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Adapting Art for Isolation

Four creatives use their art for teaching and self-expression during lockdown

By Andrés Velásquez, Malakai Wade, and Samantha Laurey

Using Art for Teaching 

Tawny Peek is a San Francisco State University student majoring in Early Childhood Education. As a full time student and working as a preschool teacher at Stratford School located at the San Francisco De Montfort campus,  Peek has been overwhelmed by COVID-19 as it has challenged her to rethink how she goes about her day-to-day school and work life.

"It has been difficult to think critically for long periods of time and the amount of screen time can be overwhelming. Reaching out to my instructors has become essential and communicating ahead of time is important." said Peek.

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Tawny Peek speaks about her experiences during COVID-19 and how she tries to teach her preschool students from a virtual classroom. 

The Virtual Teacher

The Virtual Teacher is a website that acts as a reference guide for any San Francisco State students, that are currently enrolled in the Child and Adolescent Development (CAD) degree program, that is supported by the Promoting Achievement Through Higher Education (PATH) program. The CAD alumni students can also use the website as it is open to everyone through the San Francisco State website. The tabs shown on the right are the different modules that are shown on the website guide that teachers can use during shelter-in-place. 

The videos shown below are examples that Ms. Tawny has used to share with other teachers that may be stuck with how to make up their lessons and make their kids feel like they are doing everything they can to acknowledge them.

Introduction to Virtual Teaching: Choosing a platform and getting started 

This part of the website provides PDF's and other documents on how to better use virtual classrooms like Google Classroom to create a productive environment, as well as, using applications such as Zoom and Facetime to better interact with younger students from infants to preschool. 

Live Virtual Teaching: Strategies and Examples

Once understanding how to use these applications, teachers can look more into how they can socialize, listen and teach their students. For example, teachers can implement circle time to interact with their students on different subjects like how they feel about COVID-19. 

Creating Pre-Recorded Curriculum: Read alouds and other activities 

As technology is not always readily available to every parent and child,  teachers can learn to structure a lesson using recording services like YouTube so that any child can watch their teacher interact with them, even if they are not physically there or live on the webcam.

Virtual Teaching and Best Practices 

The best way to assist teachers of all subjects is by creating a space where they can learn from each other. As every person comes from a different academic subject, this space allows peers to see how they are teaching classes like English, Mathematics, Science, Art and Music. 

Activities to Send Home for Families 

Just as teachers and students struggle with the lack of the classroom presence, parents are forced to learn how to make a space for school. Parents may be working full time or left unemployed so having this section allows parents to keep up with whats going on with their child's teacher brings some sort of relief to the parent.

Supporting Mental Health 

As young children are watching the effects of COVID-19, teachers are supporting a space during their scheduled times for school to teach children how to voice their feelings and cope with mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, and stress. 

Mindfulness

Beyond teaching students subject material, some instructors are bringing a more interactive set of exercises (such as yoga) to better assist the child's mind set during a stressful time. 

Reflecting + Refining

After going through all sections that this website provides, teachers can provide feedback to each other so that they can make more detailed and easy-to-follow video chats and recordings to refer to. 

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Teacher Tawny's Social Emotional Lesson

 Source: EDvance SF State (YouTube channel)
Ms. Tawny speaks about how we can show our emotions and think about how they are used for different times of our daily lives. She speaks about emotions such as happy, sad, mad and more. 
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Teacher Tawny hosts Circle Time

 Source: EDvance SF State (YouTube channel)
Ms. Tawny goes over the morning routine and starts the day with looking at our calendars. She shows us the months, days and time that has past, what it is today and how it will look for the future. 

Selling Art

Trying to make a living from your art can be difficult, especially during a pandemic. But this artist is finding that people are still supporting small artists online.

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Joseph Essaf talks about how California's Shelter-in-Place order positively and negatively affects his business of selling his watercolor art.

Moving and Changing: What's Next for the Artist

As everyone globally struggles, many people have found solace in creating something–painting, doodling, writing, or making music. Joseph Essaf, 28, has been making art and selling it in different forms for some time now. He uses primarily watercolor and edits some of his paintings to create watercolor/digital crossovers. He currently lives in Los Angeles, and while sheltering-in-place, he has more time to make his art than before.
“I'm constantly painting. I have my art journal and then I have my commission work but then I'm also just like just painting to relax. And, you know, usually I don't have that free time, I usually have a set amount of projects I'm trying to get done.” Essaf said in a Zoom interview.
Essaf sells art in several shops, and recently, the stores have sent back his stickers and prints because they can’t sell them. Essaf explained that he was glad he now has the opportunity to sell that art and make a profit.
Right before the shelter-in-place order took hold of California, Essaf and his wife were planning to move to Portland, Oregon. They had a lease signed and jobs lined up.
“My boss in Oregon was like ‘we're shutting down and I'm going to give you the option’ you can either continue–you can move still, like we had a lease and everything signed–or you can stay in LA and kind of figure out what you want to do, but he said we’ll still have jobs.” Essaf said.
Living in a global pandemic hasn’t changed the way Essaf makes his art. However, he explained that he has been painting a lot more nature recently, mostly because he misses it.“I think painting and drawing or doing any kind of art, even, you know, photography, taking pictures of the same plants all the time like, it is something, and I think it's allowing us to kind of still escape this stuck at home type of feeling.”
Essaf primarily uses Instagram to market his art: @josephessaf

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A Self Portrait of Joseph Essaf, painted by Essaf. 

See Some of Essaf's Art Below

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    By Joseph Essaf

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    By Joseph Essaf

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    By Joseph Essaf

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    By Joseph Essaf

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    By Joseph Essaf

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    By Joseph Essaf

Writing Poetry

Poetry is an outlet for many people to respond to trials and tribulations. This poet writes about the now, and the movement we’re currently in from the point of view of himself and his community.

René Juarez-Vazquez talks Poetry During Lockdown

 May 22nd 2020

Juarez-Vazquez also co-hosts Voz Sin Tinta, a multilingual reading event housed at Alley Cat Books that celebrated its 7-year anniversary in March. Because of the shelter-in-place order, Alley Cat had to shutter and Voz Sin Tinta went online.

Juarez-Vazquez explains that this shift to an online space for open mics hasn’t been all negative.“There has been a transition to the online model you know and it's ultimately for our survival but also to build community.” Juarez-Vazquez said in a Zoom interview.

He explained that the online poetry nights have continued to attract regulars, but also people from across the country, stating that someone from the East Coast joined recently. The Zoom poetry shows have attracted more people than in person because of the versatility that going online presents.

“When I look at my poetry, pretty much everything is part of my community, is part of my circle, so if anything, my poetry is an extension of my experience.” - René Juarez-Vazquez

“Even though this has been a shift on to the online realm, it begins to ask questions of availability and accessibility, because now we can have sort of poetry shows or pretty much just anything on the go with Zoom sessions.” Juarez-Vazquez said.
More information about Voz Sin Tinta can be found on their website here.
Read one of Juarez-Vazquez published works here.

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René Juarez-Vazquez

Photo Courtesy of Voz Sin Tinta
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René Juarez-Vazquez

Photo Courtesy of Voz Sin Tinta

The Student Artist

Noah Cortez is a San Francisco State University student majoring in Studio Art. As someone who normally makes his art projects on campus studios, his studies and artmaking were affected since the moment school went online. He has found ways to adapt to the situation and has continued to make art from home.

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Since the dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic, people of all sorts have been affected. Noah Cortez represents every student who has transitioned from on-campus instruction to completely remote education. In his major, much of his work is normally done on campus; therefore, he needed to find a way to continue making art from wherever he called home at the time.

Originally from Rancho Cucamonga in South California, Cortez moved to San Francisco in for the Fall 2020 semester at SFSU and has stayed in the city since then. "Everyone has been affected by Covid-19, but each person is met with different difficulties. For me it has been living in smaller living quarters being away from the people I care about", said Cortez. 

In one of Cortez's latest assignments, he decided to draw something that held significance to him during the shelter-in-place. "The work that I created recently is conceptualized through memory and experiences inside my sister's studio space", he said. He also described the space as "a space that was shared with four beings: my sister, her fiancé, her dog and I." Cortez drew three coffee mugs and a dog bowl into his art to represent the people and dog he shared the space with.
Cortez described his art piece further: "In the end, although this room holds sentimental value to me, I'm hoping the abstract nature of the room would allow others to make objects they reside with and explore the space, especially in times where people's schedules can be a bit more stale."

He transitioned to remote education in studio art, and that meant that he needed to continue making art assignments wherever he was and with whatever he had. Cortez has reused materials from previous art projects for his most recent assignments. He has also used his living space to his advantage instead of being incarcerated by the four walls of his room.
"[M]onths in tight living quarters can get tough so I wanted to expand the spacing. This piece is not only an expansion of space literally, as [I placed] the papers on the wall, but [also] metaforically an expansion of memories onto paper," said Cortez. 
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Malakai Wade
Executive Producer
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Samantha Laurey
Executive Producer
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Andrés Velásquez
Executive Producer