Helga taught me printmaking and helped me turn my ideas into prints. Thomson also helped Alvarez, a native of Guatemala, with immigration problems and college applications. The students' work is particularly impressive considering where it was made. Fletcher-Johnson's surroundings are bleak. Poverty, drugs, violence and despair are facts of life in its neighborhood.
Gang graffiti decorates their walls.
The students must maintain a C-average in their other classes to remain in the program. Her students have conceived and painted two murals on the school's walls, one based on their feelings about their neighborhood, the other dedicated to jazz music. A HUD employee was so taken with the painting that she bought it. I never really used it. When my art teacher asked me if I wanted to take the Corcoran class, I didn't know how to draw very well.