Students base art on Harlem Renaissance

To celebrate the artists who redefined African-American expression in the 1920s and '30s, students at Bluffton High School recreated the work of pioneers from the Harlem Renaissance.

Parris Larrain, a new art instructor at the high school, said she chose to focus her classes on the cultural movement to honor Black History Month and expose her students to a time period many had not heard of before. The work is on display in the arts wing at the school.

"I'm not someone who's just going to come in and teach drawing or painting skills. I like to work around a theme, because I want them to learn something in the process," Larrain said. "I wanted them to see some of the art that came out of that time and understand what inspired it."

In addition to studying the work of artists who were at the core of the Harlem Renaissance -- Romare Bearden, Aaron Douglas and Lois Mailou Jones, among others -- students also had to choose a poem by Langston Hughes to provide them with an idea of the spirit surrounding the movement.

As part of what Larrain described as an "infusion" lesson, they learned how to do The Big Apple and the Swing, popular dances from that time period.

"We wanted to show them how similar art and dance are, because they're both nonverbal," Larrain said of her joint teaching effort with artist-in-residence Caroline Hoadley, who taught the performing arts aspect of the unit.

For their final project, students had to choose a picture portraying either the culture or lifestyle of the Harlem Renaissance, a copy of a famous artist's visual artwork or a picture of dancers and then create a collage or painting of their chosen subject. The results, Larrain said, were as diverse as the work born out of the original movement.

"The students have put their hearts into both the research and the art from the Harlem Renaissance," she said. "We truly have something to show for our efforts that I am proud of."