Angelo's Saturdays
High School: Grades 9–12
Story
)
In the children's pottery and painting class, Angelo's teacher said that today they were going to paint landscapes. He explained that a landscape painting was one in which the artist painted natural scenery. Angelo knew what natural scenery he would depict: it would be the vibrant blue sky and golden yellow grass of his homeland, the way he envisioned it from his grandfather's bedtime stories. Angelo dipped his brush into water and the opaque blue paint on the palette. Then with gentle but broad strokes, he began to paint. A sky began to appear on his paper. Angelo was focused and calm as he painted. The teacher walked amid the students asking them to explain their work. Angelo pointed to the picture and said as best he could in English, "This is home."
The teacher put his hand on Angelo's shoulder and responded with a warm smile, "It's beautiful."
After working with watercolors, Angelo carefully washed his brush, gently shook the water out of it, and laid it down to dry as his teacher had showed him. His teacher told them to stop by later so they could take their work home after it had dried. Angelo ran out into the sunshine to play. He got lost in a trance as he looked up at the clear, blue vibrant sky that had only wisps of clouds in it. Not too long before, this vacant lot had housed some rotten, old buildings. The man who owned them, however, caught the infectious spirit of Hull House and tore down the buildings and put up swings.5
At lunch, Vito anxiously looked for Giuseppe and Antonio, his two new friends from school. Upon seeing them he ran toward them with a smile, started talking immediately, and sat down with them to eat. Angelo stood waiting for Vito to turn around and invite him over. But the longer he waited, the possibility seemed to grow more remote. Blushing, Angelo headed to a table where a little girl and boy sat. Angelo didn't know where they were from, but after he sat down he turned and said, "Allo." The little girl giggled and the boy smiled back, "Hello." Although the little boy and girl were not speaking Sicilian, Angelo and the little boy took turns making funny faces for the little girl, who responded to each new face with a bright, infectious giggle.
)
After lunch, Angelo found his way to the section of Hull House called the Labor Museum. He walked by rooms where people were giving demonstrations of traditional crafts. He stopped briefly at one room where he saw a man carving wood with a knife. Then he went on to find the textile room. Today it was his mother's turn to show how she could weave.
There were so many people in the room watching her that Angelo had to push his way through to the front of the crowd.6 His mother acknowledged his presence with a glance but kept working. He watched her as she carefully sat on a small stool in front of a loom. With her left hand, she guided a shuttle through the warp threads until she could no longer reach through. Then her right hand grabbed it to finish pulling the shuttle through the row.7 Angelo looked around the room. On the walls were diagrams of looms and the steps involved in making cloth. A map illuminated the different weaving techniques used in different parts of Europe. Then he saw Vito, who had just come in the door with Giuseppe and Antonio. They angled their way through the crowd to get a better look at Angelo's mother and her work.
Downloads (pdf)
