81 Remix: “The Monkey Bars Are Burning”

[Anonymous]

Instructor Juliette Holder

ENG 1013.06

5 December 2022

Cover Letter

For this remix assignment, I reinvented my learning narrative essay entitled “The Monkey Bars Are Burning” into a visual mode by creating a painting. The essay is about how my grandfather helped me learn how to communicate and how I learned to communicate in a world without him. The essay deals with grief and isolation that comes with the loss of a loved one. My audience for this Multimodal Remix is fellow artists or those who appreciate art, which differs from the original audience; this audience is more casual and allows for a looser interpretation of the artwork.

Art, specifically painting, is something very important to me. There is a line in my essay that states, “Art is an experience in which a person can relay their truths; a cathartic goodbye to whatever may haunt their lives.” I knew as soon as I was given this project that I wanted to do an art piece as to how I reconciled the loss of my grandfather.

The process for creating this art piece first involved sketching. I sketched out thumbnails and listed out the materials I would need to find amongst my art supplies or go out and buy. One of the first challenges I faced while collecting my supplies was deciding what size canvas would be the most appropriate. I already had smaller canvas panels, but I concluded that the panels would be too small for the painting to be as effective in getting my message across. These are big, scary, feelings I was trying to express, which warranted a big, scary canvas. I went to a few different art stores before winding up at Walmart where there was a 24 x 20-inch canvas just waiting for me. During the time in which I was scouring various stores for art supplies, I had also contacted my parents and asked them to send me a few copies of my grandpa’s newspaper, the Falfurrias Facts, so that I could use it to create a border around the canvas. Collaging the edges of my canvas is a stylistic choice that I make with all of my art pieces and has become a staple of mine over these last few years. I find that it helps set the tone of the painting or art work. Overall, the materials I used were acrylic paint and cheap, horribly made paint brushes, and news paper.

After gathering all the materials I would need I began to work on painting. I went through many phases while working on this piece. I sketched out a hand reaching out toward a monkey bar; however, this metal bar is not what it seems. The monkey bar is burning, and the Spanish phrase “si se puede” is inscribed into the scalding metal. The imagery I was trying to create was one of the most difficult things about this painting. To create the image that the monkey bar was burning required a lot of strategic thinking in the color’s placement. Same goes for the hand—I had to ask myself every time I worked on the painting: is this really what a hand looks like? I had to stop and ignore the hand for a while before coming back to it. Now creating this piece was incredibly fun, but because this piece was about something so personal, I just had to get it right.

I had to make very specific choices when it came to this painting, from colors to imagery. One of the first decisions that I made once I started to actually work on the painting was what pieces of the newspaper I wanted to include in the collage. I wanted to mimic the anecdotes being told in my essay through this art piece, and in order to do that, I had to be strategic in what the newspaper clippings were telling my audience. I chose clippings from the obituary section. Death in bold letters was to be pasted across the edge of the canvas in reference to the meaning of this painting, grief. I also included ads from H-E-B and the Falfurrias Nursing & Rehabilitation, which are locations I include in my essay. The latter was where my grandpa stayed while he was in hospice. I also included black and white pictures of my grandfather on the collaged border. The stylistic choice of collaging the edges allows for me to create this storybook feel. I want the viewer to understand that there is a story being told, and the border allows for the context of the main imagery.

When looking at the subject of the painting in relation to the context, I wanted my viewers to understand that this is sad or concerning. I really wanted to convey this concept that I would reach out for something that might hurt me. Grief can be very difficult to process, and when I was dealing with the loss of my grandfather, I wanted nothing more than to see him again, to hear him tell me I could do it: si se puede. I just wanted to get back on those monkey bars one more time.

I painted the monkey bars green and used a lot of green in my painting as that is the color that reminds me of my grandfather. The color green is a signifier of hope and growth, which greatly reminds me of my grandfather as he had always been a source of hope and positivity for my family growing up.

Another detail I wanted to point out was the red string around the wrist. In Latine culture, a red string is often worn around the wrist or ankle to ward off evil. I often wear a Mal de Ojo bracelet in my everyday life. In the painting, the Red string is untied, slowly slipping off. This symbolizes the gradual loss of grandfather, someone who guided and protected me.

I really enjoyed composing in these modes because overall I really enjoy painting. I’ve been actively painting since I was in 7th grade, and to combine a passion of mine with a personal story is something I’ve always loved doing. I find it is much easier to tell a story through art than in any other mode, so at the beginning of the semester, I was troubled with writing my learning narrative essay in a way that conveyed exactly what I was feeling. Now, with my multimodal remix project, I feel very confident that I can fully extend on those ideas. This project has definitely changed my view on how words can be used and extended past just writing an essay.