April 10, 2018 | UHCL Staff
For the 40th anniversary of the Art School for Children at University of Houston-Clear Lake, Director David Moya was looking for a special way to celebrate when he happened to have a conversation with Maria Curtis, associate professor of anthropology. As they say, there is no such thing as a coincidence.
“Dr. Curtis said she was taking a group of students on a study trip to Oman last January, where some prehistoric cave art had been discovered. Arrangements could be made to have reproductions, including photos and prints of the cave art, brought to UH-Clear Lake and exhibited,” Moya said. “I am always trying to work collaboratively with our faculty on Art School programs, and this was such a great exhibition. So, after Dr. Curtis collected a lot of books about prehistoric cave art from that region and brought them to me, I was able to develop a curriculum for our young students to use this summer.”
The curriculum that students will be studying reflects the storytelling aspects of the pictograms that are part of the 35-piece collection. “The images in the exhibition represent a larger narrative,” Moya said. “Those ancient people’s lives are catalogued on these rocks. One perspective we’re covering in the curriculum is storytelling about our own lives and the way we live.”
There’s a second, more ambitious undertaking in Moya’s curriculum. “We’re planning to do a community-based art project,” he said. “I’m making a faux cave wall and we’ll have students create their own personal imagery to draw on it. First, we’ll visit the exhibition in the Arbor Building, and then based on what they learned and observed, they’ll recreate a small version of what they’re are doing on the wall. It’ll be our own UHCL cave art, and I’d like to display it permanently as a cultural exemplar for kids and college students.”
The eight-lesson curriculum covers everything from the animals depicted in the cave art, to the sea vessels in which people sailed the world. “All the lessons tie in with the exhibition, and we’re focusing on all the Gulf States, not just Oman,” Moya said. “The message is that culture is fluid and instead of highlighting the differences, we’re learning about our similarities.”
On April 16, a group of children will demonstrate a lesson in printmaking to Her Excellency, Hunaina Sultan Al Mughairy, the Ambassador of the Sultanate of Oman to the U.S., as she visits UHCL to view the exhibition and visit the Art School for Children.
“Since the Ambassador can’t be here in the summer, we’ve invited a group of homeschooled kids to be here and we will show her the printmaking lesson,” Moya said. “The kids will demonstrate their printmaking techniques with imagery inspired by the cave art and make postage stamps.”
Stamps are symbolic for traveling, said Moya, and the kids plan to make a print to share with Ambassador Al Mughairy to take as a remembrance of her time with the Art School for Children. “We want the kids to think about traveling the world in their minds,” he said.
Moya’s cave art curriculum will be sent to the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center in Washington D.C. One of the primary objectives of the SQCC, which is closely affiliated with the Embassy of Oman, is to provide cultural outreach and education programs.
For more information or to register for Art School for Children, visit https://apps.uhcl.edu/Ecommerce/Schedule/AS.
