Tag Archives: unusual materials

Residencies

Little Girl on the Porch

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Here’s another one of the people I made with the 3rd and 4th grade classes in Coshocton. Remember each limb was constructed by a group of 3-5 kids working together. On this one, I love the Hannah Montana legging that became an arm, the goalie glove hand (with ring!), and the fact that you can see the buttons on the shirt that got wrapped up and stuffed in a stocking to become the head.

It was up to me to figure out how to put all the pieces together and, like actual people, these people are all wired together in different ways. On this one’s shoulders, you can see the exposed “bones” made out of cable donated to the Pomerene Center by a phone company. On this person, I drilled through it and tied the bones together.

Residencies

Words of Wisdom

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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

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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.