Bensonhurst Senior Center Blog 6 3/24/22 Flowers & Family Tree

 

Bensonhurst Senior Center

Blog  6  3/24/22

Flowers & Family Tree

On this rainy day there is no better way to start our class than with a physical warm up. As we will be investigating the work of Japanese artist Takashi Murakami who uses repetitive motifs, I had the students make body patterns by first following my lead. I made circular movements with my arms and body which culminated in a frozen pose resembling a leaf. Each student was spotlighted while they led the class in their own movement pattern.

Our students created magnificent family trees which they decorated with their photo ornaments. Each chose 1 or 2 ornaments and shared the story of the photo with the class. The predominant theme was honoring their parents and we heard heartwarming stories of love and devotion and the hardships and deprivations endured during the Cultural Revolution. So Sim shared a black and white photo of her mother and father taken in 1960 when they met again in Hong Kong, being unable to meet in China due to the Cultural Revolution. Soon after they were married, he moved to New York, so this was a joyful reunion. However, So Sim, never met her father until she was 52 and he 80 and then they only had 3 years together before his death. The photo Stella chose to place on the ornament is particularly precious because this was one of the few photos taken during the Cultural Revolution due to lack of money and her mother having to care for their large family of 8 children, while her husband worked. 

Jing Wei shared a black and white photo of her 4 sisters taken in 1967 when they reunited after being separated for many years. The color photo on the second ornament was taken in 1995 and shows her 2 brothers and 4 sisters all together. It is a particularly poignant reminder as her eldest brother died not long after. Pun shared a photo of her beautiful mother and on the other ornament there was a family photo. Her mother was widowed at 32 and was left with 7 kids to raise on her own. Pun is grateful to her eldest sister who took on many of the motherly duties. Pun told us of her last memory of her Dad when she visited him in hospital and the last thing he gave her, an apple. 

Ru Ping’s ornament displays her parent’s white wedding photo and on the other side she placed a color photo of their 50th anniversary. Her parents were doctors and had many things taken by the authorities during the Cultural Revolution, the wedding photo was one of the few items returned. Susanna chose to display her brother’s wedding photo, which includes the whole family. She shared that her sister-in-law wanted to stay in the USA to continue her studies so Susanna’s brother agreed to marry her. They are still together! Sadly 2 years after the photo was taken her father passed away. 

Hui Fen selected a photo of her, and her husband all dressed up to apply for their visa to come to the USA. They had to return to the Visa office 4 times before they were granted the visa. The second ornament displayed a color photo of the family with her 2 children and mother, who visited the US in 1992 and stayed for 6 months. She returned to China as life was too difficult for her here with both Hui Fen and her husband working. Sook Fong also shared a visa photo of her family including her 2 children taken in 1972. Her daughter was 19 and her son was 17, they are both retired now! Another ornament with a color photo showed her and her husband on a trip to Canada. Lao Yu chose to share the ornament which had a black and white photo of her grandparents, father, and uncle. She shared the story of how her father was taken by the Communists in 1957 and how her mother had to work as a teacher from age 13 to support her bankrupt parents. 

All our seniors’ stories were so touching, and we feel so privileged and honored that they shared them with us. 

Another popular contemporary artist who uses repetition in their art is Takashi Murakami. He is a fine artist working in paints and sculpture as well as commercial, in fashion and merchandising. He coined the term “superflat”, which describes the aesthetic traditions of Japanese traditional art and the type of art produced postwar. His work is colorful and fun, and he uses the recurring motif of flowers. We screen-shared many examples of his work and invited our students to comment on what they saw and how it made them feel. We will use his influence as inspiration for flower pattern drawings next class, but for the time left we made paper flowers. 

Using colored paper, we cut squares of 2.5” and folded and then cut them revealing a flower shape when opened. Next, a different number of petals were cut from each flower and after curling the petals with the edge of the scissors, we used Elmer’s glue to attach one petal to the next creating a decreasing size of flowers. The hot glue gun was introduced, and seniors carefully glued the petals inside each other to create a multi-layered beautiful flower. Hui Fen went one step further and attached a stem! This process involved some relatively complex steps in folding a cutting and we extended the class 10 minutes to make sure everyone got it. What a great group of students we have!