Tag Archives: children

Residencies

Flying Away

2 Comments

Here are two more of the wonderful “people” that I made with 3rd and 4th graders during my art residency in Coshocton. As with the finished “people” I posted earlier, I love getting to share my art with kids, challenging them to see unusual materials as art, and helping them to make their own art.

These “people” were made from the children’s own cast off clothing. The kids worked in groups of 3-5 to make body parts for the figures. Then I assembled all the parts into complete figures. The kids also got to see some of my work in a show that’s up in one of the art center’s galleries.

The photos really can’t do justice to the sculptures. Especially since each body part represents considerable concentrated effort, there’s a very high level of detail and complexity–patches on top of patches, a bead here to signify one thing, a complicated little pouch stitched on and filled with something. The kids did a great job of putting thought into what they did instead of just throwing some things together and calling the art “done”.

We made a total of 10 “people”. You can see photos of the works in progress here.

Residencies

3rd and 4th Grade Reflections on Art

Leave a comment

As part of the art that the 3rd and 4th graders made with me in Coshocton, each group was asked to write about the body part they had constructed and the materials they had used, kind of like I do with my art. In response, they wrote many wonderful things.

Here’s a great selection of the kinds of things that they thought to include in their reflections. In case you can’t read them well, here’s a translation (with corrected spelling for ease of reading):

The head came from the Salvation Army, so it has a lot of story behind it. The hair we found in a bucket in art class. The flower was right beside the hair so we KNEW it was a perfect match. The hood was made from a very special fabric. It actually has a lot of story behind it too.

Lane’s shirt that Mom won’t let him wear.  Emily’s nice, cozy gloves. Brandon’s ring. Colton’s great sewing.

The pink pants is when I first went to the doctor to get my shot. –Tatum.  The jeans are what I wore on my first day of 2nd grade.–Arianna.  The jeans is when I went to first day of 1st grade.–Tatum. I used the jeans for the pocket.         I cut some of the designs.–Shalcey

The pants I brought in was my favorite pants I ever had. Now the pants are going to be a fake person.

Residencies

Words of Wisdom

1 Comment

As part of the art that the 3rd and 4th graders made with me in Coshocton, each group was asked to write about the body part they had constructed and the materials they had used, kind of like I do with my art.

In response, they wrote many wonderful things. This is one that I particularly like. The group decided to make a particularly ambitious torso by cutting three shirts apart and sewing them back together. It was a lot of sewing for a bunch of kids very new to it.

I love the result and I love their commentary:

“This is my sister’s shirt and Brayden’s shirt. It was hard to make. Sometimes life is creative.”

Residencies

People at Rest

3 Comments

I’m just back from an artist residency at the Pomerene Center in Coshocton, Ohio. I love getting to share my art with kids, challenging them to see unusual materials as art, and helping them to make their own art.

During this residency, I worked with about 250 3rd and 4th graders to help them make fabric “people” using their own cast off clothing. The kids worked in groups of 3-5 to make body parts for the figures. Then I assembled all the parts into complete figures. The kids also got to see some of my work in a show that’s up in one of the art center’s galleries.

We made a total of 10 “people”. Here are two. You can see photos of the works in progress here.