Safe Spaces Community Creations: The Mosaic Wall Project

Voices could be heard as the guys showed up, though I never knew how many there would be until they walked through the door. Given that they were juvenile offenders, they were under strict regulations and coming to the mosaic studio was considered to be a privilege. If any of the boys had veered into trouble for any reason they would be retained at the juvenile centers.

That day there were four young men. One of them, Corey, was new to the group. The three who had been coming for quite some time already knew what to do and set off to work. With the others busy working on the mosaic, I was able to show Corey the ropes. We got our safety goggles and gloves and started smashing, nipping, cutting and shaping glass. Once he got the hang of it, he began to make his mini mosaic. After about a half an hour I came over to see how he was doing. Corey was very calm and pensive, very involved with his process. His mosaic had thin strips of red, blue and white, which seemed to be arranged very specifically. I mentioned that it looked patriotic and kind of like fireworks. He glanced up at me and said that I had it all wrong.

Nate and Corey work together Nate and Corey work together

He said that his mosaic wasn’t about patriotism at all; it was about gangs and how difficult it was to be stuck in the middle of them. He said that the blue was for the Crips, the red for the Bloods, the white for those like himself, who were stuck in the middle and didn’t know which side to go to because they had friends in both groups. He said that the space he left in between the pieces of glass was the hope that he didn’t have to become a part of either.

Corey continued to work methodically on his mosaic as he went into talking about how complicated life was in the hood and that he was being pulled in so many directions. He spoke of his fear of not being accepted and not being good enough. He spoke of selling drugs to support his mother and how it was strange that he never got caught doing the things that were really wrong, but only for the small stuff like assault. It was surprising how quickly Corey opened up. After several minutes of sharing, he glanced up at me again and said, “That’s all for now, Miss Mari.” Just as important as it is to provide a creative outlet, it is important to know when to give space. I went to check on the others.

It is essential to be conscious of being at once a window and a mirror; therefore, as community artists, we need to know when to challenge and when to give space. I have had the opportunity to work with youth throughout the United States, teen refugees from Africa and young people in various cities in Brazil. My experiences of working in these diverse communities have repeatedly demonstrated that art, used as a means of expression, can be universally powerful and life changing. As a community artist, it is my job to encourage that creative expression, promoting self-discovery and voice. To do this I need to provide a healthy creative outlet for the participants to produce something of their own vision and standards of beauty. Being a community artist is to work through intuition and through the heart. It is important to be transparent, to be nonjudgmental and to be the most honest listener possible; to be able to look a young person in the eyes and give them the sincere respect that they deserve as human beings, regardless of where they come from and what their history may be.

Mosaic Challenges

As a resident artist at the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) I was responsible for the second phase of the Mosaic Wall Project. It was 1,920 square feet of curved exterior concrete wall in the Museum’s courtyard that was to be mosaiced with mirror, cut stained glass and Baltimore blue glass bottles. We partnered with the Maryland Department of Juvenile Service’s William Donald Schaefer House, an addiction recovery center, and the Maryland Youth Residence Center, a shelter care facility for males as they were pending placement. These young men, 13-18 years of age, were to participate in the program anywhere from six weeks to six months, depending on their length of stay at the centers.

It sorta helps me express myself in different ways, ‘cause, I mean, I’m actually doing something instead of sitting around all the time (Nate).

Creating an almost 2,000-square-foot mosaic was a challenge in itself and a very complex process. The AVAM director requested the design of the mosaic to be compatible with the first phase of the project, which had been done a few years earlier. I sketched the basic abstract design in gestures on 176 three-by-five-foot panels that were pre-hung on the wall. The sketch included lots of circles and “pop-outs,” which were intended to be personal areas for the young artists to create individually, as well as to be areas that were easily identifiable in the mural, given that it is such a large nonrepresentational design.

The process of making the mosaic was involved and required a lot of attention and hard work. After each participant had learned the basics and made a personal mosaic, he helped with the mural for the museum. First, we had to carefully assemble the pieces of glass on the three-by-five-foot panels to create the design, mixing in colors where deemed appropriate. Those who were creating circles drew out what they wanted to make on pieces of paper and then used them as a templates to cut the glass.

After the first week with the program everyone knew that the words “I can’t” were forbidden in the mosaic studio. Cutting glass can be tricky and on more than one occasion, if they had a hard time cutting the correct shape they had designed on their paper templates, they would ask me to cut it for them. I always said I wouldn’t, but that I’d show them ways in which they could cut it. Although sometimes it would take countless sheets of glass, lots of frustrated glares and my standing beside them for a while, they would eventually cut the shape they were trying for. This gave them a great sense of accomplishment. The satisfied smile that appeared after completing the task was the rewarding realization of “I can.” At these moments I knew I was doing something right.

Once the panels were mosaiced, they were covered with contact paper to hold the glass in place and flipped from the cement board onto a large foam-covered plank. The board was carefully lifted off the glass and the pieces remained upside down on the foam. Thin-set mortar was spread onto the cement board and the board then laid on top of the glass pieces. After we flipped the plank and cement board together one last time, our glass design became permanently attached. This process can’t be done alone, and though some of the boys didn’t get along when they first came to the program they were forced to talk and work together. Bonds formed between them and friendships began.

After proper curing, the panels could be grouted. This painstaking process, though time-consuming, was many of the boys’ favorite part. It was a time that generated dialogue, personal stories and shared effort. After another curing, the panels were cleaned, a job that no one particularly liked, but with which all helped.

I learned that working with others ain’t so bad when you’re working together to make something a success and that it ain’t always about how you want to do things, but it’s about teamwork… I can honestly say that I’m used to arguing, fighting and fussing a lot. But when it came to this project I didn’t see none of that, I saw a change in me (Kevin).

Sensitive, Yet Strong

Another group that came through the program from the Schaefer House was made up of nine particularly “tough” teenagers. They came in bragging that they didn’t smile because it was a “sign of weakness.” Despite these strong-minded ideas, images of hearts, sunsets, swimming fish and two bees in love emerged from the tiny, sharp pieces of glass they were using to make their mini mosaics. I told these “tough” boys that they were sensitive and they swore up and down that they weren’t. Once we broke down the definition of “sensitive,” and they realized that sensitivity could make them stronger, smiles became acceptable The mini mosaics had a tendency to be very personal for the boys and though AVAM offered to sell them in the museum store with 100% profit going to the artist, all of them chose to keep theirs.

Kevin presents the finished mosaic Click here to enlarge

Many of the young peoples’ stories came out unexpectedly. It was as if they had been, in some sense, hungering to talk for a really long time but hadn’t been able to get the words out or the courage to let go. Art became the vehicle that helped them to clarify their thoughts and begin to un-guard their feelings. The studio became that safe space where they would not be judged for doing so. It gave them a sense of accomplishment to know that they could create something so huge and so important. Once the boys saw the mosaic they’d so carefully created up on the AVAM wall, that smile of “I did it!” returned. This project continued to prove how the dynamics of creating art and having a safe space to express oneself can build feelings of confidence and self worth and, ultimately, change lives.

My friends to come, my kids to come, my wife to come. I’ll definitely be back here. Just to point out and show them that I made something. I did something in life, instead of getting in trouble and that there’s not all bad people in bad neighborhoods that do all bad things. Some can change for the best. Like me, for instance (Kevin).

More Than the Sum of Its Parts

A mosaic is like a community. It is a lot of little pieces that make up a whole. Over this last year I have been privileged to know more than 50 young men who have been marked by the system for committing crimes, for making mistakes and for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Because of these mistakes, society has labeled them as troublemakers, gangsters, thugs and at-risk youth; however, what I found as I got to know them as individuals was that they are young people who are struggling to find their place in this world. These people are faced with challenges in their lives that many times have to do with broken and/or drug-addicted families, poverty, abusive parents, incarcerated fathers, dangerous neighborhoods, topped off with the challenge of being adolescent.

Of more than 50 juvenile offenders who came through the program, only a handful were there for the first time. The majority of them were on their fourth, fifth or even sixth time passing through the Department of Juvenile Services. Society had told them they were bad and that, though trying their hardest, they continued to live up to the same stereotypes that weighed them down.

In working with these young people, I did not see cold-hearted criminals but a bunch of sensitive, young men who needed a place to open up where they didn’t feel judged, a place that was safe enough that they could explore their feelings. Some chose to talk about those feelings and others chose to put them into their artwork. Regardless, during the time spent in the studio I watched each of them transcend the label of “juvenile offender” by challenging himself and opening up to became a part of a community of maturing young men.

My outlook on it is that people make bad decisions, bad choices, you can change. That’s what this is showing. People from a locked up mind of state can actually go out there and do something for the community, make something very beautiful -- like our mosaic. … Through all this experience I got a peace of mind. It’s helped me calm down a lot and chill and mellow out and learn how to think before I do stuff and just let my imagination go.... It helped me learn a lot of things about myself, that I can be creative that I can help the community. I don’t have to be bad, I don’t have to get locked up. And that’s just what it’s taught me” (Corey).

My hope was that this experience would demonstrate to both the youth and their communities that they have something positive to offer; and it would allow them to see all that can be accomplished when people work together. The pride and joy the young men felt as a result of their hard work was a constant reminder that it was doing just that. Now, standing back to take in their achievement, permanently installed on the American Visionary Art Museum, they can see that just as it took hundreds of thousands of pieces of glass, each different in shape and size, to produce the 1,920-square-foot mosaic, when we as people come together, we can create something more beautiful than the sum of its parts.

Community artist Mari Gardner's video documenting her work with juvenile offenders on a mosaic for the American Visionary Arts Museum in Baltimore.

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 Mañjon, California College of the Arts; Amalia Mesa-Bains, California State University Monterey Bay; Paul Teruel, Columbia College Chicago; and Stephani Woodson, Arizona State University.

Mari Gardner, a MICA MFA sculpture graduate with an emphasis in community arts and a student of Freire’s concepts, has worked for many years in Baltimore with native-born, refugee/immigrant youth and juvenile offenders. She has also worked with young people in several cities of Brazil, and recently completed a film project bringing together the young people from Rio de Janeiro and Baltimore City titled: “Violence Next Door, Growing Up in the Favela and the Hood.” Along with her community work she is an exhibiting artist, and is currently constructing a large-scale stone mosaic she was commissioned to create by the Hilton Baltimore Convention Center Hotel.

Original CAN/API publication: November 2008