Maya McFadden Photo
Sixth grader Mahki in Platt's art class.
A “House of Video Games” took shape line by line beneath sixth-grader Mahki’s pen — as Edgewood School students brought Detroit’s fabled Heidelberg Project into their New Haven classroom.
In the process, the students discovered how public art can transform blighted homes into objects bursting with color, life, and beauty, and they continued their monthlong celebration of contemporary Black artists and changemakers.
Edgewood students like Mahki learned about Tyree Guyton’s Motor City public art, and then created their own Guyton-inspired designs, during a recent hands-on class taught by Edgewood art teacher Deborah Platt.
On a recent Wednesday, Platt focused her students’ creative attentions on Guyton’s Heidelberg Project — an outdoor art exhibit that Guyton created out of the abandoned homes on the Detroit block where he grew up.
“Do you think art can be made to bring attention to city blight?” Platt asked the class.
Students responded with nodding heads.
Platt gave each of the eighth-graders a cardboard cutout of a house that, after designing, could be folded into a 3D model. Platt walked the students through cutting, gluing, and adding color to the houses’ windows and doors. The students used markers and chalk pastels to decorate the homes.
Deborah Platt shows seventh grade class example of 2D house.
Platt’s two Wednesday morning classes are “choice classes” for seventh and eighth graders. Mahki joined Platt’s seventh-grade class as his fellow sixth graders went on a field trip.
Each week, Platt and other Edgewood educators organize extracurricular courses for the students to choose to attend based on their interest. This past Wednesday, while Platt taught art to a dozen students, the other seventh- and eighth-graders took a martial arts class with Judo instructor Robert Moore.
The choice classes are among several school initiatives introduced this year to provide Edgewood students with more extracurricular freedom and the ability to seek out or develop new interests. (Click here to read more.)
Seventh graders in art class Wednesday.
Platt began each of her classes last Wednesday by introducing Tyree Guyton and his work to the students. The eighth-grade class, which started at 8:45 a.m., watched YouTube videos about Guyton and the popular The Heidelberg Project, an outdoor art exhibit known for pieces like its House of Soul.
“His art was made to bring attention to city blight,” Platt explained to her classes.
Eighth-grader Yajaira's sky house.
Platt created the Guyton project using recycled materials like cardboard from donated science kits and up-cycled pieces of wooden window shades.
Eighth-grader Yajaira picked a pastel blue chalk from a colorful pack to begin adding color to the doors and windows of her “sky house,” which she described as defying gravity and floating amongst the clouds.
Her classmate Kareena used thin pieces of wood as a trim for her home’s front door and five windows before adding color.
At another table a trio of eighth graders, Helena, Rex, and Reann, worked on their 3D Heidelberg-inspired homes.
Eighth-graders Reann, Helena, and Rex.
Using an orange marker and ruler Helena transformed her blank house cutout into an orange home decorated with horizontal lines. “I’m going for a red, yellow, and orange theme because they look good together,” she said.
“I don’t think I’m really going for anything,” Rex said. “Whatever happens, happens.”
The students added that the Wednesday class was the first they had heard of Guyton and his art.
Around 9:30 a.m. a small group of seventh-graders filed into Platt’s classroom with tables prepared with rulers, scissors, glue, and cardboard.
The seventh grade class did a similar project on Guyton, but without the complexities of transforming their homes into 3D models.
After watching introductory videos Platt asked the class what they thought of Guyton’s work. Students’ responses ranged from “creepy” to “colorful.”
“Does he use trash?” asked seventh-grader Derrick.
“I’d say ‘recycled material,’ ” Platt responded.
Mahki works on his "House of Video Games."
The seventh-grade class made 2D cardboard houses of their own style. They decided on the color of their home, style of the roof, and sizes of the windows and doors.
“Today we’re going to be architects,” Platt said.
Students came up with plans to decorate their homes with butterflies, ears, and video games.
Seventh graders take art break to dance to Motown.
In between crafting, some students danced along to the Motown tunes Platt played throughout the lesson.
Seventh-grader Eleanor looked at her blank blue canvas and imagined something “bright, loud, and noticeable” she said. “It’s got to have teal and pink in it.”
Seventh grader Derrick works on house of moons and butterflies.
Derrick grabbed a red marker to shade in his front door and finished it off with a black crescent moon.
“I’m making a blue house with a red door because that’s how houses are in this neighborhood,” he said. “But mine will have moons and butterflies.”
Platt has shifted her classroom lessons to be more artist- and culture-based as a result of having to get creative during the height of the Covid pandemic. Over the past three years, she has been teaching specific artist styles for students to recreate.
“Covid changed the way I teach,” she said.
The artist-based lessons allow for Platt and the students to learn about new artists. “Now I have more fun thinking about the lesson plan. It’s really limitless,” she said.
Platt has hosted student art exhibits at Edgewood Avenue’s BLOOM community center and shop in the past.
So far she’s done art-based projects with her students focused on learning Mexican folk art styles, Hispanic artists, and art for the Chinese New Year.
During Black History Month, Platt has focused on introducing her students to artist like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Faith Ringgold, Romare Bearden, and Mose Tolliver.
Next month Platt plans to do lessons about women artists for Women’s History Month.
Mose Tolliver bulletin board in foyer hall.
Throughout her thematic lessons, Platt said she has not only been able to introduce her students to new artists but also inspirational figures who often used art as a therapeutic outlet.
“I want to show these kids that when bad bad things happen to you, you can rise above it,” Platt said. “They don’t have to stay in their trauma.”
“They can find new inspirations. They should know that the most expensive work in America was painted by Basquiat, who looks like them,” she said.
More Black artist projects made by Platt's students.
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