ESPrit de Corps

Maritcha Lyons: A Portrait
Rush Gallery at Lyons Community School

Teaching Artists: Sameeh Alderazi, Millie Burns, Boyce Cummings, Maureen Cummins, David Camacho, Charlotte Gapp, Meridith McNeal, Gabriel Pacheco, Scott Pfaffman, Marie Roberts, Duhirwe Rushemeza and Alexandria Smith

Fall 2008–Spring 2009
Grades 6-10

Every teacher and student from Lyons Community School participated in the making of this book.

About the project:

To kick off the school year Rush Gallery at Lyons Community School worked with every student and teacher on a collaborative book, Maritcha Lyons: A Portrait, about Maritcha Lyons (the school’s namesake).  Each class worked with a different Rush Teaching Artist on a chapter.  The piece was bound and boxed by book Artist Maureen Cummings.

Brief descriptions of classes:

Working with Rush Teaching Artist Alexandria Smith, sixth graders investigated the career paths of Maritcha Lyons and her family members.  Students used images and text to depict the variety of jobs Lyons and her family held, ranging from porter and teacher to preacher, and hairdresser, as examples.

Seventh grade students worked with Rush Teaching Artist Millie Burns to create Maritcha Lyons’ imagined diary entries for two dates in July 1863: one before and one after the race riots in New York City.  The Lyons home in Lower Manhattan was burned in these devastating riots, causing the family to relocate to Rhode Island.

Seventh graders viewed images created by artists from the Maritcha Lyons era. Then, led by Rush Teaching Artist Boyce Cummings, students painted their own versions of these master works.

Rush Teaching Artist Sameeh Alderazi led students on an exploration of 19th century Brooklyn architecture.  Seventh graders drew large-scale images, then selected their favorite elements to depict on small-scale book pages.

Bicycles, carriages, horses and walking were the transportation modes of Maritcha Lyons’ lifetime.  Working with Rush Teaching Artist Boyce Cummings, students took inspiration from these transit forms for their drawings.

Following a discussion of the Civil War and its impact on Maritcha Lyons’ family, Rush Teaching Artist Duhirwe Rushemeza guided ninth graders as they explored how events are portrayed in the media.  Students then developed their own newspaper headlines to be depicted in a wood block print.

How much would you spend for a new watch?  Rush Teaching Artist Charlotte Gapp led tenth graders on a price comparison using vintage Sears catalogs and contemporary sales circulars.  Advertising images were transferred to book pages using wintergreen oil and photocopy transfers, which students enhanced with colored pencil.

In these pages, Maritcha Lyons’ family tree is depicted in individual “leaves” representing specific family members.  Rush Teaching Artist Gabriel Pacheco asked students to look at photographs of the Lyons family as well as artistic depictions of family trees as inspiration to create a group “tree” of individual portrait leaves.

Maritcha’s brother, Albro Lyons Jr., was employed as a pharmacist in a drugstore near 20 Vanderwater Street in Brooklyn.  Rush Teaching Artist Marie Roberts showed sixth graders images of pharmacy products of the time, and students used nib pen and ink to draw from these historical references.

Rush Director of Education Meridith McNeal, assisted by Rush Education Intern Jennifer Dodson, asked sixth graders to view and discuss hundreds of images of clothing from Maritcha Lyons’ lifetime.  Using nib pen and ink students carefully depicted the clothing items of their choice.

Teatime in Maritcha Lyons’ lifetime meant cucumber sandwiches, jubilee cake and ginger snaps.  Rush Teaching Artist Alexandria Smith distributed 19th century recipes for these treats, and students used watercolors to create background washes on which they wrote out their favorite Victorian teatime recipes.
Listen to Meridith McNeal discuss the making of this book.
Rush-Lyons.mp3 (6790 KB)