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| "A" stuffing a hand-sewn neck-pillow for a special teacher
It
is 2:15 in the art studio, on the first Friday of the 2014-15 school
year. Two eighth-graders are outside the art studio door, working on a collaborative
sculpture project that they started on the first day of school. Two
fifth grade boys just left – they came during their guided study
time to tie up some loose ends on the fiber-art projects they were
making art for family gifts.
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| Needle felted finger puppets in progress |
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| Lace overlay textile for pillow construction By "I" grade 6 |
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| Revisiting printmaking
I am a little stunned to recount the
following (partial!) list of activities students have engaged in during the
first 4 days of school:
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- Potters wheel practice, resulting in 5 bowls and 1 cup
- Clay slab bowl
- Clay whistle project (on-going)
- Clay sculpture - butterfly
- Color-mixing experiments and resulting paintings
- Cardboard sculpture – architecture, mechanical objects
- Bookmaking/bookbinding
- Drawing: from observation, from memory, from imagination, from digital reference
- Digital designing
- Pillows on sewing machine
- Hand-stitched objects
- Needle-felting
- Soapstone carving
- Mono-print printmaking
- Styrofoam printmaking using the etching press
- Scratchboard drawings
- Origami
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| "Wings!" by "A" grade 6 |
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| Team-work in Sculpture Center
How
is it possible that so many art projects with such a variety of media
and techniques are going on simultaneously in the studio in the first
week of school? The answer is that the studio-setting we have
established facilitates student-directed artistic inquiry. Returning
students can get right to their work, knowing what studio centers are
available and how to use them. Students new to the studio are
learning how to work autonomously, after each new center is “opened”
for the very first time. Authentic work in a studio-setting means
that student-artists choose their idea, materials, and process.
Observing these artists at work during Week One assures me that
this is a great way to learn.
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