The last project of the year, across all grades, is a communal artwork. Communal works are created by a community of people. Sometimes there is a plan, but sometimes not, allowing the piece to grow and change unpredictably as each person contributes.
Communal works, like this, are great exercises in accepting the variation of ideas of other people.
Students place each piece on the pieces of others knowing that others will likely build on it.
They know their ideas are influencing the final design, even if they can't see their piece at the end.
2010-2011
We created an abstract sculpture using- triangles folded from construction paper, tape, staples, and some glue for reinforcement. Students from all grades created triangles, the instructor stapled them to preserve their shape, then each student placed their triangle anywhere on the sculpture.
Color was determined by grade level (kindergarten-red, grade 01-orange, grade 02-yellow, grade 03-green, grade 04-blue). The work has a large number of orange pieces, due to the fact that I see grade 01 twice as often as I see other grades.
The entire sculpture was built by the students. None of the triangles were added by the instructor.
Images: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07
2011-2012
Students imagined an enormous tree (called the World Tree in our imaginary adventure) that held an entire city in its branches. We looked at and discussed the work of Japanese artist Takanori-Aiba, focusing on detail and scale. The instructor built a large (about 5') tree out of cardboard, and students worked on building a fantastic tree house. The requirements were to include a lot of detail, and to stay in the correct scale. A human adult would have been about .5" compared to this enormous tree model, so all structures, doors, walkways, etc. had to fit that scale.
The instructor added a model of our flying ship as the final detail.
It was great to see the amazing teamwork among classmates and across classes/grades that took place during this project.
Images: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07 (360 view)
2012-2013
Students study sculptures with unusual surfaces, such as found material sculptures. Such sculptures are recognisable by their shape, but their surfaces are covered with images, designs, objects, etc. Together, all grade levels worked to cover the surface of a simple eagle sculpture with unique feathers. These thousands feathers ranged from very abstract designs to meticulously crafted representative images.
Images: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06
Communal Art
The last project of the year, across all grades, is a communal artwork. Communal works are created by a community of people. Sometimes there is a plan, but sometimes not, allowing the piece to grow and change unpredictably as each person contributes.
Communal works, like this, are great exercises in accepting the variation of ideas of other people.
Students place each piece on the pieces of others knowing that others will likely build on it.
They know their ideas are influencing the final design, even if they can't see their piece at the end.
2010-2011
We created an abstract sculpture using- triangles folded from construction paper, tape, staples, and some glue for reinforcement. Students from all grades created triangles, the instructor stapled them to preserve their shape, then each student placed their triangle anywhere on the sculpture.
Color was determined by grade level (kindergarten-red, grade 01-orange, grade 02-yellow, grade 03-green, grade 04-blue). The work has a large number of orange pieces, due to the fact that I see grade 01 twice as often as I see other grades.
The entire sculpture was built by the students. None of the triangles were added by the instructor.
Images: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07
2011-2012
Students imagined an enormous tree (called the World Tree in our imaginary adventure) that held an entire city in its branches. We looked at and discussed the work of Japanese artist Takanori-Aiba, focusing on detail and scale. The instructor built a large (about 5') tree out of cardboard, and students worked on building a fantastic tree house. The requirements were to include a lot of detail, and to stay in the correct scale. A human adult would have been about .5" compared to this enormous tree model, so all structures, doors, walkways, etc. had to fit that scale.
The instructor added a model of our flying ship as the final detail.
It was great to see the amazing teamwork among classmates and across classes/grades that took place during this project.
Images: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07 (360 view)
2012-2013
Students study sculptures with unusual surfaces, such as found material sculptures. Such sculptures are recognisable by their shape, but their surfaces are covered with images, designs, objects, etc. Together, all grade levels worked to cover the surface of a simple eagle sculpture with unique feathers. These thousands feathers ranged from very abstract designs to meticulously crafted representative images.
Images: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06