Friday, August 3, 2007: Mokarrameh's Workshop

Ali, Morteza, and I arrived at Mokarrameh's house at 7 AM. There was a line of students waiting as we arrived; young boys and girls who were eagerly sitting on the chairs. We walked into the main courtyard in front of the house and started setting up the supplies on different tables: signing in, getting a number, and two sheets of paper, supervised by Aida at the first table; brushes, mixing trays, sponges, pencils, erasers, sharpeners, and oil pastels for those who wanted them at the second table, supervised by Saa'ed, Monireh's 23 year old son; paint containers with each color, at the third station and supervised by one of Ali's older brothers, Mohammad; and finally, the fourth station where I filled up the water containers using the garden hose and lined up next to the flower bed on the floor. We also had a table set up for return of paintings and writing of them. We had designated a few of the older grandchildren to write about the paintings as the students explained them. These we stuck to the back of the paintings and then took a picture of the student holding his/her work. The older students wrote about their work themselves.

In the outer courtyard, the older grandchildren and some of Ali's brothers were setting up the tables and chairs. When we were done with the set up, Ali told the students how to proceed with the supplies.

When the fist group had picked up their supplies and placed them on their tables, I gathered them around one station and did a color mixing demonstration. I used the dialogue method of questioning and using their responses to move on to the next step of the demonstration and it was so strange doing this in Persian! I'm so used to doing it in English, but yet, it came naturally. I made sure not to use any English words, except at one single time, when the word: "Okay?" slipped out and the kids responded: "Okkeeey". I couldn't help smile at this, but from then on, I used the word: "Baasheh?" instead. I asked the students, who varied in age from 3 to 14 to use their first paper to mix a variety of colors. I showed them what the sponge was to be used for, the mixing tray, and so on. I then engaged them in a dialogue with "things they do during the day" and suggested that they paint a picture of something they do during the day for their second painting. Not many followed my suggestion and painted what they wanted. Since groups of people arrived randomly, I had to give out all information and directions at once and quickly, at different times. The morning was full and busy. It went on till noon, when we closed for lunch and a break.

We had lunch at the house of one of Ali's brothers (he has five brothers and three sisters) who lives in the village of Darikandeh. His wife had prepared a lovely meal for us and as required by tradition, we sat on the floor to eat our meal which was spread out on a "sofreh" on the floor. Tea and dates followed and then the men moved to another room while we women stayed in the cooler room and everyone took a much needed siesta. At two thirty, we woke up and prepared to go back. The phone rang and one of the newspaper agencies from Tehran interviewed me. As I hung up, the phone rang again, this time it was Monierh, Ali's sister, calling us to tell us that a group of students were waiting and a group from the morning had not even left: they had brought their lunch and stayed on. We headed back and were greeted by the same students from the morning plus a new group. I think we had over one hundred students who varied in age from 2 to 60. As in the morning, I did a demonstration and suggested the theme, and again, people did what they wanted to. There was much excitement. During the day, I took two groups in front of Mokarrameh's painting in her house and asked the students to take a few moments to look at the work of art and then tell me about it. The kids were very eager to say what was on their mind. We had a good hour in front of one of her large paintings. When I took the second group in the afternoon, a whole bunch of parents followed and suddenly all the cameras were going off!

We ended at 7 PM. By this time, many of the students had painted three pictures. Some had stayed for the morning, some came in the afternoon, and a good amount stayed the entire day. We had people who came from the local villages, the nearby towns, and we also had a few from Tehran. A group of professional artists who had started an organization devoted to fine art came by to see what was going on, and they too, started painting. We also had a visitor from Greece and one from Germany!

Later on, when the students had left, we started cleaning up. The tables were cleaned and folded, the chairs washed and stacked, the van picked these up and delivered them back to the rental place, and the entire clan of Mokarrameh's children (almost all nine) and grandchildren (I lost count) helped clean up. We returned back to Monireh's house around 9 PM, had dinner, and looked at some of the work. Ali and I decided to take the bus back at midnight, since Morteza and his wife had left earlier. Mom, Aida, Ali, and I packed our stuff. Then Ali and I wrapped the artwork up and Saa'ed took us to the bus terminal. We were able to catch the 11 PM bus and arrived at 4 AM Saturday morning in Tehran.