PROJECT PROPOSAL
PROJECT PROPOSAL:
I visited Brussels during my short trip abroad last summer, and found myself standing in a comic book store filled with books I had never previously had access to. The authors ranged from French, to Flemish, American, German, Japanese, and Italian. All translated into French. Obviously, they understand that the ideas of authors who are non-French speaking are still important. Important enough to translate into something that they could read. This already surpasses the American comic book industry (which generally only translates Japanese comic books).
In my free time I will do my best to learn French so that I can fully understand the differences and similarities between American and Belgian comic books. To fully do this I must not only learn the language completely, but must explore the culture to understand the inside jokes contained in every illustrated story. The interactions with Belgian children being just as important to my learning as sitting in my room reading, exploring ,and researching my favorite art form.
Through teaching English in Belgium , I hope to find a new way to communicate with the global roots of human creativity. If Art is everywhere on Earth, then is language not simply a way to talk about this global idea on a more personal and local level? To give children more than one way to communicate, I believe we will give them the tools to more clearly separate their ideas from what they are saying about their ideas. Only when I began to investigate the Francophone language in my travels abroad did I understand fully that my art existed separately from the words I used to label it. Were the things I tried to create singularly American? Or did they need to be expressed in English? No. When in Belgium, I found art sources that spoke clearly to me in French, even though I could not completely understand them. To discover this at 21 was a gift, and in return I want to give it to a generation even younger.
I have always gotten along well with children. Being born an only child, my cousins Ansley (9) and Wilson (12) serve as my surrogate brother and sister. We have drawing lessons whenever I see them. We draw pigs on motorcycles, angry storm clouds, and silly dressed-up ghosts. And in expressing and creating with them, I understand more fully the potency of my own need be a small part of the community experience of raising children. One of my favorite things besides drawing lessons is to tutor my cousins with their math homework. I find it completely amazing to find the basic concepts I've known for years slowly forming in their minds. I’m sure it would be an empathetic experience for the Belgian children to watch me learning something that they have known for their entire lives.
Helping a child work through a problem or opening a new idea fills me with a sort of pride that eclipses anything I feel from my own artwork. Isn't that in itself beautiful? It itself is art. And in trying to teach a child something so step-by-step as drawing a pig, I discover the depths of their inherent imagination. Imagination is fuel of my own life’s work. Who better to foster my blossoming career with than the sources of the most elegant imagination?
Hopefully not only will learning English encourage children to interact with their imaginations, but it will also encourage them to learn the other languages that are spoken in their own country. Surely, these children live in communities which speak one or the other. Hopefully to show them the great importance of multi-lingualism as well as the universality of ideas and art, they might reach out to another child that they may have never previously met before. To assist these children in unifying the French, Flemish, and German speaking peoples gives me simultaneous hope in the unification of the English and Spanish speaking peoples of America. Hopefully the simple act of learning one language will allow the children of the world to easier approach without nervousness or fear the other languages of their country.
In my future career, I hope to use this experience to fully move my art to a more universal plane. I plan to create comic books and animated films during my lifetime that will speak to the human heart, not the English, German, Spanish, or French speaking mind. How does one cross racial lines and appeal to both hearts and minds at home and abroad? I hope that by moving to Belgium and learning how to express myself in a new language, I'll learn how. I imagine in images, not in words. But how does an artist tell someone about their imagination using language? I intend it figure it out.
Hopefully experiencing a Fulbright teaching assistantship will not only give me hope in the language struggle in America, but also give me hope in the language struggle of Earth itself. If we are people capable of conquering the language barriers in our home countries and abroad, can we not finally extend hands across oceans and become friends with one another? Thankfully a program such as the Fulbright exists to let me attempt to meld my optimistic beliefs of mankind together with my hope in art and imagination. Maybe I'm a dreamer, but in my heart I still feel that language can serve to unify, instead of sever mankind.
I visited Brussels during my short trip abroad last summer, and found myself standing in a comic book store filled with books I had never previously had access to. The authors ranged from French, to Flemish, American, German, Japanese, and Italian. All translated into French. Obviously, they understand that the ideas of authors who are non-French speaking are still important. Important enough to translate into something that they could read. This already surpasses the American comic book industry (which generally only translates Japanese comic books).
In my free time I will do my best to learn French so that I can fully understand the differences and similarities between American and Belgian comic books. To fully do this I must not only learn the language completely, but must explore the culture to understand the inside jokes contained in every illustrated story. The interactions with Belgian children being just as important to my learning as sitting in my room reading, exploring ,and researching my favorite art form.
Through teaching English in Belgium , I hope to find a new way to communicate with the global roots of human creativity. If Art is everywhere on Earth, then is language not simply a way to talk about this global idea on a more personal and local level? To give children more than one way to communicate, I believe we will give them the tools to more clearly separate their ideas from what they are saying about their ideas. Only when I began to investigate the Francophone language in my travels abroad did I understand fully that my art existed separately from the words I used to label it. Were the things I tried to create singularly American? Or did they need to be expressed in English? No. When in Belgium, I found art sources that spoke clearly to me in French, even though I could not completely understand them. To discover this at 21 was a gift, and in return I want to give it to a generation even younger.
I have always gotten along well with children. Being born an only child, my cousins Ansley (9) and Wilson (12) serve as my surrogate brother and sister. We have drawing lessons whenever I see them. We draw pigs on motorcycles, angry storm clouds, and silly dressed-up ghosts. And in expressing and creating with them, I understand more fully the potency of my own need be a small part of the community experience of raising children. One of my favorite things besides drawing lessons is to tutor my cousins with their math homework. I find it completely amazing to find the basic concepts I've known for years slowly forming in their minds. I’m sure it would be an empathetic experience for the Belgian children to watch me learning something that they have known for their entire lives.
Helping a child work through a problem or opening a new idea fills me with a sort of pride that eclipses anything I feel from my own artwork. Isn't that in itself beautiful? It itself is art. And in trying to teach a child something so step-by-step as drawing a pig, I discover the depths of their inherent imagination. Imagination is fuel of my own life’s work. Who better to foster my blossoming career with than the sources of the most elegant imagination?
Hopefully not only will learning English encourage children to interact with their imaginations, but it will also encourage them to learn the other languages that are spoken in their own country. Surely, these children live in communities which speak one or the other. Hopefully to show them the great importance of multi-lingualism as well as the universality of ideas and art, they might reach out to another child that they may have never previously met before. To assist these children in unifying the French, Flemish, and German speaking peoples gives me simultaneous hope in the unification of the English and Spanish speaking peoples of America. Hopefully the simple act of learning one language will allow the children of the world to easier approach without nervousness or fear the other languages of their country.
In my future career, I hope to use this experience to fully move my art to a more universal plane. I plan to create comic books and animated films during my lifetime that will speak to the human heart, not the English, German, Spanish, or French speaking mind. How does one cross racial lines and appeal to both hearts and minds at home and abroad? I hope that by moving to Belgium and learning how to express myself in a new language, I'll learn how. I imagine in images, not in words. But how does an artist tell someone about their imagination using language? I intend it figure it out.
Hopefully experiencing a Fulbright teaching assistantship will not only give me hope in the language struggle in America, but also give me hope in the language struggle of Earth itself. If we are people capable of conquering the language barriers in our home countries and abroad, can we not finally extend hands across oceans and become friends with one another? Thankfully a program such as the Fulbright exists to let me attempt to meld my optimistic beliefs of mankind together with my hope in art and imagination. Maybe I'm a dreamer, but in my heart I still feel that language can serve to unify, instead of sever mankind.