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created at home in his kitchen this year

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1st grade remote learning sculpture - Jill Nettels

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1st grade remote learning sculpture - Jill Nettels

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aka - y’all are a bit too focused on hot glue!

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Karakuri: How to Make Mechanical Paper Models That Move

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Karakuri: How to Make Mechanical Paper Models That Move

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Karakuri: Paper Made to Move (Cool Paper Art)

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Karakuri: Paper Made to Move (Cool Paper Art) [Borgert-Spaniol, Megan] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Karakuri: Paper Made to Move (Cool Paper Art)

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The Easy Way!!!

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beauty, growth, social justice

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Artist Ekua Holmes. PHOTO: © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Elizabeth James-Perry and Ekua Holmes are sowing the seeds of artistic healing on the front lawn of the Museum of Fine Arts. In " Garden for Boston," running through September, the two local artists and activists are using nature to reimagine the way visitors are welcomed to the museum's main entrance on Huntington Avenue.

For years, that welcome has been conducted by Cyrus Dallin's "Appeal to the Great Spirit," described on the MFA website as an inaccurate portrayal of a Native American crafted by a white artist for white audiences. Now, the exterior will grow into a celebration of strength, community and inclusion. James-Perry's installation, "Raven Reshapes Boston: A Native Corn Garden at the MFA," is engulfing the statue with native crops: corn, beans and squash, arranged in a horseshoe crab design around the statue. Holmes is planting a lush sunflower garden titled "Radiant Community," with walking paths throughout, as a continuation of her "Roxbury Sunflower Project."

"Sunflowers represent, among other things, resilience, self-determination and the ability for a community to evolve and emerge while staying grounded in its history and traditions," says Holmes. "The sunflowers' essential attributes mirror those that are reflected in the cultural traditions of Roxbury's Black community and must now be collectively amplified in our society."

In the "Roxbury Sunflower Project," Holmes has planted the iconic flowers all over the neighborhood, spreading joy and celebrating the community. Now that local pride extends to the grounds of the MFA, creating space for members of the community in a historically exclusionary institution.

For James-Perry, the installation is an opportunity to bring natural growing space back into a city that has become a concrete jungle. "I wanted to plant something that was green and growing and would be lively and also reflect eastern Native American heritage, which I think the statue does not," says James-Perry. "I thought I would center also the work of women in gardening, as well as the connection between the ocean and Wampanoag tribal members in the New England area."

The Dallin statue utilizes symbols from various different Midwestern and Southwestern Native tribes, and James-Perry says she was never drawn to the piece. In "Raven Reshapes Boston" she has centered the local Native community, using crushed shells around the garden in allusion to the rich fishing and whaling history of the area and planting with traditional techniques of the Indigenous population. When the corn has grown fully, it will engulf the Dallin statue, centering authentic Native experience. James-Perry plans to have local tribal members from Aquinnah, Massachusetts harvest the corn with her in September and either prepare it as is or dry it to make hominy.

"Garden for Boston" is part of an ongoing effort by the Museum of Fine Arts to re-contextualize and analyze its collection and behaviors. It's an acknowledgement of the misrepresentation of the Dallin sculpture and an effort to make members of every local community feel welcome.

"For me, it's about cultural revival that is natural and authentic and from native hands here in Boston," says James-Perry. "I hope people get even the tiniest glimpse of that. Even if it's simply as they're walking by."

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Local artists transform MFA entrance with 'Garden for Boston' - The Bay State Banner

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Elizabeth James-Perry and Ekua Holmes are sowing the seeds of artistic healing on the front lawn of the Museum of Fine Arts. In "Garden for Boston," running through September, the two local artists and activists are using nature to reimagine the way visitors are welcomed to the museum's main entrance on Huntington Avenue.

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what is the purpose of monuments? what do they tell a society? this is a full length documentary.

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The Neutral Ground documents New Orleans' fight over monuments and America's troubled romance with the Lost Cause. In 2015, director CJ Hunt was filming the New Orleans City Council's vote to remove four confederate monuments. But when that removal is halted by death threats, CJ sets out to understand why a losing army from 1865 still holds so much power in America. A co-production of POV and ITVS, in association with the Center for Asian American Media. A co-presentation of Black Public Media and the Center for Asian American Media. Official Selection, Tribeca Film Festival.

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The Neutral Ground documents New Orleans' fight over monuments and America's troubled romance with the Lost Cause. In 2015, director CJ Hunt was filming the New Orleans City Council's vote to remove four confederate monuments. But when that removal is halted by death threats, CJ sets out to understand why a losing army from 1865 still holds so much power in America.

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Hawa 6th Grade

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Avery 8th grade

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Middle School

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Middle School

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How Climate Changes Art | The Art Assignment

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Throughout history, art has helped reveal the climate around us and highlight our fragile relationship to it. We look at navigational charts from the Marshall Islands, Katsushika Hokusai’s “Under the Wave off Kanagawa,” to the cave paintings of Lascaux, and Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, among othe…

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Empathy is a word we hear pretty often these days, used to describe our ability to

understand the experience of someone else, and in some way share in their feelings or

plight.

And art can be really good at stimulating empathy.

For example, if you look at Francisco Goya s The Third of May 1808, it s nearly impossible

not to feel for its main subject.

A man is pictured at a moment of utter desperation, his last moments.

We feel for him, we ache for him.

Maybe our pulse quickens.

Maybe we even find ourselves mimicking his wild eyed, pleading stare at his executioners.

We brace for impact.

This ability of art to link us to others and arouse feelings within us is one of the primary

reasons people like art.

If we let it, art can penetrate the jaded armor of modern existence many of us wear,

inviting us to feel what someone else once felt, someone who might live far away or in

centuries past.

Empathy s relationship to art gets more complex when you consider the origin of the

word, which came into being only about a hundred years ago.

English speaking psychologists in the early 1900s were trying to translate the German

term Einf hlung.

They were describing the capacity to project one s own feelings into an object, thereby

enlivening it, or transforming, let s say, a big hunk of metal into an object of contemplation.

Empathy was coined using the Greek em for in, and pathos for feeling.

But this putting the feeling into something is quite different from today s conception

of empathy as a kind of bringing the feelings in from someone else.

This is the fifth and final video of our series focusing on a much-discussed idea or aspect

of life today, and looking back to see how people from the past have made artworks and

objects that speak to it in some way.

Today we address art and empathy.

Empathy both its original and current understandings, thinking through where and when and how the

feelings are coming in and radiating out.

And we ll explore a few of the many ways art has assisted in the process of not just

envisioning but actually feeling the worldsand experiences of others.

----

Religious art has long taken on the task of stirring up emotion and empathy in those who

look upon it.

The R ttgen Piet is a painted wood sculpture just 34 inches high, created in Germany in

the early 14th Century.

It depicts the biblical story of the lamentation of Christ, when Mary holds the dead body of

Jesus, her son.

There had been many pietas before, but what was new here in the late Gothic period was

an emphasis on the humanity of the subjects.

Mary is very visibly distraught, confused, even angry, which sets her apart from past

depictions showing Mary at peace, following the Catholic belief that she had the foreknowledge

that Jesus would rise from the dead.

But this Mary does not seem to know, or at least feels no comfort in the knowledge.

Similarly, Jesus is shown to be deeply, gruesomely human.

We see the gory, gaping wounds from his crucifiction, with dimensional blood pouring forth.

Oversized thorns extend from his crown and presumably also into his head, with dripping

blood painted down his forehead.

The paint has deteriorated and used to be much more vivid, likely amplifying the intensity

of the scene.

Catholic writers during the later Middle Ages had begun to describe a Christ who was less

of a divine figure and more human.

Francis of Assisi, for instance, wrote about a Christ who was poor, and who understood

and related to the pain of being human.

A new spirituality had emerged, a kind of mysticism that described moments such as the

lamentation with great detail and emotion.

The Rottgen pieta and others like it were intended to bring this story alive and into

the present, to summon its spectators to connect with these figures on a deeply personal level.

It was meant to deepen your faith by generating empathy for the suffering of Jesus and Mary,

but also demonstrate that these divine figurescould understand your suffering.

---

Emerging from the Buddhist tradition is another divine being embodying compassion.

Jiz is a bodhisattva entrusted with the salvation of all thinking beings between the

death of the historical Buddha and the adventof the Buddha of the future.

The representation of Jiz we re looking at now stands at nearly life size and was

created in Japan between the late 12th and mid 13th century.

It was carved from wood and bears traces of the colorful lacquer and gold leaf that originally

decorated it.

Jiz is portrayed in a state of meditation and as a traveling monk, wearing humble garments

and carrying a pilgrim s staff in one hand and a wish-granting jewel in the other, a

symbol of his limitless powers to answer prayers.

The Japanese name translates literally to earth repository, and that is indeed

Jiz s role as the Buddha Amitabha s attendant and intercessor in the world, postponing

his own buddhahood to help others achieve enlightenment.

The deity is both a symbol and embodiment of empathy, and also a model for similar behavior

among its worshippers, demonstrating how compassion and empathy can be a foil for suffering and

a gateway to enlightenment.

---

In the early 17th century, Gu man Poma gave us a window into the suffering of his fellow

indigenous Peruvians under Spanish colonization.

It took Poma nearly three decades to create his nearly 1200 page illustrated manuscript

The First New Chronicle and Good Government, completed around 1615.

It records the extensive history of Andean civilization before the Spanish invasion,

as well as their ultimate conquest and the new colonial regime.

What sets apart Poma s account from others is that it details the abuses of the Spanish

against the Inkas, which you can not only read about but also see in a number of the

nearly 400 pen and ink drawings it contains.

Poma s manuscript also importantly acknowledges that a history of indigenous Andean culture

had indeed existed before the conquest, it s just that it was recorded in a different way,

through khipus, colorful knotted cords Inkas used to register names, events, and numerical

and statistical information.

Poma used khipus along with oral accounts as his sources, and wrote the chronicle in

four languages: Spanish, Latin, and the Andeanlanguages Quechua and Aymara.

It was addressed directly to the Spanish King, first Philip II and then Phillip III, intended

to communicate not only the deep history of Inka culture and the brutalities that had

occurred, but also the corruption then taking place and Poma s suggestions for better

government.

The chronicle was designed to be published and distributed, but Poma also travelled hundreds

of miles in an attempt to pass it on to authorities who would then give it to the king.

We don t know whether the king ever actually received it, but there is something remarkable

in Poma s act of direct appeal, which assumes a level of decency on the part of the king,

and a faith on the part of Poma that his work could encourage powerful people in the colonial

regime to empathize with the Inka.

The chronicle was never published during Poma s life, but it was rediscovered by an anthropologist

in a Copenhagen archive in 1908 and eventually reprinted.

Today you can explore the entire manuscript yourself on the Royal Library of Copenhagen

website, where you can peruse scans of the document and read translations and also exercise

your own capability to empathize with the Inka who suffered mightily under Spanish rule.

---

Photography can be an extremely powerful tool for stimulating empathy.

In the 1930s and 40, the US government s Farm Security Administration hired a number

of talented photographers to document the devastating effects of the Great Depression

and the Dust Bowl.

Dorothea Lange s iconic 1936 photo we refer to as Migrant Mother emerged from this effort,

and succeeded in capturing the attention and compassion of many, and even inspired financial

assistance to the camp of migrant pea pickersnear where the photo was taken.

That same year, Fortune magazine sent James Agee and Walker Evans on assignment to document

the lives of sharecropper families in Hale County, Alabama.

Fortune rejected the article, but Agee and Walker published a book instead, titled Let

Us Now Praise Famous Men, combining Evans s indelible images with Agee s distinctive

and sensitive writing.

They changed the names of the towns and the families they captured, and openly grappled

with the challenge of presenting their subjects with dignity and respect, while also painting

an accurate and extremely moving depictionof their harsh lives of poverty.

The question of how to document the hardship of others and how to inspire not just an empathetic

response but also action, was addressed differently in 1943 by artists Chittaprosad and Zainul

Abedin.

That year, one of the worst famines in history struck the Bengal province of an India still

under British rule, and the Communist Party of India sent the two artists to create a

record of the suffering.

The famine would kill as many as 3 million people, due in considerable part to British

policies that redirected the food supply of Bengal to the World War II effort.

Chittaprosad s pen and ink drawings are a stark and haunting record of that devastation,

as are Abedin s drawings, painted with brush and ink.

Both artists works reflect the desperation and also humanity of those pictured, and served

then and now as a powerful indictment of theabuses of powers that caused it.

More recently, the artist Alfredo Jaar has explored the limits of photography and its

capacity to inspire empathy with such works as Real Pictures.

It s part of Jaar s Rwanda Project, which he began in 1994 after witnessing the horrific

aftermath of the Rwandan civil war and genocide of as many as one million Rwandan Tutsis by

Rwandan Hutus.

Jaar took many photographs during his trip, but for this installation decided to share

exactly none of them, instead presenting a configuration of stacked black linen portfolio

boxes.

Each contains a photograph but is closed, with a label providing a factual description

of the image inside.

In a world of increasing image saturation, sometimes the most effective means to provoke

empathy and action is to consciously hold back images, allowing captions and quotations

and the refusal of images to speak instead.

---

The human impulse to memorialize the dead also concerns itself with empathy, and the

ways we build spaces for others to mourn.

There are many extremely affecting memorials that are figurative, including German artist

K the Kollwitz s 1920 woodcut In Memoriam Karl Liebknecht, made in response to the assassination

of the Communist leader during a 1919 uprising.

Or her chilling memorial to her youngest son, Peter, who died in battle at age eighteen

during the first World War.

But there are other, non-figurative ways to memorialize the dead and make spaces for the

mourning.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C., designed by Maya Lin and completed in

1982, demonstrates how powerful and empathetica work of abstraction can be.

Lin s proposal was selected from a pool of over fourteen hundred submissions and constituted

a decisive break from the traditions of monument design.

She described her concept like this: the memorial appears as a rift in the earth, a

long, polished, black stone wall, emerging from and receding into the earth.

The Wall, as it has come to be called, points in one direction to the Washington

Monument, and in another to the Lincoln Memorial.

And it is inscribed with the names of the over 58,000 American service men and women

who died in active duty during the war.

The black granite surface is highly reflective, so that in visiting you see not only the names

but the everything around and behind you, making a kind of alternate mirror world seemingly

behind the stone.

The mirrored surface also allows you to see yourself, making those who visit an integral

part of the memorial.

In 1991, Lin explained that the purpose of The Wall is to help the veterans coming

back, to help their families, to talk to people 100 years from now who will know nothing about

that war and nobody on that wall.

To me, it's a very simple notion: you cannot ever forget that war is not just a victory

or loss.

It's really about individual lives.

A monument can t be everything to everybody.

This one does not address the much higher number of Vietnamese lives that were lost

in the same conflict.

And at the time it was unveiled, some protested Lin s abstraction, interpreting it as a

politically-charged response to an unpopular war.

But it is deeply meaningful for many, visited by millions every year, and a site of pilgrimage

for veterans, the families of those who died, and everyone else trying to fathom and process

this tragedy.

You feel the loss here, even if you didn t personally lose anyone in the war.

Lin s design is remarkable for its break with tradition, but mostly for the extreme

empathy it shows for those in need of a space for mourning.

----

Now empathy doesn t have to involve feeling the loss or pain of others, although that

has been our focus so far today.

We can of course empathize with those experiencing other emotions like passion or joy or contentment.

And we can also empathize with people in other parts of the world who deal with the same

kind of non-life-threatening-but-still-important issues we all do.

Ghana ThinkTank is an artist collective working today that engenders empathy between groups

of people often separated by borders, continents, or ideological divides.

The mission of the group is to develop the first world, inverting the usual power

dynamics through which people in the so-called developed world intervene in the lives

of those in the third world or developing countries.

To do this, Ghana Think Tank collects problems and challenges in areas of the US and Europe

and sends them to think tanks they ve assembledin other areas of the world.

In Wales, a complaint was registered that the elderly were treated like a burden to

society.

And the collective sent it to a think tank in Iran that concluded the problem was that

the young people of Wales didn t think they had anything in common with their elders.

And their solution was to recommend recording the funny, dirty stories of older people and

make them available for younger people to hear.

And that s exactly what Ghana Think Tank helped make happen, enabling cross-cultural

exchange, and a cross-generational gateway to empathy.

---

Now there is still no consensus on what exactly empathy is or means, and our understanding

of it will no doubt continue to shift.

The artworks we ve seen today show us how empathy can live in many areas of art.

It can live within the mind of the artist as they consider their subject matter, or

imagine their audience.

It can also live within the artist s intention for the work, and in their hopes to stimulate

the empathic abilities of those who see it.

The artist James Turrell once described his intention like this: Art is a completed

pass.

You don t just throw it out into the world--someone has to catch it.

For me, all artwork has the potential to stimulate empathy.

Whatever it is, it offers me a brief glimpse into the mind and motivation and emotions

of another person, whether it s someone alive today and living in my own city, or

someone from a dramatically different time and place.

When we re actively engaging with art, we almost have to be empathetic to derive something

from our experience.

We imagine who might have made it, where they made it, and most importantly why.

What compelled them to represent their ideas in this particular way?

It s this process of questioning that leads us to more nuanced understandings of other

people.

It compels us to imagine other people complexly, to experience their lives as real and important.

And if that s not a good reason to studyart, I don t know what is.

What is empathy to you?

And what are the artworks and objects thathave helped you experience it?

Let s talk about it in the comments.

This episode was made in partnership with Smarthistory, an outstanding resource for

anyone curious about art and cultural objects from around the world.

Subscribe to their YouTube channel, and visit Smarthistory.org to learn about some of the

artworks and histories discussed in this video.

Thanks to all of our patrons for supporting the art assignment, especially our grandmasters

of the arts Vincent Apa and Ernest Wolfe.

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Empathy is a term we hear a lot, but what does it mean and how does it work? Looking back through art history, we find many moments when art has allowed us to share in the feelings of others, from Maya Lin's Vietnam Veterans Memorial, to representations of the Buddhist deity Jizō Bosatsu.

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Supports TAB studio practices

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"The Shipyard." A historic video clip of Katherine Douglas' classroom in action!

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"The Shipyard." A historic video clip of Katherine Douglas' classroom in action!

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What can we infer about the power of student's ideas by observing children's interactions in a TAB Studio Classroom?

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(on Netflix--ignore the cooking photo)

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Watch Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang | Netflix Official Site

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Known for his spectacular pyrotechnic displays, Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang creates his most ambitious project yet in this breathtaking documentary. Watch trailers & learn more.

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TAB co founder

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Year long collaboration of two friends age 8.

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collected, sorted, used by students

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Very common; self-selected groups build together over several classes

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Created by students to use in various studio centers. Inspied by Cathy Topal's book BEAUTIFUL STUFF.

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Elementary studio classroom

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The seven giant faces loom above the dunes, gazing sombrely over swathes of bright sea thrift towards the ocean.

Even before the G7 had sat down to begin their Cornish summit, Mount Recyclemore, a sculpture made of discarded electronic waste depicting the visages of the seven leaders, looked bound to be one of the stars of the show.

Created by the artist Joe Rush and the tech business musicMagpie, the piece has appeared at Sandy Acres beach, just along the coast from Carbis Bay, where the leaders are meeting.

About 15 artists helped create the structure over a frantic six weeks at Rush's scrapyard/studio in south London. Parts were then shipped down to Cornwall on lorries and put together in situ.

It will remain on the beach until Sunday, after which the plan is to set it up at musicMagpie's headquarters in Stockport, Greater Manchester.

Different artists were tasked with depicting each leader. "They're individual characters and we've had individual artists working on them so they have their individual flavours," said Rush.

"We need to recycle stuff, we need to make stuff last. We can't just throw it into landfill. It's not just a politician's problem; it's a problem that the human race has to deal with."

One of Rush's collaborators, Alex Wreckage, admitted that there had been rows over who would get the best parts. "There were a few arguments: 'I want that bit, it's Biden's nose', 'No, it's Merkel's."

The faces are 3 metres by 1 metre and constructed out of 12 tonnes of e-waste - about 20,000 pieces of discarded tech.

Alex Wreckage, left, and Joe Rush in front of Mount Recyclemore, their giant sculpture of made from discarded electronics components. Photograph: Hugh R Hastings/Getty Images

According to musicMagpie, the aim was to highlight the huge environmental threat of electronic waste: it claimed the UK was one of the worst offenders. It also published research that found four out of five British people did not know what e-waste was, and that half of Britons (47%) did not recycle, resell or donate their old tech to charity, with most opting to hold on to it instead, where it ends up at the back of drawers collecting dust.

Steve Oliver, the founder and chief executive of musicMagpie, said there had been an "amazing" reaction to the piece.

He said: "E-waste is a growing problem worldwide and its impact on the environment is significant. If sent to landfills, e-waste can leak harmful chemicals into the soil and water or if incinerated, fumes release chemicals into the air, contributing to global warming.

"Not only this, but everything from our phones to our laptops rely heavily on precious materials to operate, which are not only limited resources but also directly impact climate change when being extracted from the earth."

As part of its Mount Recyclemore campaign, musicMagpie has partnered with the global waste management charity WasteAid. Throughout June it will give the charity £1 for each piece of consumer tech customers trade in.

Rush is renowned for his environmental art installations and has collaborated with artists including Banksy, Vivienne Westwood and Damien Hirst. He bills himself as an "artist of the margins".

He and Wreckage are among the artists who create Trash City and the Unfairground in a corner of the Glastonbury festival.

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G7 leaders depicted in Mount Recyclemore e-waste sculpture

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Cornwall art installation created from 20,000 pieces of discarded tech highlights growing threat it poses to environment

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Amazing blog about building and learning. Very TAB. Met this teacher through a friend.

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Amazing blog about building and learning. Very TAB. Met this teacher through a friend.

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Heather Cox Richardson in her daily newsletter, Letters from an American noted a significant court finding in Montana, concerning the violation of the state's constitution by the state's continued and continuing support for the fossil fuel industries. In 1972 the state of Montana adopted an amendment stating," "[t]he state and each person shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations," and thus commanding the state legislature to make rules protecting the environment.

In a rare court case on behalf of the children of Montana, a federal judge, as described by Richardson, agreed with the children that " the state's support for coal, oil, and gas violated their constitutional rights because it created the pollution fueling climate change, thus depriving them of their right to a healthy environment. They pointed to a Montana law forbidding the state and its agents from taking the impact of greenhouse gas emissions or climate change into consideration in their environmental reviews, as well as the state's fossil fuel-based state energy policy."

This, is a sign of hope. We've been lied to about the reality of man's role in climate change, and have been denied the opportunity to address the degradation of our natural environment by those in government who adhere to power through obfuscation and denial. their time is coming to an end.

responsibility to the earth and the protection of all things in the natural world, for the sake of those who walk behind us.

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This blog is dedicated to sharing the concept that our hands are essential to learning- that we engage the world and its wonders, sensing and creating primarily through the agency of our hands. We abandon our children to education in boredom and intellectual escapism by failing to engage their hands in learning and making.

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"I'm strong! I can do hammer by myself. See? This is going to be the bridge for we all build together."
-3 year old boy at Rosa Parks Early Childhood Center.

I walked into this classroom after the FIRST MONTH of school to find children in engaged in every center around the room. And one of the things that blew my mind was the 3 year olds woodworking in the construction area!

"Bang, bang, clunk!" -The beautiful sounds of children engaged in creating that I heard that day!

WOW! And they were not hurting each other or themselves, but instead the were working together, sharing, helping one another hold the boards for stability, and learning so many valuable skills from this experience.

Woodworking Benefits

Fine Motor Skills by holding nails or screws in place

Persistence

Focus

Large Motor Skills by using arm muscles

Sharing and teamwork

Cognitive domain growth

Social/Emotional through confidence, respect for materials and others, and confidence

Math through engineering skills, measurements, and size

Safety Considerations

For children under 3, be mindful of appropriate tools (I usually used the plastic tools for under 3)

Adult supervision required - best to have woodworking area with small group

Model appropriate use of tools (Have plastic to practice on own is a great idea)

Wear goggles

Start the nail for children new to woodworking

Allow them to try! Children are more competent than sometimes we allow.

Brilliant Idea to Start

Materials:

Child size hammers

Screw Drivers

Large and small nails (with larger type head)

Large screws (Screw part way into wood)

Cardboard with letter or number written on it

Directions:

Write a letter or number on cardboard and place on top of wood block. Allow child to hammer the nails to form that letter or number. As children become familiar, allow them to write their own name, letter, or design to hammer.

There are so many fabulous explorations for woodworking with children. It is a great skill that needs to be back into the classrooms again! Thanks Rosa Parks Early Childhood Center for sharing your woodworking inspirations!
BONUS DOWNLOAD: Click here to download our e-book: Ever-Changing Environments. Discover the beautiful materials and design of Rosa Parks Early Childhood Education Center. Comment below how you are woodworking in your classroom! Watch a short clip with 3 year olds woodworking after the first month of school!

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Restoring the Importance of Woodworking and Young Children

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Find out this class uses woodworking so the children are working together, sharing, helping to hold the boards for stability, and learning valuable skills.

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for young children/beginners

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Jim Calder's sweet potato faces make carving easy By Kathleen Ryan
For Jim Calder, teaching kids to carve is a win-win situation. He enjoys it so much, he has taught more than 3,000 children the basics of woodcarving-for free.

"I just love to see children carve for the first time and watch their eyes light up when they see what they are capable of creating," Jim said with a bit of a smile.

Originally from Baltimore, Md., Jim splits his time between Chesapeake, Va., and Haywood County, N.C. But wherever he lives or travels, he constantly looks for opportunities to offer carving classes to kids.

Jim has donated countless hours of time to schools, camps, county fairs, clubs, and other organizations so people of all ages can learn woodcarving. He's even set up shop in his own front yard to pique the interest of neighborhood kids.

Perhaps his affinity for children and his uncanny ability to fire up their interest in an age-old art form comes from the fact that Jim was just seven when he stumbled into woodworking for the first time.

"I used to sneak over to my neighbor's barn and peek inside to see what he was doing. He caught me standing there and told me straight out that if I was going to watch, I'd have to work. So he took me under his wing and taught me the trade," Jim recalled.

It turns out this crusty old neighbor was none other than Norbert Munson, a renowned furniture maker in the 1950s who never used power tools and proudly posted a sign that read, "Sandpaper is for fools who can't sharpen their tools."

Norbert taught the eager lad everything he knew about woodworking, and somewhere along the line, the boy developed his own love of wood. Young Jim couldn't get enough of it.

"The only thing Munson required of me, besides my full attention, was to give back to others what he had given to me-to keep the art alive," Jim said. Jim does that every chance he gets.

Daniel Manget, of the Haywood County, N.C., 4-H Program, was thrilled to have Jim offer a free class to his 4-H students. He said the response from the kids and parents alike was overwhelming.

"It's great to see kids enjoying a hobby that requires this kind of concentration, dedication, and artistic expression that is otherwise lacking in our new Internet Age," said Daniel. "Jim inspires kids to put down the video game controller and express themselves in a piece of wood."

At the beginning of each class, Jim reviews the list of dos and don'ts of carving safety with the kids. He relates how, in the past, carving and painting were ways of capturing, recording, and passing down history. When the kids are thoroughly captivated, Jim pulls out the spuds-sweet potatoes that is.

"Sweet potatoes come in interesting shapes, they're easy to carve, and they dry into a brick-hard substance that retains the carving and actually resembles wood. The kids really get a kick out of it." The tools for carving sweet potatoes vary from pocket knives to sharpened popsicle sticks.

To ensure every kid has a positive experience, Jim developed a simple carving method 28 years ago that he still teaches today. Called the "Calder Triangle Method ®," it involves overlaying a series of triangles to create a face. Jim's method, detailed in Woodcarving Illustrated Fall 2008 (Issue 44), has been successful with beginners of all ages.

"I see carving being renewed as each child takes with them a piece of the art," he said. "My legacy will be the children I've taught and knowing I've opened a door some of them may walk through-to keep the art alive."

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Teaching Kids to Carve - Woodcarving Illustrated

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Jim Calder's sweet potato faces make carving easy By Kathleen Ryan For Jim Calder, teaching kids to carve is a win-win situation. He enjoys it so much, he has taught more than 3,000 children the basics of woodcarving-for free. "I just love to see children carve for the first time ...

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Invented by Clyde Gaw!

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part two

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part one

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Balance and support age 3

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Artist Nathalie Miebach takes weather data from massive storms and turns it into complex sculptures that embody the forces of nature and time. These sculptures then become musical scores for a string quartet to play.

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intersection of art and science by translating scientific data related to meteorology, and oceanography into woven sculptures and musical scores and installations.

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Nathalie Miebach, instructor of Going Off the Wall: Playful Thinking in 3D, explores the intersection of art and science by translating scientific data related to meteorology, and oceanography into woven sculptures and musical scores and installations.

"The Burdon of Every Drop"

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Nathalie Miebach, instructor of Going Off the Wall: Playful Thinking in 3D, explores the intersection of art and science by translating scientific data related to meteorology, and oceanography into woven sculptures and musical scores and installations.

"The Burdon of Every Drop" https://t.co/jsXBi6FgU4

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Nathalie Miebach, instructor of Going Off the Wall: Playful Thinking in 3D, explores the intersection of art and science by translating scientific data related to meteorology, and oceanography into woven sculptures and musical scores and installations.

"The Burdon of Every Drop" pic.twitter.com/jsXBi6FgU4
— MassArtContinuingEd (@MassArtCE) June 9, 2021

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Nathalie Miebach, instructor of Going Off the Wall: Playful Thinking in 3D, explores the intersection of art and science by translating scientific data related to meteorology, and oceanography into woven sculptures and musical scores and installations.

"The Burdon of Every Drop" https://t.co/jsXBi6FgU4

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Nathalie Miebach, instructor of Going Off the Wall: Playful Thinking in 3D, explores the intersection of art and science by translating scientific data related to meteorology, and oceanography into woven sculptures and musical scores and installations.

"The Burdon of Every Drop" https://t.co/jsXBi6FgU4

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Nathalie Miebach, instructor of Going Off the Wall: Playful Thinking in 3D, explores the intersection of art and science by translating scientific data related to meteorology, and oceanography into woven sculptures and musical scores and installations.

"The Burdon of Every Drop"

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Andy Yoder's professional career spans over 30 years with multiple installations across the United States. This page represents just a few selections from his diverse portfolio of work.

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OVERBOARD by Andy Yoder

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Stephanie Nold Thomas was so kind to us. She and Gail Brown provided us with everything we needed to build including excellent double and triple-ply cardboard we would integrate into the recycled materials we had brought. Our idea to recreate an extinct pre-historic animal out of cardboard was received enthusiastically. One catch. Could the animal be based on an extinct species from the museum's collection? Our answer? Absolutely! Bethany suggested we consider a saber tooth lion, a giant ground sloth or perhaps a mammoth or a mastodon? Clark and I mulled it over. A mastodon? Indiana is a mastodon state!

There are over 300 mastodon excavation sites in Indiana! Farmers will plow their fields or heavy equipment operators will dig into the soil and then "clank!" Giant bones from these distant relatives of elephants emerge from the soil. As a child I remember going to the Walkerton Public Library in search of books on dinosaurs. The small library had an excellent collection of fossilized mastodon teeth, vertebrae, skull and leg fragments. My imagination and desire to learn more about ancient life was fired up every time I looked at those specimens!

The mastodon challenge was on. We needed a lot of cardboard. We were going into uncharted territory. We had never built something this large before. We knew we would need a sturdy framework to support the exterior of the sculpture. Our sculpture method of connecting sticks of cardboard to a reinforced skeletal framework would work just as well for a mastodon as it would for an apatosaur. We just needed to begin. Over Winter Break, I transformed the neck piece of the apatosaur into a mastodon spinal column. Hips, head, shoulders and leg sections would come next. We had a primary structure to begin attaching, connecting and weaving cardboard sticks that would become Fred Jr. Off and on, over the course of three months, whenever we could put in time, we fleshed our life size mastodon sculpture out.

More on Fred Jr's creative process soon!

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Indiana State Museum Cardboard Engineering Experience: Part 3

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Stephanie Nold Thomas was so kind to us. She and Gail Brown provided us with everything we needed to build including excellent double and tr...

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This is a pretty good example of emergent creativity: @IndianaMuseum  #TABchat @sceart1 @twoducks #creativity #mastodon #CardboardEngineering #STEAM

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This is a pretty good example of emergent creativity: @IndianaMuseum  #TABchat @sceart1 @twoducks #creativity #mastodon #CardboardEngineering #STEAM https://t.co/6ZKDRb4aaB

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This is a pretty good example of emergent creativity: @IndianaMuseum #TABchat @sceart1 @twoducks #creativity #mastodon #CardboardEngineering #STEAM pic.twitter.com/6ZKDRb4aaB
— Clyde Gaw (@CGawNPHSArt) May 20, 2019

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This is a pretty good example of emergent creativity: @IndianaMuseum  #TABchat @sceart1 @twoducks #creativity #mastodon #CardboardEngineering #STEAM https://t.co/6ZKDRb4aaB

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This is a pretty good example of emergent creativity: @IndianaMuseum  #TABchat @sceart1 @twoducks #creativity #mastodon #CardboardEngineering #STEAM https://t.co/6ZKDRb4aaB

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This is a pretty good example of emergent creativity: @IndianaMuseum  #TABchat @sceart1 @twoducks #creativity #mastodon #CardboardEngineering #STEAM

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Found Object Manipulation: Bessie Harvey

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Found Object Manipulation: Bessie Harvey

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Visionary artists are motivated by deeply held perceptions and experiences of the spiritual world. Not merely religious, their lives and art are imbued with a profound personal sense of the aspects of life that transcend the physical. Bessie Harvey is considered to be one of America's foremost visionary artists. Her art arose from her fundamental beliefs in the relationships of man, nature and God and is a testament to the enduring acts of faith and creativity.

Born in Dallas, Georgia in 1929, Bessie Harvey's childhood was one of poverty and hardship. She grew up during the Great Depression, the seventh of thirteen children. She is oft quoted as saying "The story of my life would make Roots and The Color Purple look like a fairy tale. There was nothing. In the morning, you'd just get up, go looking for whatever you could find, and if you had one meal that day, then you'd made progress." Bessie attended school through the fourth grade, then went to work as a domestic. She married Charles Harvey at the age of fourteen, so she was no longer a economic burden to her family. Bessie stayed married to Harvey into her early twenties. They separated and she independently moved away, eventually settling in Alcoa, Tennessee with their five children. There she continued to work as a domestic and later married Cleve Jackson. Over the course of a twenty year marriage which ended in divorce, the couple had six children.

Always deeply religious and attuned to the essential spiritual nature of the world, Bessie sought expression for her experiences and beliefs. She recalled creating toys and dolls,"something out of nothing", as a child. As an adult, she would do the same to bring her visionary experiences into the physical world. She began constructing sculptural assemblages from natural materials such as tree branches and roots, that she embellished with beads, paint and even clothing to "bring out" the spirit contained within the raw materials. Following the death of her mother in 1974, she soon went to work on the housekeeping staff at Blount County Memorial Hospital. It was there, in 1977, that she first showed some of her creations in the hospital's annual art show. Her work met with a very positive response and she was encouraged to continue. Bessie Harvey would increasingly devote herself to her art for the next 17 years until her death in 1994.

Bessie Harvey's work is as deep and complex as the worlds that she experienced and explored. Her art encompasses the personal and the profound. She worked at the direction of God through visionary experiences which allowed her to see the natural world in extraordinary ways. She was also deeply rooted to her own cultural heritage as an African American. Writing about this aspect of Harvey's art, scholar and curator Lynne Adele adds, 'Harvey's work belongs to a widespread African American visionary tradition that has been described as a unique "collaboration between the artist, God, and nature." The ability to see anthropomorphic forms in roots, limbs, and driftwood-materials held sacred by African artists for their great spiritual powers-is not uncommon among African American visionary artists, and points to the survival of cultural Africanisms on this side of the Atlantic. Harvey is one of many African American artists who echo the belief that their role is to give physical form to spiritual presences already inherent within the materials. The artist's role is to "bring out" these presences, usually by adding elements that might include shells, hair, cloth, paint, and other found or improvised items. The resulting forms are raw, powerful, and charged with energy.'

Bessie Harvey's art expressed her multicultural perspective of spirituality and religion. She was a devout Christian and a follower of Jesus and The Bible. Concurrently, her visionary experiences and African cultural heritage provided her with a belief that God and nature were one and that the spirit of man could be found in nature. She described seeing the souls of her ancestors in the natural forms of trees and roots, living within them. Of trees she said, " Trees is soul people to me. I have watched trees when they pray and I have watched them when they shout, and sometimes they give thanks slowly and quietly, They praise God". Her art was her effort to reveal and make real their presence to all, much like ancient religious texts were made manifest by an artist's '"illuminations"

The sculpture featured in this article at the top is "Bird and Spirit Root". Created in 1993, a year before her death, it captures all of the essential qualities of her mature work. With her additions of color, beads, and seeing eyes, the tree root comes alive. Its animation serves to alert the viewer to the spiritual presence contained within not only the inanimate material, but also within ourselves.

Bessie Harvey's work is included in major museum collections throughout the world. In 1995, she was included in the Whitney Biennial and her work continues to be a powerful force in the world of art today.

The use of music as an epilogue to these visual arts based articles is an attempt to broaden the framework for considering the artist's work from a different perspective, medium or even culture. Paul Simon is a musician who has created in a pan cultural tradition for most of his career. This song, Spirit Voices, is taken from his album The Rhythm of The Saints recorded in 1990 as a follow up to his internationally acclaimed album Graceland. The song explores many of the themes of ancestry, spiritual presence in the natural and physical worlds and transcendental experience that are core elements of Bessie Harvey's art. Like Harvey, Paul Simon simultaneously relates these themes through personal storytelling and an amalgam of ethnic musical forms.

My thanks go out to Lynne Adele for her scholarship and writing about Bessie Harvey, as well as other visionary, self taught and folk artists.

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Bird and Spirit Root by Bessie Harvey - intuitive eye

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Visionary artists are motivated by deeply held perceptions and experiences of the spiritual world. Not merely religious, their lives and art are imbued with a profound personal sense of the aspects of life that transcend the physical. Bessie Harvey is considered to be one of America's foremost visionary artists.

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Hot Glue is a good thing!

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What can we do with cardboard? Surprise me!

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What can we do with cardboard? Surprise me!

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" Ruth Asawa's accomplishments as an artist speak for themselves," said Jillian Tamaki, "but learning about her lifelong devotion to teaching and arts advocacy touched me deeply. Her relationship to education as both a student and teacher, and how it informed her work, is what inspired this comic." A Toronto-based cartoonist and illustrator, Tamaki is the author of seven books, including the short comic story collection Boundless and, with her cousin Mariko Tamaki, the graphic novel This One Summer, which won a Governor General's Award and a Caldecott Honor. Fortunately, in taking on Asawa's life for this second installment of Magazine's Illustrated Lives series, she had excellent source material. "Asawa's life and art practice, the early years at least, were well-recorded by the photographer Imogen Cunningham, who was a family friend," Tamaki said. "They are such iconic images -it made me think about the role photography and documentation plays in the legacy of a modern artist."

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Jillian Tamaki on Ruth Asawa | Magazine | MoMA

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The cartoonist and illustrator explores the life and work of a trailblazing American artist.