Student artists explore southeast Arkansas history
There’s a deep, rich history hiding under the fields and old streets of southeast Arkansas — a heritage made up of a surprisingly complex amalgam of cultures and people.
“There are many cultural influences that happened over the centuries here in southeast Arkansas,” explains Lenore Shoults, curator for the Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas.
Area middle school students got a chance to dig deep and peel back the layers of the past and now what they learned is on display for all to see at the arts center in Pine Bluff in the “Heritage Detective Pictorial Exhibition.”
Historians worked with seventh- and eighth-grade students in McGehee, Lake Village, Dumas and Pine Bluff, teaching them the history and cultural influences from prehistoric times through exploration, the Colonial era, the Civil War and on through World War II.
The students then took what they learned to create paintings.
For instance, Shoults says, for Lake Village they learned how the rivers encouraged a great American Indian presence and even a proliferation of river pirates. They also learned about the strong Italian presence, from immigrant sharecroppers to Italian officers imprisoned in Monticello during WWII.
French trappers and explorers were plentiful but, in later years, there were also Polish, Jewish and Greek influences throughout the region.
For the students, Shoults says, the project was eye-opening.
“What they took away when they worked on these kinds of projects was a sense of awe at what happened that’s invisible to them until they learn that history and paint that history. It makes a student feel connected to that long arc of history.”
The exhibit is organized much like storyboards for a movie. Paintings were selected and arranged to tell the story of each area, focusing at times on specific people and places, like the story of prominent black businessman Wiley Jones.
The entire collection is available online as a teaching resource. As Shoults points out, “It’s all been vetted by historians and is available as an accurate teaching tool.”
It’s a rich story told through the eyes and hands of young people with their simple, easily accessible pieces of art.
Shoults says, “The artwork is telling a real history and it’s absolutely charming.”