Williannie Baez

Seminar: Community Violence

Studio: Visual Art

Artist Statement

When I visited the Louis D. Brown Institute, they reflected on what they do as an organization and how they help their community
to overcome the violence that has affected them. The staff at the institute talked about their difficult experiences and what motivated them
to join this organization. They want to help others overcome the violence they have recently experienced and they take their time with
their clients. When their clients come to visit sometimes they can’t get their expression of how they feel by just explaining their feelings
in words, so they pick up a mini sculpture and put it in a sandbox. This let’s the mentors realize how the clients feel and what happened
without any words. Talia Rivera is a woman who visited our school and spoke about her organization that helps others with community
violence and gang affiliation. Talia spoke about how to get the patient to feel safe, so they know they can actually overcome this and that
they have someone to talk to. She mentioned that consistency is key. You have to keep showing up and offering to help. This let’s the
patient know how dedicated you are to actually help and it shows how much you care, this builds trust. Once the police department
officers arrived (including Brenda) they spoke about how community violence can start young, especially when they don’t know how to
express themselves so they get mad. This madness builds up over time, thus creating this sort of violence that they can’t contain anymore.
The story that stays with me in the story about how community violence usually starts when you’re young because me being a young
student, i’ve witnessed a few students take out their anger in various ways.
I never imagined how violence affects certain people, especially the family that the violence has impacted. The message, learning,
or action I wish to express through my art is how community violence is affecting, what is the most common violence, how it affects
others, and how or what they do to overcome it. I want to make sure to include the full picture. I want to make sure to add what is was
that made this family feel the way they do and what they do to make sure that they can grow from that. It’s obviously a traumatic
experience, so I want to absolutely include the Louis D Brown Institute behind or on the side of where the violence took place. I learned a
lot about how affective violence is because it can attract more violence since people might want to get “revenge” resulting in more chaos.
My chosen medium is visual art and I will be drawing. The overview key aspects of my work is definitely color, layout, and I want
a realistic view of what i'm trying to achieve. I want my work to show what my point is and what i'm trying to get across. I want my work
to have specific color to match the violent theme and colors that resemble hope, forgiveness, thoughtfulness, and most importantly colors
of recoverment. I want it to be shown as a way to let the viewers know that this is serious, and that people are strongly affected by
community violence.
My initial vision for my piece was to include the Louis D. Brown institute and there would be violence happening next to it, with
people entering the institute. My vision did change throughout the process because I wanted to make it powerful. I wanted to create
something that you actually had to put thought about what is happening and what did the creator want this artwork to symbolies. I wanted
my art to show my understanding of what I learned. I learned violence starts at a young age, so I wanted to incorporate
that into my work. My learning in seminar influenced my piece because I didn't know much about community violence, so I didn't image
what I would create if I didn't know anything about the violence and how different organizations try to help the victims of the violence.
The art form is art and the media I used for my project is painting. What made me choose this art form is how much I liked
painting in general and how satisfying it is to mix, paint, and draw on the canvas to later reveal an art piece created by me. Some of the
artistic and creative decisions i’ve made during the process of my work is instead of cutting out the two people in my work, I decided to
draw them, so that it would look professional and clean. Also I wanted to work on my drawing and I liked to have control over how big
the legs are or how round the head should and would be.
What I learned about myself as an artist and as an activist through completing this project is that I can create an art piece
resembling an important subject that is affecting many people all over the world. I can also finish a huge task when I put my mind to my
work. I have challenged myself in many ways such as drawing since I don't know how to draw. This was a challenge because I don't
know how to draw, so it took some practice in order for me to complete my art piece. I have demonstrated perseverance because I worked
through my challenges to proceed in completing my art piece.