Montalvo Art Splash Installation

Today I spent a few hours with installer Dan of Montalvo Arts Center putting up the Cureton Elementary student textile works. The student work is in the Artist Residency Knight Commons above. The wisteria is in full bloom and smells wonderful! I cannot wait for the students to see their fabrics hanging in this beautiful space. I will also have a video of the art running on the TV in the Residency Commons. The students will be teaching a workshop on radial pattern design on Saturday for the Art Splash Student Showcase. They will be conducting this workshop across from the residency in the new Creekside Studio space area. This is a special place to be situated as we will be enacting the space for the first time, basically initiating the space and area for much art programming to come in that spot.

Arts Splash! Montalvo Arts Center

Yesterday I participated in a student art festival at the Montalvo Arts Center. I had a drop in recycled art workshop station for children of all ages. Using recycled water bottle bottoms, cardboard, tea bag tags, food wrappers, produce netting, wire and an assortment of other recycled materials, people created nature related art pieces.

Above: project sample bookmark. Media: recycled cardboard, tea bag tag, Japanese comics and plastic sushi grass. A "L" shaped slit is made in the cardboard and the tea bag tag's string slips into it.

Above: Bookmarks created by children in the workshop. I had a wallpaper sample books that the visitors used. You can see elements of these wallpaper papers in the right hand bookmark.
Below: visitor create diatoms (water born algae with silica skeletons). I had sample images for each table of what these water born algae look like so that the children could draw inspiration from the elaborate silica skeletons of these creatures. I explained to them how such algae can bloom in abundance when our local creeks are clog with plastics.

 Above and below: A child's creation with wire and produce netting. She patiently sat working on this creature for quite a while.We had one table station set up to be for wire work. I had many mini pliers set out and the children looked at pictures of locally endangered creatures as well as drew from their own imagination for inspiration.

Above: A child artist created this car made of water bottle bottoms. I like the green person made of produce netting!

Above: A student sketches ants as he designs the construction of his wire creature.

Above: The student displays his final creation.
Below: using a template, visitors created flowers from wallpaper sample books and leaves from recycled sushi grass.

Below: Foam packing sculptures created by Rainbow Art in Cupertino

 

Above: a sculpture created by Ann Weber. Her amazing works are of cardboard. Yesterday she had a workshop in which children could get creative with staplers and an unlimited supply of cardboard. A small warrior tests out his new armor and sword below.

Above: The few remaining scraps of cardboard remaining at the end of the day at Ann Weber's station. Children were still cobbling together wonderful creations up to the last moment.

My son and my daughter enjoyed the afternoon at Arts Splash with their dad as I worked. My son was on a speaking panel of student artists who discussed their creative process. He had a movie in the festival. It was very inspiring to see the beautiful student art, some of which was quiet large. Next year I hope to see some of the performance pieces for the festival. I enjoyed seeing proud students in matching T-shirts from their schools and arts organizations roam around.

Pied Piper Costume Workshop at Montalvo Arts Center

Above: Sample of vinyl rat mask.
I will conduct two costuming workshop at The Montalvo Arts Center in a few weeks. These workshops are for children in the theater summer camp Pied Piper production. Below are preliminary sketches of the rat mask and the basic template for the rat mask created in Illustrator. I wanted to simulate the style of Italian leather carnival masks. Originally I thought the children would use colored construction paper or colored foam sheets. But after experimenting found that vinyl that looks like leather works really well. It involves a little stitching down the middle seam, in the ears and in the side tucks of the masks. I will be bringing in several wallpaper books for the kids to cut up for embellishments. I used this wallpaper material for the eyes. Silk tie scraps are used for the ears. I also found great plastic ties for the whiskers in the Montalvo Acts Center Barn. My workshops are kind of a filler activities between rehearsal times and we will be out on the veranda overlooking the beautiful central lawn area. It should be fun. The secondary projects will be Medieval hats and rat tails.























Below is a paper template created in Illustrator. The detail elements are to give the students an idea of how they might embellish their masks.






























I experimented with construction paper and foam. I initially thought foam would work the best for this project as it is sturdy and we will be gluing on recycled plastic bits (produce netting, plastic milk jug tops, marbles, etc.) But it is so clear that the below mask of foam is not sophisticated enough. Compare this yellow foam mask below to the sample vinyl sewn mask at the top of this blog. As obvious as this may seem, I have to admit that I didn't really realize how juvenile the mask below looked until the Education Program Manager raised this as a concern. I have never worked with this foam as a material in my classes. I realize now there is a reason for this. No matter what you do with this foam, it screams preschool craft! I decided to experiment with fake leather tonight as this would simulate the material of Medieval masks. I think this resolved the materials issue and the kids will be able to create sophisticated and durable masks. This process of designing this project is a perfect example of being too close to something to see it clearly. It is always good to have feedback from other artists or other arts educators to give one a fresh perspective. This is definitely a project I should have bounced off of a few artist friends before I submitted. Well, that's what this blog is about... the process of designing art and the lessons I learn.

Below: First prototype of foam.








































Below: Medieval hat sketches. Secondary project.