School Residency

I did an Artist Residency at the Waterford Elementary School the week of March 18. What a great school -- enthusiastic teachers and students, and a wonderful school climate.

Food was the theme I was asked to plan for, so I created a group of experiences that used a diversity of materials and media (here's a look at the display in the hallway that I put up on the last day):

Kindergarteners drew on bananas with toothpicks, writing their names and drawing. Later in the week they made letters using vegetables and then made designs on bread rolls that were consumed at our culminating activity.

First Graders made and painted big paper mache fruit.

Second Graders designed their own seed packets and decorated bread rolls.

Third Graders made veggie creatures and then made scenes and stories with them.

Fourth Graders made collages based on the paintings of Giuseppe Arcimboldo.

Fifth Graders made Additive Monsters by imagining what some chemical additives might look like.

On Friday we had a culminating activity with Stone Soup (partially made with stock from the remains of the two large sacks of vegetables we used to make Veggie ABC's and Veggie Creatures), cooked by the school's Fabulous Food Services person, Wendy Fearon (who also made and cooked the bread dough we used to form rolls). Each class brought blankets, and we all sat on the floor in the gym and had a picnic.

I met with each class three times during the week (we had a snow day on Tuesday, so that scrunched the schedule a bit; I will go back to the school sometime this year to spend the day showing students what I make in the studio and talking about what it's like to be a studio artist), but I always wish there were time to do things more slowly and spend more thinking and talking time with the projects. Nevertheless, we all enjoyed ourselves thoroughly!