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START
MLK Middle School, on campus art installation, the culminating art project from
The Art of the Word 
Classroom 106, 6th-grade students, Ms. Hemminger
Teaching Artists Ana Teresa Fernandez, Leticia Hernandez
In the Spring of 2019, 106, 6th grade MLK students created this sculpture during a writing and art workshop as part of the YBCA Artist Residency in Ms. Hemminger’s English classes. Drawing inspiration from indigenous languages and practices (Aztec, Kuna, Haudenosvaunee) students explored their identity and their relationship to the natural world. Led by teaching artists Leticia Hernandez and Ana Teresa Fernandez, students explored writing, wrote poems and learned to mix paint. Every student learned to mix paint by only using the 5 primary colors to achieve their skin tone; understanding we come from the same exact palette no matter how light or dark. The word START was selected, and made up of woodblock; each woodblock is painted with a custom skin tone color created by each student.