Kaqchikel: A Doc Film About
Art as an Experience.
Visit our Art gallery here
I went to
Mexico during the summer and visited the Yucatan peninsula, state
of Quintana Roo. Once there, I took a jeep and my camcorder
and drove a few miles south from
Playa Carmen until I
reached the
Mayan ruins of Tulum. Placed on a
cliff, facing the Caribbean Sea, Tulum is now what many may
call " a turists trap", but is also, undeniably, a place full of spirits
from the past, from the Mayan civilization.
This film is
about that, about the connections you make between
past and
present, between you and that “other” you that art helps you
find.
Driving to Tulum. A
Snapshot from the Film.
As an Art teacher, Tulum
gave me the inspiration to reach for the past and its
treasures to bring them into the classroom and inspire
creativity and effort; as a filmmaker, the visit prompted me
to integrate both worlds, present and past.
According to a Mayan legend,
a city was founded in just one day by a child prodigy.
In our art
club, every child brings in his or her own genius to
re-create sculptures from the times before the Spaniard
conquers confronted the earlier civilizations on this side
of the world.
Abigail Coatsworth
(Kindergarten Teacher)
Abigail Coatstworth, who is a
Kindergarten teacher with an Art degree,
co-wrote the script for the film, and brought in her own
virtuosity too, helping us reach for that bridge between the
past and the present, between the ordinary and the arts. In
Mayan, kaqchikel means something close to “hard working
people”. Just like that child prodigy from the legend, we
hope for our students that art becomes that magnificent city
you build in just a blink of an eye, and lasts forever. Or
better yet, to say it in Abigail Coatsworth’s words “the
legend remains as we are inspired by the unparalleled
creativity and spirit of our youth.”
-Juan
Huerta
