possible that racial differences were coming into play. My team struggled with this situation for several days, trying new approaches, to no avail. I then encouraged them to think “outside the box” suggesting they attempt to speak with the child’s parent(s) or guardian(s), explain their difficulties, and ask for advice directly. I asked them to consider that there may be things they still needed to understand about the boy.

My students that summer were finally able to learn that the child had just been adopted and had started living with his new parents only days before our program began. For some reason, he had attached himself to J. very powerfully in the midst of the huge changes in his life — information that greatly helped my team to work with him during the rest of the summer. While talks of this nature don’t always yield results, they are often worth the effort and at the least, communicate that one cares. At best, they can provide important insights and deepen understanding — especially when participants are of a different racial, ethnic, cultural, or socio-economic background from the artist mentor.

Working from the experience of those we mentor helps them grow in a natural and empowered way.

While the dictionary definition of mentoring implies a model of a wise person advising one less experienced, the more empowered model is not built on “advice.” Giving advice focuses on the mentor and their body of knowledge, rather than on the other person and the resources they have to bring to the situation. Alternatively, I see it as working to inspire people to contribute what is uniquely theirs to the moment. Of necessity, my responses must be couched within the framework of each person’s knowledge and experience, “helping unravel what [students] already know” — and encouraging their reflection at every turn. When a MACA student from another country confided her worries about not being able to pick up on cultural cues of inner-city youth in Baltimore, I had several choices. I could commiserate that indeed, she and the youth were coming from very different worlds and tell her what I would do. I could attempt to “advise” her about cultural customs. Instead, I encouraged her to use her own customs and cultural experience to respond to youth’s natural curiosity about all things “new” and to bridge the differences between them by sharing and comparing these. Encouraging people to work from what they know helps them “connect the dots” from their own body of knowledge and experience to that of others or to the situation at hand.

One of my mentors, Nan Enstad, works from what she knows of people’s experience by “help[ing] someone see where their resources and strengths are to solve a problem. Often people feel they have to change fundamentally to overcome a hurdle, when actually we can creatively use the strengths we have.” Much of her mentoring work is about dialogue to help people identify and build upon their strengths. My mentor Bryant Spoon Smith encourages mentors to

bring out [students’] positive energy; encourage ideas, think beyond the place where students are. You want students to walk away from the situation with a set of life skills they can carry with them; you want to leave them with a seed. You’ll never know if others will be back to water it, so leave it as strong as you can.”

In order to nurture a reciprocal dialogue, a mentor must be willing to participate in it herself.

In order to encourage and facilitate true dialogue, a mentor must be a willing participant herself. “The [mentor-mentee] relationship should be like a good conversation,” states MACA student Jannsens-Sannon.

this isn’t to say that it’s entirely reciprocal, because I think there is a power dynamic between mentor and mentee that is about lived experience and a body of knowledge. But I think a good mentor is engaged and learns in the process of mentoring; either learns more about their subject, or learns more about themselves.

Once a mentor is fully engaged him- or herself, nurturing a reciprocal exchange requires keeping a finger on the pulse of what’s unfolding, and then engaging the ideas and agendas of the different players as needed. Jannsens-Sannon shares a memory of her summer experience, when

you helped mediate between T. and I. I had definitely stepped on her toes in the classroom because I was eager to fill in the silences and gaps, but wasn’t really able to see it. Instead of saying: ‘Esha, you stepped on T.’s toes, and T., you need to take more initiative!’, I think you really helped us have the conversation ourselves and come to this realization and understanding together. By asking us the right questions … we came to the solutions in a way that felt like we could live them rather than having them imposed upon us.

As a mentor in that situation, only a few questions on my part were necessary to unfold a dialogue that simply needed space to happen.

My goal in creating the environment for honest dialogue is to enable learning to spring from the group itself, from the moments that arise as we exchange roles — from storyteller to deep listener, from teacher to learner. I look to build an egalitarian space where everyone feels comfortable enough to seek connection and meaning — a space where “everyone [is] a resource for each other.” It is a space where I hope people will also feel comfortable enough to debate, disagree or allow conflict to be articulated. This is possible only when I refrain from giving advice or solving problems for people. “I think that you have to be able to disagree and argue and be frank,” states Jansenns-Sannon. “I think that [all] parties need to be able to be vulnerable with each other, so that both can confess where things didn’t work out so perfectly, where things were difficult, [and] where things were unsuccessful, because I think that’s often where real learning happens.” The more rushed I feel, the less open-ended my questions, and the more directive I become; it takes time to set this stage. The previous sentence is my own voice and not part of the quote.

In the best mentoring situations, learning through dialogue is reciprocal across age, roles and many other differences. For MACA student Tonya Gregg, it was “making links and connecting many important dots together.” Another states:

I was lucky in that I got to work with high-school students, and I think that age lent itself well to mentoring. … it was the first time that I prepared so intensively, worked so collaboratively, and succeeded so unexpectedly. I think I opened myself up in a way that I never had in a classroom before, and…in return, so did the young people.

High-school intern Cierra Carey agrees: “Mentoring and working with youth … allowed me to incorporate my creativity and talents into guidance to them. Knowing how they reacted to my creativity in an educational way gave me confidence as a mentor and changed my ways in teaching and working with youth.” Another high-school intern, Maija Ekey, shares:

The relationships I formed with both the MACA students and the community art participants were incredible and helped me to see the bigger picture of the world. It was a great experience to be in the middle of these two groups age-wise because I was able to see at the same time what I have grown from and where I could potentially grow into.

A mentor must be willing to grow alongside her mentees; to learn from and share her own mistakes and experience.

Good mentors “share their ideas and experiences, both positive and negative, to help those around them grow,” according to high-school intern Maija Ekey. “A mentor is … willing to grow alongside you. I think that’s actually a very vulnerable place for a teacher to be in, and publicly pronounce,” observes one MACA student. To do this in an authentic way, we must be willing to learn from those we mentor, to let others teach us. When I strive for that, it is much easier to admit I’ve made an error, or to recognize when I need to change course. Role modeling the ability to admit and learn from mistakes is, I believe, one of the most powerful things a mentor can share, along with tools for reflecting and assessing. MACA student Tonya Gregg found that “journaling was very powerful in reflecting about community.” Reflection sessions after teaching, meetings or events and encouraging mentees to journal or sketch, and then share some of their observations — and doing the same — helps level the playing field and opens our own practice to critique.

My mentor Bryant Spoon Smith agrees that showing our mistakes to those we mentor “in many ways strengthens the relationships and the ability to get the information across. It helps bring down the wall of one of you being at a higher level than another.” He maintains that this strengthens the learning process too: “Showing your weakness will show me that you’re human.” My own experience has born this out many times. I remember the look of shock on the faces of a summer team when I told them I’d thought about my response to a difficult situation the week before, and that I wished I’d handled it differently — and why. I also apologized. No one responded directly in the moment, but tensions eased dramatically after that, and in retrospect, that day marked a very positive turning point in our communication. Willingness to learn from and share our mistakes requires honesty, transparency and the same risk and courage we ask of others.

Keep things positive and encouraging; enthusiasm will light the way.

The last principle is the importance of keeping the mentoring relationship and the communication as positive and encouraging as possible. High-school intern Cierra Carey, who lists “a positive mindset” as a quality of a mentor needed for good communication, also lists fun as an essential element in a good mentoring relationship. One of my most pleasant surprises while mentoring in the sweltering summer of 2006 was an invitation early on from a mentee to dinner at her house with her site partner. The invitation was a first for me from a student. She had prepared one of her mother’s Indian dishes, and her site partner, who loves to bake, had made a delicious pie. We had a good time getting to know each other. The connection on a personal level helped me to understand each of them and to later communicate about some tough issues at their site. I believe it helped lay the groundwork for our future relationships. As MACA student Esha Jannsens-Sannon explains: “I think [the mentoring relationship] has to be enjoyable; I don’t think it’s possible to successfully mentor someone who you don’t connect with on a personal level.”

In order to be positive and encouraging, to help people feel at ease and confident, it is essential for a mentor to be in touch with her own joy and enthusiasm about the work. My mentor Nan Enstad has “learned to give enthusiasm towards a person's efforts and pleasures — not necessarily the same as ‘approval’ — and commiseration on the difficulties.”

Enstad believes that “enthusiasm is a powerful tool, because it can illuminate for someone their own interests and aspirations and help them catch hold of them and follow them. Enthusiasm lets them do it, rather than trying to do it for them; it respects the journey as theirs and honors it.” Enthusiasm towards others’ work must have a basis from within our own.

After two decades of working in the nonprofit and community art worlds, I believe that no other experience has simultaneously required more facets of my experience and knowledge, my judgment and skills and energies than has mentoring. I have attempted here to share some of the insights that I’ve learned about mentoring from individuals like those who contributed to this article, who I have taught and who have taught me a great deal. I have also tried to model here what I aspire to do in the field and what I hope community art students will attempt as well. That is to create a fertile ground of the community arts experience in which all those involved may constantly shift the roles of teacher and learner, free and inspired to contribute what is uniquely ours as we explore what the “moment” requires of us.

This essay is part of the Community Arts Convening & Research Project, 2008, funded by a Nathan Cummings Foundation grant to the Maryland Institute College of Art. The essay was reviewed and selected by the project's Editorial Board: Ron Bechet, Xavier University of Louisiana; Lori Hager, University of Oregon; Marina Gutierrez, Cooper Union; Ken Krafchek, Maryland Institute College of Art; Sonia Manjon, California College of the Arts; Amalia Mesa-Bains, California State University Monterey Bay; Paul Teruel, Columbia College Chicago; and Stephani Woodson, Arizona State University.

Cinder Hypki is a practicing community artist and adjunct faculty in MICA’s Masters of Art in Community Arts program. She has worked with communities and nonprofits, organizing and consulting since 1987 and is a former Open Society Institute community fellow.

Notes

[1] The name is fictional; the situation is a composite of mentoring situations I’ve experienced.

[2] Former MACA students and community artist collaborators are: Kristen Faber, Tonya Gregg, Esha Jannsens-Sannon, John Kovacs, and Tracie Pouliot. Former high school interns with the MACA program are Cierra Cary, who was 16 at the time, and a junior at Mergenthaler Vocational Technical Senior High School. She is now a freshman at the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore. Maija Ekey is a student at the Baltimore School for the Arts. She is 16 years old. My personal mentors are: Sr. Bobby English, SND, Director of the Julie Community Center in Baltimore, Maryland, Bryant Spoon Smith, community artist and Social Science Technician, U.S. Forest Service; and Nan Enstad, Associate Professor of History, University of Wisconsin Madison.

[3] Cinder Hypki, Key Questions about Mentoring, Email correspondence with former MACA students and high school interns with the MACA program whom the author mentored, November 14, 2007.

Works Cited

Cary, Cierra. Personal correspondence. 19 Nov. 2007.

Ekey, Maija. Personal correspondence. 16 Dec. 2007.

English, Sr. Bobby. Personal interview. 27 Nov. 2007.

Enstad, Nan. Personal correspondence. 28 Nov. 2007.

Faber, Kristen. Personal correspondence. 21 Nov. 2007.

Gregg, Tonya. Personal correspondence. 27 Nov. 2007.

Hypki, Cinder. “Key Questions about Mentoring.” Personal correspondence with former MACA students and high-school interns with the MACA program whom the author mentored. 14 Nov. 2007.

Jannsens-Sannon, Esha. Personal correspondence. 23 Nov. 2007.

Kovacs, John. Personal correspondence. 29 Nov. 2007.

Master of Arts in Community Arts (MACA), Program Overview. Baltimore, Md.: Maryland Institute College of Art, 2007.

Pouliot, Tracie. Personal correspondence. 19 Nov. 2007.

Smith, Bryant Spoon. Personal interview. 27 Nov. 2007.

Websters’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, Second Edition. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983.

Original CAN/API publication: September 2008