Artistic Mentoring as a Decolonizing Methodology: An Evolving Collaborative Painting Ethnography with Maya Artists Pedro Rafael González Chavajay and Paula Nicho Cúmez(5 Doing Arts Thinking: Arts Practice, Research and Education)

To expand the possibilities of “doing arts thinking” from a non-Eurocentric view, Artistic Mentoring as a Decolonizing Methodology: An Evolving Collaborative Painting Ethnography with Maya Artists Pedro Rafael González Chavajay and Paula Nicho Cúmez is grounded in Indigenous perspectives on arts practice, arts research, and art education. Mentored in painting for eighteen years by two Guatemalan Maya artists, Kryssi Staikidis, a North American painter and art education professor, uses both Indigenous and decolonizing methodologies, which involve respectful collaboration, and continuously reexamines her positions as student, artist, and ethnographer searching to redefine and transform the roles of the artist as mentor, historian/activist, ethnographer, and teacher. The primary purpose of the book is to illuminate the Maya artists as mentors, the collaborative and holistic processes underlying their painting, and the teaching and insights from their studios. These include Imagined Realism, a process excluding rendering from observation, and the fusion of pedagogy and curriculum into a holistic paradigm of decentralized teaching, negotiated curriculum, personal and cultural narrative as thematic content, and the surrounding visual culture and community as text. The Maya artist as cultural historian creates paintings as platforms of protest and vehicles of cultural transmission, for example, genocide witnessed in paintings as historical evidence. The mentored artist as ethnographer cedes the traditional ethnographic authority of the colonizing stance to the Indigenous expert as partner and mentor, and under this mentorship analyzes its possibilities as decolonizing arts-based qualitative inquiry. For the teacher, Maya world views broaden and integrate arts practice and arts research, inaugurating possibilities to transform arts education.

Table of Contents:
Osiyo: Welcome in Cherokee  Christine Ballengee Morris Foreword  Luke Eric Lassiter Acknowledgements List of Figures Introduction Mentor Biographies Pedro Rafael González Chavajay  Joseph Johnston Paula Nicho Cúmez  Joseph Johnston Salvador Cúmez Curruchich  Joseph Johnston PART 1: The Artist as Mentor: The Mentoring Relationship as a Teaching Method and Paintings as Didactic Tools Introduction to Part 1: The Artist as mentor Pastor Maya (Maya Pastor) 1 Personal and Cultural Narrative as Inspiration: A Painting and Pedagogical Collaboration with Two Maya Artists  A Problem of Perspective  A Problem of Practice  Perspective and Practice in Context  Decolonizing Methodologies  Results  Life as Text  Discussion  Applications  Conclusion 2 Where Lived Experience Resides in Art Education: A Painting and Pedagogical Collaboration with Paula Nicho Cúmez  Introduction  Reflections on Feminist Pedagogy  Female Kaqchikel Maya Painting and Teaching Processes  Owning One’s Narrative in Collaboratively Produced Paintings  Weaving Women’s Iconography in Paintings  Fusion: One Imagines the Painting into Being  Kaqchikel Women Painters’ Iconography: Personal in Cultural  Maya Women Painters as Role Models  Asserting Female Ways of Connected Knowing and Teacher/Student Role Reversals  A Feminist Teacher’s Strategy: To Elicit  Conclusion PART 2: The Artist as Historian: Paintings as Historical Documents, Sites for Cultural Transmission, and Platforms of Protest and Resistance Introduction to Part 2: The Artist as Historian, Massacre en Atitlán (Massacre in Atitlán)  Painting as a Site for Claiming Maya History 3 Maya Paintings as Teachers of Justice: Art Making the Impossible Possible  The Maya Painting Movement in Context  Our Values Must Be Salvaged and Presented to Our Children 4 Crossing Borders 5 Advocating for Justice: A Maya Painter’s Journey  A Story of Courage  The Anthropology of Genocide: Annihilating Difference (Hinton, 2002)  A Brief Overview of Guatemalan History  A Tragic Moment in History: Massacre in Santiago Atitlán December 3, 1990  Pedro Rafael González Chavajay’s Story PART 3: The Artist as Ethnographer: Collaborative Ethnography, Decolonizing Research Practice, and the Ethics of Representation Introduction to Part 3: The Artist as Ethnographer, Nuestra Amistad (Our Friendship) 6 “Coming of Age in Methodology”: Two Collaborative Inquiries with Shinnecock and Maya Peoples  Diane’s Research Story  Shinnecock Museum  Kryssi’s Research Story  Conclusion: Closing the Distance Section 1: Ethical Changes in Representation Phase One – Participants and Research Process 7 Visual Privileging: Subjectivity in Collaborative Ethnography 8 Decolonizing Development through Indigenous Artist-Led Inquiry  Speaking with, Not for or about Others  The Recounting of Tales, Myths and Readings  Approaching Arts-Based Inquiry with Eyes Wide-Open  Researching in Ways that Might (Dis)Serve Multiple Populations  Conclusions Section 2: Ethical Changes in Representation Phase Two – Relational Presentation 9 Indigenous Methodologies: A Collaborative Painting with Maya Painter Paula Nicho Cúmez  Introduction  A Collaborative Painting with Maya Painter Paula Nicho Cúmez  Conclusion 10 The Inseparability of Indigenous Research and Pedagogy: A Collaborative Painting of a Maya Tz’utuhil Grieving Ritual  Sharing Pain and Happiness  We Shared This  La Consolación  Oh What a Wonderful Theme  You Were the Author of This Painting  You Were There  Reality of a Community  This Painting Carries Something Important  We Have Gotten to Know Each Other  Part of a Larger Story PART 4: The Artist as Teacher: Transformations of the Academy and the Artist/Teacher Introduction to Part 4: The Artist as Teacher, La Consolacion (Condolence) Section 1: Transformations: Curricular Applications to Teaching 11 Learning OUTSIDE the Box: How Mayan Pedagogy Informs a Community/University Partnership  Inroads: Art Education  Connections: Transferring Knowledge across Cultures  The Specifics  How It Unfolded: Step by Step  Negotiating Learning  Leadership: Novices Become Experts  Cultural Narratives: Paths to Learning  Co-Mentoring, Friendship, and the Co-Construction of Knowledge  Conclusions and Implications Situated Learning: The Local Context 12 Maya Teaching Methods: Transformers of Content and Pedagogy in Higher Education  Part One: Working out of Maya Studios  Part Two: Walk the Talk  Conclusion Section 2: Transformations: Self-Reflections of the Artist/Teacher 13 Interior Paths: Transformations of a Painter  El Rapto del Gallo (Abduction of the Rooster): The Absence of Presence in Art Education  Vendedora De Gallos (Seller of Roosters): Paths in as Lived Experience  Conclusion: Who Rules the Roost? 14 Decolonizing Methodologies and the Ethics of Representation: A Collaborative Ethnography with Maya Artists Pedro Rafael González Chavajay and Paula Nicho Cúmez  Introduction: Ethnography in Art Education  Description of the Study: A Collaborative Ethnographic Study  Language  Dismantling Concepts: Research, Benefits, Researcher Subjectivity  Confidentiality and Representation: How Will the Results Be Disseminated?  Discussion: A Growing Discomfort  Conclusion 15 Conclusion  Discoveries  Through the Lens of Life and Death  Reciprocity and Relationship  Doing Arts Thinking  Expanding the Possibilities: Arts Thinking Grounded in Indigenous Perspectives  Artistic Mentoring as a Decolonizing Methodology Index

About the Author :
Kryssi Staikidis, Ed.D. (2004), Teachers College Columbia University, is Professor in Art + Design Education at Northern Illinois University. She co-edited Transforming Our Practices: Indigenous Art, Pedagogies, and Philosophies (National Art Education Association, 2017) and has published many articles and book chapters in art education.