In the early 80s, a first-grade teacher in Flushing, Queens, had a student who was repeating her class. She saw a little introverted immigrant boy who loved to draw. She asked to see his work, photocopied it, and shared it with the class. “I turned red, and I felt exposed,” shared Leo Jimenez, 46, a multidisciplinary artist and instructor at BRIC Arts Media in Brooklyn, New York City. However, this was the first time Jimenez remembers being really seen.
Now he helps others, not only being comfortable being seen, but also to be seen.
“I will say just like how you put important documents in a suitcase to keep them, this is what you do with the cloud,” explains Jimenez. He tries to think about how he would teach his own grandma, and teach his students that way. He facilitates as many questions as they need, encouraging them to interject at any time to get clarification.
One of Jimenez’s favorite classes that he currently teaches at BRIC Media is, Unlocking our Smartphone’s Potential: Workshop Series for Older Adults, where he teaches participants to navigate their mobile devices, social media, internet browsing and safety, phone photography, making a digital story, and DSLR filmmaking. The class is currently only open to residents of the NYCHA Atlantic Terminal Houses.
“It’s such a joy to see them leaving the class, FaceTiming their friends and relatives about what they’ve learned,” says Jimenez. He says he uses simple concepts to help them understand what would have been foreign to them.
He also sees art as a means of escape and self-expression and tries to provide that for his students. He currently teaches an elderly woman who is sick but still comes to a private class. “I asked her how she’s doing. She says that she’s not great, but she’s here,” shared Jimenez. He says helping that woman checks a box in him that nothing else does, giving her a little more information and an outlet so that she can be freer.
Jimenez was formally trained at the School of Visual Arts in New York City and majored in computer arts. He has worked in the creative industry for many years, doing mainly videography and filmmaking. He transitioned into teaching at BRIC Media about five years ago after he had an accident that limited his ability to physically maneuver a camera and production equipment.
Teaching does not come naturally for Jimenez because he’s not used to presenting in front of people. “I am mortified standing in front of people; I have stage fright,” shared Jimenez. “I prepare the night before classes, I take walks around the block, do breathing exercises, and play music at the start of classes.”
He says he confronts his apprehensions and teaches because he agrees with the mission of BRIC Media of creating opportunities to advance the work of visual artists, performers, and media makers that reflect diverse audiences.
A major component of that is providing quality training programs at no or low cost to the community. This resonates deeply with Jimenez because he had significant student debt, even after making payments for years. “If I didn’t get the blessing of loan forgiveness from the Biden administration a couple of years ago, I would still have student debt. That is why I disagree with the business of education.”
What’s next for Leo? He believes in centering the human story. He’s excited about a budding project where he’ll be going into middle and high schools to use art as a medium for a project on drug prevention and cannabis use.
“Training in the creative industry costs thousands of dollars, so I’m so glad that in my own way, I am disrupting this system where people can access quality training for free or very little,” he said.