Intern extraordinaire Mya Hayes shares an activity inspired by the work of David Antonio Cruz.
David Antonio Cruz’s hauntme is an exhibition that challenges normative conventions of portraiture and recognizes the intersectionality of queerness and race in order to evoke a sense of being haunted by places, memories, and chosen family—an emotional landscape that guides his work. Cruz builds rich layers of ink wash beneath silhouettes of maps, foliage, and wax pencil. These pieces draw in the viewer through their intricate layering and subtle echoes of impression. The drawings serve as backdrops for his large-scale chosen family portraits, grounding them in the deep histories and complexities of place and self. Seeing these drawings in person is a special treat. They invite viewers to weave through the layers and jump in and out of his storytelling. I find through viewing the works in person, you can feel the ghost of his own experiences, and question what your own ghosts would look like.
After viewing the works at the Halsey Institute, a kids’ tour group was invited to use crayon, paper, and local foliage to create a similar effect to Cruz’s drawings. They were introduced to a technique called frottage. It’s a process that uses found materials to create texture by placing them beneath the paper and drawing over the surface. This method can offer anyone quick, exciting results and uses everyday objects as a source of inspiration. Much like Cruz’s drawings in hauntme, this activity provides creativity sourced from your surroundings, and using only three materials, leaves the ghost of its impression. Our tour group had a great time with this activity—here are some of their results!
You can use this same effect at home, using the inspiration of hauntme as your guide!
An at-home step-by-step process on frottage:
First, locate your materials!
You will need:
Begin by gathering the local foliage, taking all different kinds of leaves from various trees and bushes. Try to find leaves that lay flat and have distinct veins. While doing so, make sure you are not on private property, and be kind to the plants!
Secondly, place the leaves in your desired arrangement. If you want, you can even tape them down to secure their place, or tape down the paper itself once you have a good position.
Finally, place the paper on top of your arrangement of leaves, place your hand on one side of the paper for stability, and use your other hand to draw atop the foliage beneath! Feel free to use several colors to create contrast. The harder you press as you draw, the more distinct the outline will become.
Suddenly, the unique patterns of the leaves reveal themselves! You can repeat this process and play until you have the desired results. I found that pressing harder made the outline much more distinct, and using colors that stand out like blue, red, and pink, made the impressions even clearer! If you want to take it a step further, start by laying down a color or using colored paper, and see how it affects the image you create!
Try this activity at home when you have a moment to yourself. I had a lot of fun with it! By first viewing the exhibition, our group found creative freedom in reflection and using the materials around them. Come to see the joint exhibition of David Antonio Cruz’s hauntme and Joshua Park’s Born in We: African Descendants of the Atlantic World and try this activity! Seeing the exhibition before this made me feel even more connected to his work—and, more deeply, to his expression of what it means to feel haunted.
Send us some pictures of the drawing you made! You can reach us at HalseyTours@cofc.edu.