Through the Schoolhouse Door: Folklore, Community, Currriculum

4. Art at the Threshold Folk Artists in an Urban Classroom

99 4 Art at the Threshold Folk Artists in an Urban Classroom Amanda Dargan1 Sitting on the floor beside pots of rice flour and brightly colored powders, Madhulika Khandelwal takes a pinch and slowly releases it between her fingers, drawing a fine curved line. Starting with a simple flower shape, she builds outwardly in concentric circles of ornamentation until the flower blossoms into an intricate design of stems, leaves, and petals. This traditional art, called rangoli in regions of India, is practiced solely by women. Khandelwal learned to draw rangoli from the women in her family. She describes how many women—both in India and the United States—draw rangoli at the entry to their homes, sweeping the designs away each morning and then creating them anew. Often drawn at the boundary of sacred and secular space, rangoli designs mark both physical and ritual thresholds—at the main entry to the home or temple, in front of a home altar, and at a wedding, birthday, or namkaran, the Hindu naming ceremony held soon after a child is born. Festivals, such as Diwali, call for more elaborate and colorful designs. During these festivals , families go from house to house to view the designs. Khandelwal recalls that in the evening, the rice-flour designs shimmered in the moonlight on the stones of her family’s courtyard. On this day, however, Khandelwal draws rangoli on the floor of a fourthgrade classroom at Public School 11 in Woodside, Queens, New York City. She has been invited to demonstrate her art by George Zavala, a visual artist Amanda Dargan is the education director of City Lore, a nonprofit organization located in New York City and dedicated to fostering the city’s living cultural heritage. Through the Schoolhouse Door 100 who will be working with these students in an artist-in-residence program over the next fourteen weeks. A student born in Bangladesh and another from Pakistan raise their hands and describe similar traditions in their countries . Khandelwal responds that this art form is found throughout southern Asia, where it is known by different names. She writes some of the names on the board: alpana in Bengal, kolam in parts of southern India, mandana in Rajasthan, aripana in Bihar, muggu in Andhra Pradesh, and chowk in Delhi. Like many folk-art traditions, the designs, materials, and techniques differ from region to region, but their purpose is similar: to adorn, protect, and welcome guests and deities to a place. Embedded in daily life, folk arts and the artists who create them can be a rich resource for teaching and learning in school settings. The experience of working with artists like Madhulika Khandelhal helps students make connections between what they learn in school and at home, between the arts and traditions of their families and communities and those of other communities and cultures. Traditional arts like rangoli offer ways to look Madhulika Khandelwal demonstrates the Indian art of rangoli. Photo by Amanda Dargan, courtesy of City Lore. Art at the Threshold 101 at practices that are both universal and particular to a cultural group. Even those students unfamiliar with the south Asian art of rangoli can connect to the universal practice of decorating and protecting the entrance to the home, as well as marking rites of passage, such as birthdays, baby-naming ceremonies, and weddings. Christmas wreaths, Jewish mezuzahs, Chinese red-paper envelopes, evil-eye charms, horseshoes, garlic braids placed on doorways during Greek Easter, even doormats are among the customs throughout the world to protect the home or observe a religious holiday or belief. Working together to investigate these threshold arts and customs, students begin to make personal connections and notice cross-cultural similarities and differences, both important for navigating successfully in an increasingly diverse society. This chapter draws on my work as a folklorist directing K–12 artseducation programs at City Lore and other nonprofit organizations over the past thirty years and the evolution of my thinking about what folk arts and the field of folklore can contribute to teaching and learning in school and community settings. It describes different models that folklorists have used to bring folk artists into classrooms as guests or teaching artists and highlights the models and practices that inform my current work. These include 1) professional-development tools and strategies to prepare folk artists for school visits; 2) folk-arts residencies that explore not only the art skills and...