Exploring by Design Summer Art Program
Art workshops that connect with complex issues based on social justice and community awareness. Students work together to create artwork and solutions while focusing on self-identity and how they are all connected but also unique to themselves.
"When children are provided the structure, guidance and materials to create art, they engage in self-expression beneficial to their development. They also have an outlet to tell the story of their culture or community." -Susan Niz
Send your artwork / photographs or questions to [email protected]
"When children are provided the structure, guidance and materials to create art, they engage in self-expression beneficial to their development. They also have an outlet to tell the story of their culture or community." -Susan Niz
Send your artwork / photographs or questions to [email protected]
PORTRAIT PAPER WEAVING - WHO I AM: Duel Self Portrait
Day 1: Drawing - Day 2: Weaving |
TOPIC: What makes you? How do you recognize and identify who you are while navigating in challenging times? Do you code switch? Are you one way with friends, another with family? Schoolmates, etc? Who do you show the real you too?
Let's take these thoughts and create a self portrait that reflect the different sides of you while merging and weaving two portraits together. How Code Switching Explains the World 5 Reasons People Code Switch SELF REFLECT: Identify facts that describe your outer and inner self: Outward descriptions: What others see when they look at you: Appearance, actions, behaviors Inward descriptions: What others may not always see when they look a you. Feelings, struggles, future goals, current past experiences Fiber artist and Hartford resident Ed Jonetta Miller Diverse Tapestry Artists in America Facial Proportions - How to draw a head How to draw and shade an eye Paper Weaving Instructions |
ABOVE are examples of two portraits in beginning, middle and final drawing and coloring stages.
Create a portrait and add symbolism and words reflecting who you are.
- Create a 2nd portrait by tracing your first portrait. Use your window as a light source.
- Color both portraits different colors based on your personality and or moods.
- Take one portrait and create a weaving plate by turning your paper over and folding in half. so it looks like it is in landscape/horizontal mode Follow guidelines below.
- Cut on your wavy lines...it does not be precise BUT do not cut out your border!! you should have 7-8 equally distributed lines.
- Take your second portrait and turn over. Do not fold. Using guidelines below create strips that will weave into your weaving plate by making a template. Make sure to label with numbers! You should end up with 8-10 equally wide strips.
- Cut out your strips making sure to also cut out border on this one.
- Weave strips into your weaving plate. start the first strip going under- over and the next strip going over - under and so on.
WEAVING EXTENSION (B) - with Recycled Materials - Sticks and Yarn
Weaving Video Instructions
Weaving Sticks step by step #1 instructions and examples
Weaving Step by step Instructions #2 with photographs
Weaving Video Instructions
Weaving Sticks step by step #1 instructions and examples
Weaving Step by step Instructions #2 with photographs
TIN FOIL GESTURE SCULPTURES inspired by Alberto Giacometti while using everyday materials in the kitchen.
TOPIC: Recognizing our personal suffering, daily struggles and failure to explore ways to embrace our trauma and help heal ourselves - becoming stronger each day. Tate Gallery - Giacometti works and brief bio Man Pointing 1947
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Alberto Giacometti was an artist and descendent of religious refugees and used his personal suffering and emotion to create dynamic sculptures that bare the scars of our daily struggles. "There's torment in every one of us, Giacometti wasn't afraid of displaying it." - Stanley Tucci "He made something positive of this idea of failing, of difficulties, of starting again every day, Starting anew every day." - Katherine Grenier "We sculptors affectionately refer to Giacometti’s signature style as snot on a string. For me and others, the texture is an indication as to how tactile sculpture was for him. You can feel him pinching and pushing the original material. Rodin’s are like that too, but clearly each of their respective sense of touch and their tactile experiences were different, each unique to their different personalities and sensibilities similar to signatures." - Craig Frederick, CT Sculptor and CCSU professor Giacometti was one of the most important sculptors of the 20th century. His work was particularly influenced by artistic styles such as Cubism and Surrealism along with his personal trauma and memories of World War II. Philosophical questions about the human condition played a significant role in his work. Around 1935 he gave up on his Surrealistic influences in order to pursue a more deepened analysis of figurative compositions. His self-critical nature led to great doubts about his work and his ability to do justice to his own artistic ideas but acted as a great motivating force. Easy tin foil person sculpture instructions More challenging unicorn sculpture instructions |
Below are materials you will need and also visual guidance.
Progress of a sculpture: Tin with base, stages of paper mache with paper towels and homemade glue with flower, painted with acrylics
Challenge yourself and take it further to create something else more complicated, like an animal or magical creature.Adding a paper mache coating to your sculpture. Mix a paper mache glue using this recipe and cover your sculpture with scraps of paper towels.
"CLAY" SCULPTURES - creating art while utilizing ingredients from the kitchen.
TOPIC: How do you honor your ancestors, family members, tribe? How do you merge your past into the present and future? The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarnation Works: Mother and Child 1993, Black Unity 1968, Homage to my Young Black Sisters 1968
The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarnation |
VIDEO INSTRUCTIONS: D.I.Y. Clay Recipes
VIDEO INSTRUCTIONS: Small batch dough recipe (This is half the size of my recipe below) Mini sculptures in honor of Elizabeth Catlett, April 15th 1915- April 2nd 2012. An African American and Mexican female descendant of slaves, Catlett created works of art that honored her ancestors and merged her past into her present. Much of her work related to race, daily struggles of being black and feminism. "Catlett kind of came of age as an artist when African-Americans and women were not part of the mainstream. They were not part of the center. They were relegated to the margins and excluded." - curator, Isolde Brielmaier Art and Bio of Elizabeth Catlett Small batch dough recipe Have food coloring or paint? Mix it into your batch. (This is half the size of my recipe below) More African American Sculptors: Augusta Savage - Her career was fostered by the climate of the Harlem Renaissance and was also a professor of sculpture. She has stated her legacy will live on through the works of her students. John Wilson - Best known for his powerful portraits of Black men, with a distinct interest in both politically and socially conscious art arose in part from his exposure to the Social Realism that dominated American art during the Depression of the early 20th century. Hank Willis Thomas - A conceptual artist and arts educator whose work deals with themes related to identity, history and popular culture. The construction and use of race is a major element of Hank’s art. He has observed: “I could be a black artist, but I’m also many other things. All of us inhabit multiple identities at once. The craziest thing about blackness is that black people didn’t create it. Europeans with a commercial interest in dehumanizing us created it. Five hundred years ago in Africa there weren’t black people. There were just people.” |
Materials Needed above.
Some optional, others necessary |
Small Batch Recipe:
1 cup flour - 1/2 cup salt - 1/2 cup water 1. Mix flour and salt together. 2. Add water slowly - food coloring is optional. 3. When dough begins to clump you can start to use your hands to knead into a solid ball. 4. Add more water if too dry, add more dough if too moist. 5. Sculpt into desired form. 6. Bake at 170 degrees for 3 hours. Dust the bottom of your sheet so dough does not stick to pan. I also suggest checking from time to time, depending on size of your sculpture and make sure it's not sticking. In the last hour turn your sculpture over to bake the underside. If there is any "squishiness"....keep baking. |
- The 'V' sign, made by holding up the index and middle fingers, initially was used to signal victory by Allied nations during World War II. Anti-war activists later adopted it as a symbol of peace, and today the gesture is known as the peace sign.
- The raised fist, or the clenched fist, is a symbol of solidarity and support. It is also used as a salute to express unity, strength, defiance, or resistance. Both the peace and fist hand instructions are the same. Just change position of fingers.
Photo references to help you build a PEACE or RESIST hand. The raised fist, or the clenched fist, is a symbol of solidarity and support. It is also used as a salute to express unity, strength, defiance, or resistance. Both hand instructions are the same. Just change position of fingers. Build an armature for a taller sculpture - an extension from lesson# 2 / tin foil sculpture. Other examples of ideas below.
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AFRICAN MASKS MADE WITH REPURPOSED MILK JUGS AND PAPER MACHE
National Museum of African Art - Collections Traditional African Mask Examples Adinkra Meanings and Symbols Patterns in African Masks The style of an African Mask MASKS have been used since antiquity for ceremonial, spiritual, theatrical, and practical purposes throughout multiple cultures and continents.
Visually and aesthetically speaking, masks will differ not only from culture to culture, but also in the intended purpose of each mask. Historically, in Africa, masks are created for a variety of reasons such as religious ceremonies as a way to conjure or communicate with spirits or ancestors. In a traditional African setting African masks were created to be worn and danced on special occasions such as harvest, funerals, or holidays, rather than displayed on the walls of a museum. BUILDING YOUR OWN MASK: When creating your mask consider craftsmanship and your attention to details to create a quality work of art. Consider the emotional impact your mask will evoke. Will it be humorous, grotesque, fantastical, delicate, beautiful? Look at masks from different cultures for inspiration. Consider your own interests and how they may be used to personalize your mask. Or consider how your mask could convey a message about the times in which we live.
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TOPICS:
CULTURAL APPROPRIATION: Cultural appropriation is defined as the use or mimicry of artifacts or manners from another culture without acknowledgment, citation or permission. The manifestation of this phenomenon can take many forms — like borrowing customs, style or slang — and create confusion. CELEBRATING CULTURES & APPROPRIATION: The problem is not that non-native people want to partake in cultures that aren’t their own. The problem is doing so without any consideration or acknowledgment of the meaning these customs have to the people and cultures to whom they belong. That’s when cultural appropriation becomes a form of colonialism — itself a system of oppression — and a violation of the collective intellectual property rights of the originating, notably indigenous, minority cultures, and those living under colonial rule. It is important to gather an understanding of the culture and history behind it when celebrating others culture. - Diop |
The repurposed masks of Romuald Hazoume: