Art at the Astrodome

 Rachelle is an art teacher in Philadelphia and recently made a trip to the 
 Astrodome to set up an impromptu art area for the evacuated 
 children. She wrote an essay and has photos and video of the 
 activities. Rachelle plans on making a book with the art work.

 Art at the Astrodome
 By Rachelle A. Omenson
 September 6, 2005

 10,000 people, one stadium, and nothing to do. I have a hard time 
 waiting between commercials for a television show to come back on. 
 It seemed unimaginable that these patient people might have to wait 
 months, god forbid years, to regain some structure in their lives. 
 Of course, after wading in contaminated water or clinging 
 helplessly to your roof shingles, boredom and rest are welcome 
 respites.

 However, children bounce back quicker than some adults. Or at least 
 they may not realize the depth of the disaster that they have just 
 survived until they are much older and those shadowed images creep 
 back into consciousness. It was the children who ran giggling and 
 racing up and down the aisles of cots at the Reliant Astrodome in 
 Houston, yelling back to their mothers and fathers, “I’m right 
 here!” Their energy seemed boundless even in the face of tragedy. 
 If there were no images to go with these jubilant yells, it might 
 be another birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese or McDonald’s 
 Playland. At those venues, however, the kids are whisked back into 
 the minivans stuffed with too much pizza and sugar.  Here amid 
 relief workers, chronically ill elders, hundreds of police, and 
 exhausted parents, the children only have their nylon cots to go 
 back to.  And that gets boring.

 I wondered on the Friday night after Katrina hit New Orleans, what 
 people could possibly do to help those in need since donations were 
 no longer needed. Literally, tons of food, water, and clothing had 
 been donated and were being sorted through on the loading dock 
 behind the Reliant Center in Houston, Texas. Hundreds of volunteers 
 were continually needed around the clock but I didn’t know 
 specifically what I could possibly do.

 6am Saturday morning, I decided not to wonder anymore. There was no 
 plan to this plan because if the fuzzy logic of it didn’t work, I 
 was out hundreds of dollars and a whole lot of wasted Labor Day 
 weekend.

 Let me back up for a second. For two years, I have been enrolled as 
 a graduate student in an Art Education program in Philadelphia. For 
 two years, I have heard the mantra of world-based art, art 
 criticism, art history, and the ever-popular art production. Art 
 therapy is an entirely different field; one that requires extensive 
 psychology-based training. I apologize now to the true 
 practitioners in that field because I temporarily faked being one 
 of you. But I swear it was worth it.

 I took the first flight to Houston on Saturday afternoon and rented 
 a car. The rental car agent gave me directions to the Astrodome and 
 I flew down the Texas highways toward the stadium. After being 
 hustled around to the correct door of the Reliant Center, where the 
 volunteers apply (apparently the west door), I hurried up the 
 escalator toting a carry-on size piece of luggage containing dollar-
 store versions of sketchpads, crayons, markers, and stickers. The 
 volunteers giving out the volunteer wristbands slapped a peach 
 colored plastic band on my wrist and sent me off. I was supposed to 
 sit through a short orientation lecture but I was only going to be 
 there for 2 days and I didn’t want to waste time before being 
 allowed into the Astrodome. I crossed the street and confidently 
 told the guard at the gate that I was the volunteer art therapist. 
 Clearly this sounded logical because she yelled over to the other 
 gatekeeper, “Open that gate over there, the art therapist is here.” 
 Okay, that actually worked.

 I walked through and just looked down. It didn’t even look like 
 people, just a slightly moving carpet of rectangles. I was slightly 
 concerned that I would be caught as some art fraud so I quickly 
 moved away from the guards but realized that everyone involved in 
 this drama was happy to have anything positive happening at all.  
 And how can art not be positive.

 I wandered through the darker concourses where typically during an 
 event at the Astrodome people would be buying popcorn, hotdogs, and 
 beverages. But now, cots lined the walls, crowded by precious 
 possessions and newly acquired relief items like clothes and shoes. 
 It was darker up here in the concourse, not like the eternal 
 daytime of the floor of the stadium. Even at 11pm, when the lights 
 dim, it’s not really dark.

 “Hello, I’m the wandering art teacher. Does anyone want to draw?” I 
 said to the first awake group of kids I saw lounging on the cots up 
 there. Surprisingly, they ran over to a nearby table laden with 
 packaged snack food, and slid them aside as I removed boxes of 
 crayons and markers from my vest and sketch pads and construction 
 paper from the wheeled luggage. They never asked why I was there. 
 They never said they were too tired to draw anything. They never 
 looked suspiciously at me for one minute. They only asked if I also 
 had any clay. In a fluorescently lit, dirty concourse in section 
 432, we set up art class. They called me teacher and raised their 
 hands when I asked them questions. They signed all of their artwork 
 and volunteered endless information about their experiences in New 
 Orleans. I asked them to draw whatever they wanted and not 
 surprisingly most of them drew houses, specifically houses 
 surrounded by water. A fifteen-year-old girl, Sjor’Monique 
 W, drew a sign of sorts. In different colored bubble 
 letters, it says From our New Orleans home to the Astrodome…Because 
 of Hurricane Katrina.  And it has the official hurricane symbol 
 underneath. The back is signed with her name, age, and refugee of 
 New Orleans, La. A few of the others drew before and after images 
 of their homes. The after images not only contained swirling water 
 marks but also mean-looking sharks and snakes and suns with sad 
 faces. Apparently, there was a rampant rumor that the aquarium in 
 New Orleans was going to burst and man-eating animals were suddenly 
 going to be freed and swimming into their homes and streets.

 When it became too late that first evening and I didn’t want to 
 bother sleeping residents, I went back to the hotel across the 
 street and sat momentarily shocked at what I felt. In three more 
 days, I was scheduled to begin student teaching at an elementary 
 school in Pennsylvania. How on earth am I in Texas?

 The next morning, I stopped at Target to get the requested clay and 
 with my wristband wandered straight through those gates and down 
 onto the stadium floor. This time I carried with me a neon pink 
 piece of poster board and wrote “The Art Room” on it, duct-taped it 
 to the suitcase handle, and spread the supplies onto a large open 
 space on the floor. Virtually seconds later, some children were 
 standing there with gigantic eyes wanting to touch everything. But 
 they didn’t. They asked first. Just like in school. And again, they 
 called me teacher. They drew houses again, But they drew spiderman 
 too. And the real little kids drew swirly stuff that could’ve been 
 water, but it could have been their mom. It didn’t really matter. 
 They molded clay into crosses, into balls, and into snake shapes. 
 And they did one thing that is rare even in the most well stocked 
 art room. They cleaned up. It was like they needed structure in a 
 sea of chaos. A 15 year old boy, Alferd, took 3 more cots and 
 arranged them in a u-shape in front of the piece of luggage with 
 the sign and created a squared off area for creating art. Another 
 10 year old girl, grabbed a broom and started sweeping when the 
 crayons got out of control within the square. I picked up my video 
 camera and recorded a 9-year old girl saying, “I’m Sh’anta, I’m in 
 art class and I like it.”

 For the rest of Sunday afternoon, we all stayed in and around the 
 square in the center of the Astrodome. A choir showed up to stand 
 in the bleachers and sing for two hours. In our square, there were 
 colors, there was music, there were imaginary houses, and there was 
 a teacher here. So it was ok. For Sunday afternoon.

 Rachelle Omenson

See images of student work.

This page is just a start to show efforts art teachers are doing to help victims of Katrina. Send in your stories (contact information on home page)

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