When Is a Shipping Container Not Just a Shipping Container?

When it is Transformed to Represent a Traditional Honduran Village Home.

Our Discovery maintenance staff are prepping and priming the two metal containers at the end of the multi-purpose area. Soon you will see our ninth grade students transform them by using faux finish techniques that resemble the natural materials used in village homes.

We will finish the project by working with a local craftsman to construct thatched roofs over the “buildings”. Our students will learn about this traditional style of architecture and methods of building and by doing so will honor these Honduran traditions.

Their work will become a permanent reminder of Honduran traditions and a center for other projects that reflect Honduran rural life.

Walk Like an Egyptian

Greetings on This Last Day of School

The campus is very festive today and spirits are high. Little ones and big ones came by my room this morning proudly delivering holiday packages “To the Art Teacher”. All over campus students are practicing their routines for Song Fest tonight. The multi-cultural nature of our school means that this event is mostly lip sync and dance to popular music. Some classes go all out and hire choreographers and have professional costumes made. It is definitely and pointedly not a Christmas program. However, the school choir will wear blue robes and sing real Christmas music.

The second graders selected a Michael Jackson song that has a reference to Egyptians. So, in art class we have been making their costumes. The boys used the sewing machine to make a simple seam for their wrap around “sarong”. The girls have twisted crepe paper to add to their headdresses. Both boys and girls have made the all important cobra snake head to adorn their gold headdresses.

Tuesday we put all the elements together and posed for pictures. Each student’s headdress was “fitted” and the snake attached. All the effort was well rewarded when I handed them the mirror to look at themselves. Oh, such smiles and sparkling eyes.

One by one they were dressed in their regalia and went off to admire themselves, practice their dance moves and just plain play. Boys got on their knees and bowed down to girls. They took turns sitting on the stack of extra chairs at the side of the room, turning it into a makeshift throne. Giggles abounded.

Tonight is their big night. Moms and dads will gather with students in the art room to get dressed. Moms will put the make up around the eyes and some girls will even get to wear lipstick.

It may not be a Christmas program but the Spirit is here; families adoring children, a community coming together in joy and harmony. Ah, it is the Season!

Art Cafeteria

Yesterday I had my first “art cafeteria” with the second and third graders. The “lesson” came as a result of “what can I do with the second graders” type day. I pulled out all kinds of bits and pieces – colored paper scraps, markers, crayons, pencils, shape templates, crepe paper, tissue paper, ribbon, plain white paper, graph paper, scissors and glue sticks. We have a short discussion about what a cafeteria is, what you do when you go there etc. Then I have them get in the cafeteria line, take a paper plate “tray” and go down the line. They tell the cafeteria “lady” (me) what they want and I fill their plates. They can come back for “seconds” on their own. They love it. I love it. They work independently, are very creative, learn to figure things out like “how can I attach this without a stapler or tape”. Kids made every thing from karate headbands to beautiful cards to their parents, even a “fruit bowl” out of the paper plate and crumpled crepe paper. And they get to take their work home. I got to work on my supply order.

Hounduran Sawdust Carpets

The following is a draft of an article I hope to submit to Arts and Activities, an art education magazine. It also gives you an idea of what was going on last week.

October 23, 2009 Tegucigalpa Honduras

The campus of Discovery International School is quiet this afternoon. Just a few short hours ago it was a kaleidoscope of color, sound and fragrance celebrating United Nations Day. Our pre-K through grade 12 students’ toured parent hosted booths representing many of the 30 nations that are home to our student body. Maps, posters, handicrafts and a taste of nations from sushi to cheesecake were sampled with the mellow tones of a marimba band in the background.

The eighth grade visual arts students decided to contribute a traditional Honduran sawdust mosaic carpet, decorando las alfombras tipicas de Semana Santa, at the entrance of the school. I had found a post card picturing people working on one of these and shared it with my students. Several shared their memories of seeing the carpets created on streets for holy week processionals.

We discussed the significance of the carpets, why they were made of dyed loose sawdust. We compared them to the sand mandal created by Tibetan monks to mark important events. Both of these arts remind us of the impermanence of all things. They help us focus on our beliefs and philosophies and remind us to appreciate and value the present.

As a group we agreed on a simple design that would represent the spirit of the United Nations. Students made stencils of the shapes we would use. We had just finished a unit on graphic art and block lettering, skills that helped in the cutting of the stencils for the words.

In the art room we found two large cardboard boxes filled with bags of sawdust dyed in brilliant colors. Working from the postcard and the memories of mosaic carpets viewed in the past we made our first experiment. We used the sawdust dry and leveled and pressed it down with concrete smoothing tools borrowed from the maintenance department. Our experiment weathered the night winds and morning dew. An observer suggested that we dampen the sawdust before we spread it out. That worked even better.

We waited until the week of the event and began work on the “carpet” during Wednesday art class. Students were released from four other classes, came early and stayed late and worked up to the opening of the event Friday morning. The project took a total of nine hours to complete.

There were many challenges in the process; figuring out how to spread the sawdust, without disturbing the sawdust base, making adjustments to the design when we ran out of colors and finally coming to the end, ready to stencil the words around the boarder only to find we had no sawdust left. What could we use, spray paint? We didn’t have any. We tried some baking soda from the art room but it was too fine and difficult to put down. Finally our watching cafeteria managers came to the rescue with bags of table salt. It worked perfectly!

The carpet was ready to greet our visitors just minutes before the event started.

The student met their objective, a brilliant display communicating the mission of unity and support of the United Nations. But more important students from many nations, worked together, worked through difficulties, solved problems. They overcame frustrations with the materials and at times with each other. The enjoyed the pride of accomplishment and as difficult as it was at the end of the day they gingerly stepped onto the carpet and “danced” it away with their feet until it was thoroughly mixed and swept away, Reminding us of the impermanence of all things, but leaving us with the joy of the memory.

Recess Rain

Just thinking about you as I watch the rain sweep down the mountainside and onto our campus. The lunch recess spirits were quickly dampened and the playing field next to the cafeteria was quickly emptied by the shower. These kids get almost as excited about rain (which they have all the time) as the kids in Qatar who got excited over a misty drizzle two or three times a year. Oh well, rain is rain when you are a kid and in school. Things have settled now that the bell has rung.

I am having a good day with students, kind of low key. We are at the end or in the middle of projects so it is just doing the work. So I put my "concentration" music on and things get quiet pretty quickly. I love the "sound" in the room when they are all deep into their right brain. It can last up to 20 minutes sometimes.