Had a just lovely workshop with 32 AmeriCorps/VISTA members (these are young people typically just out of university who are spending a year volunteering in a community. Many in this group are working on environmental education and with at-risk populations, which is to say young people who are disproportionately likely to drop out of school, abuse drugs and alcohol, etc).

Since I have done workshops for AmeriCorps before, I though it was a great opportunity to share the “facilitation” role with their full-time staff. So I basically just introduced the program and the process, and Amanda, my amazing artist-cofacilitator for the day, gave more explicit instruction around the theme (“What is the change I want to make in the world?”) and debrief/discussion.

It was a great day. I am so impressed with the creativity these young leaders brought to the process. And even more so with their insights and observations after experiencing the process. More on that in a bit. Here are some of their tiles. Um, a collage-able postcard kit to the first to guess which tile is mine!

The workshop was structured pretty typically: introduce Peace Tiles and the aims of the workshop, which were a) to “train” AmeriCorps/VISTA members in the process through hands on experience, and b) to offer them an opportunity to reflect on their own experience and tie it into a larger “meta” understanding of their own lives.So after the introduction of the process etc we asked them to write for about 5 minutes in their own journals (which they are required to keep as members) about the personal change they want to make in the world. This provided an opportunity for them to collect their thoughts, document them, and generate some ideas and imagery for their tile work.

Working at three tables, about 10 people per table, they then got to work on their backgrounds. I noticed in this group in particular that many of them began by looking for imagery in the magazines – which had been selected for their content (old LIFE, National Geographic and TIME magazines) – and old books (antique catalogue, gazetteers, etc) and stamps. A fewer number started off by creating their own imagery – painting a landscape, a black blob, a tree and abstract arrangements of color for example.

After they’d been working for about a half an hour, I interrupted briefly just to check in – questions like, Is the process fun and engaging (“Yes!”), and “A-ha’s” or things that aren’t working (“Paint doesn’t dry very fast”). This half-way point also marked the transition from foreground to background work.

As tiles became completed, we asked them to start arranging them on the floor at the front of the room (I’d taped out and area) however they wanted. It took about 15 minutes for tiles to all come together as folks were all at different stages of completion when the wrap-up announcement was made. Once they were all together we kind of stepped back to look at them, and then went around in circle, answering any of the following questions that the AmeriCorps team leader had developed:

• What did you like about the process (Or didn’t)
• How could you use the process in your service?

I would have backed up and added a question, “Which is your tile, and what is your ‘change’?” I felt awkward about introducing it at this point, so we went with the questions raised.

Note to self: before jumping into discussion, I usually like to give a group more time to futz with the tiles – move them about, arrange them into patterns and collections within the mural until it hangs together in a way that everyone is happy with. In this case, we let them stay pretty much as the participants laid them out.

But the going around the circle was really interesting. In addition to overall positive response to the Peace Tiles process, heard some individual insights, which included (paraphrasing a bit):

• I really liked it – it was kind of therapeutic to get lost in my work.
• I like how the process enables individual creativity and at the same time is about group work and sharing the same space. We’re working along, but also together.
• It draws out personal stories – everyone has a story and you don’t have to be an artist to tell your story using this process. Its really accessible.
• It is a very inclusive process – even though we’re each doing our own thing, when you look around you see everyone doing their tile and sharing – sharing tools, materials and ideas.

Anyway, most of the group seemed to have an interest in experimenting with the process in their communities – both as a way to involve the populations they serve, as well as a way to share their stories with the community. I am excited to see what comes of it.