In this blog post series, you’ll learn more about Snow City Arts’ amazing Teaching Artists! Every weekday, our TAs deliver arts education to children and young adults in inpatient and outpatient pediatric units at our partner hospitals. Through in-person and virtual workshops in creative writing, media arts, music, theatre, dance and visual arts, they actively engage young patients, transforming hospital rooms into arts studios.
We are so proud of their amazing, tireless work, and we hope that you get to know more about them in these interviews conducted by our Kellogg Board Fellow, Dana Levin.
Keren Díaz de León is a poet and multidisciplinary artist born and raised on Chicago’s South side. She is currently pursuing a Master of Arts degree at Northwestern University and completed her Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Snow City Arts: Is there an art medium you prefer or enjoy working with the most?
Keren: I usually flow through one art medium at a time — sometimes just poetry; at other times, it’s been drawing or painting, and sometimes it all mixes. Poetry has been the longest-standing.
Who or what are your biggest influences?
My influences are community, connection, and faith. I started doing art in community spaces in Chicago growing up, so art feels communal to me. I’m a Christian and I have an important relationship with God, which is where faith comes in. Connection has to do with both community and faith — art has to do with creation, joy, connection, and caring for ourselves and others.
What is the hardest part of being an artist?
The hardest part about being an artist is also the most important — and I guess I would describe it as [grasping things at] the root. This is how Angela Davis defines the word radical in her book Women, Culture, & Politics. This has to do with vulnerability and really interrogating what the honest question is you want to be asking. Over time, I have found it becomes easier to trust this choice.
Keren reads poems by Snow City Arts students at Gallery Night 2022.
What have you learned so far working at Snow City Arts?
Most importantly, I have learned that I don’t know everything, and it’s OK to not know everything. I have also learned that frameworks can create opportunities to make a clear choice, especially when I’m working with students.
What have you learned from the students you’ve taught?
I have learned how to look at the same poem in a new way every time I teach it, based on the student’s interpretation, reflection, or the art they create in response to the poem.
What is your favorite project to work on with your students?
I love cento and collage poetry, because it’s a fun way to talk about words — we can take something we’ve found and create something completely new. I got to learn more about and practice this poetic form last summer at the American University of Paris with fantastic international poets.
A collage poem created by SCA student Marina in a workshop with Keren. Marina purposefully left this poem untitled so that readers could come up with their own title based on their reactions to it.
What is your teaching philosophy, or how would you describe your teaching style?
My goal is to approach my interactions with students artist-to-artist. I don’t want my time with them to ever feel like a transaction. I try to advocate for student choice throughout the workshop and follow their lead and adjust the workshop as we go to better serve their interests. I want to share with them who I am as an artist and a human. Relationship-building is important, as is ensuring there is lots of opportunity for choice.
How do you come up with art projects for your students?
Usually, projects I propose have to do with themes or mediums I’m inspired by. Recently I came across a picture book, called The Mouse Who Carried a House on His Back by Jonathan Stutzman, that has really excited me. It’s about home and opening your home to others, which is what happens when I work with a student at their bedside — they are inviting me into their home. I also love to collaborate with other teaching artists. Molly [Blumberg] and I have created duets of printmaking and poetry, and bookmaking and poetry.
SCA student Luna, age 12, wrote this poem in one of Keren’s workshops.
Want to further support our Teaching Artists and the work they do? Donate to the Katie Kurcz Memorial Fund, which enables our TAs to intentionally reach outside of the hospital environment and across disciplines to pursue learning and collaborative projects that enhance their artistic practice AND impact their work with SCA students.
You can also read all our Teaching Artists’ biographies on our Staff page, or experience one of our TA-hosted virtual Art Parties. Keren will be hosting the first Art Party of 2023 on January 24th—register now!
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