fuels a narrative: ‘I talked about it in Black History Month or on Pink Shirt Day — now I’m done.’ It definitely gives people an excuse to ignore or look away from very important topics and not feel bad about it.” Mabel continues: “Tese significant days
and months should be a starting point, not a stopping point.”
LET’S GET TECHNICAL
Te technicalities of stencil art are straight- forward. Teach students how to carefully use a utility knife. Suggest some search terms, including “stencil,” to pull up people they want to see on the wall. If they can’t find a stencil, there are websites that will turn your favorite photos into one. Print out the im- age and begin cutting on a surface that has a little give. Reclaimed book covers were our surface of choice. Some students find that inking the parts
of the stencil they’ll be cutting out makes the process clearer. Aſter some safety train- ing, I make a soldering iron available to burn out fine details like eyebrows, lips, and pieces of the eyes and nose. Regardless of good instructions, a student will inevitably cut out too much and lose the whole face. No matter, try again. When students are satisfied with their
work, they tape their stencil within a larger bristol board frame that will help protect the wall as the spray paint is applied. Students choose the paint colour and gear up with safety goggles and a mask. Light, back-and- forth bursts of paint a foot from the wall work well; too much and the paint will run. To finish the piece, students find sites on-
line that have information about the person they chose, and they create a QR code that they can paste to the wall next to their art. Te sites might be Wikipedia pages about the hero, or pages for books they’ve written, information on breakthroughs they’ve made in science or society, or even music videos they’ve created.
WE DON’T NEED ANOTHER HERO?
Te stencils begin going up. Autumn Peltier. Viola Desmond. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Simone Biles. Tracy Chapman. Angela Davis. Marie Curie. Miss Peppermint. Some are fa- miliar, some not at all. It’s as we’re talking about our rapidly
emerging “hall of heroes” that a Noam Chomsky quote crosses my mind and threat- ens to ruin it all: “We shouldn’t be looking for heroes, we should be looking for good ideas.” Chomsky’s good idea is messing up
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