24 July 2009

SUMMER! Fiber Arts & Freely Made

We're two weeks into our Summer Camp and it's so much fun!
Our first week's theme was Fiber Art. The kids made fantastic weavings with yarn, fabric, plastic, and sticks; made batiks; felted rocks; embroidered; and dyed fabrics with onion peels. The theme of our second week was Freely Made and our projects were inspired by the art of the Abstract Expressionists. We painted on the floor; painted with marbles, sand, and glitter; drew with India ink on telephone book pages; painted to the song "The Beginning" by Sun Ra; painted after meditating; and made "Soak Stains" on muslin with markers, temperas, and water. The week ended with a trip to the MoMA. At MoMA we paid special attention to the paintings by Kandinsky, Rothko, Kline, and Pollock (we looked at images of Frankenthaler's paintings at Painted Cloud this week too, but unfortunately the MoMA does not have any of her paintings from their collection currently on view). All of the kids had such interesting questions, observations, and ideas -- from Gemma describing one of the Rothko paintings as a grave, to Lucas pointing out a row of small white drip marks that slightly overlap a big black brush mark in a Kline painting.
Samara, Rebecca, and I are all ecstatic about how the camps have been this far and are truly looking forward to the weeks ahead. Thank you to Delilah, Gemma, Genevieve, Lucas, Mela, Mia, Ranger, Simone, Skuli, and Stella for making the last two weeks amazing!