“A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.”
– Henrik Ibsen
On Tuesday, September 28th, K/1 families from Bayside and Willow Creek schools gathered for a night of art making, sharing, collaborating, and reflecting.
The arts are a powerful way to cultivate relationships through creativity and collaborative endeavors. The Arts Specialists in the Sausalito Marin City School District are hoping to organize many arts workshops this year that encourage parents and children to feel proud of their school and school environment. These kinds of workshops are vital in bringing together community voice, and different approaches to seeing and making.
As families entered into the multi-purpose room they were welcomed by the question of:What is a Chair? And many images of chairs marched along the walls as inspiration for the evening. And families were asked to write down their definitions.
Dinner was prepared by the gardening intern, * Kelly Browning. There are gardens on all of the school campuses, and the tomatoes, onions, and zucchinis that were in the pasta sauces all came from these gardens. It was a beautiful feast, and a great time for families to sit and talk, and get to know one another.
* The gardening program is funded by a Milagro Foundation grant, and Growing Great is the organization that has been working with the K-8 students to create bountiful gardens. The program also is initiating a nutrition program into the school curriculum.
www.growinggreat.org
After dinner the art making began. Visual Arts Specialists Brooke Toczylowski and Ascha Drake first led the families through an exploration of line, shape, composition, edges, layering, and 2-dimensional vs 3-dimensional. We talked about how this was a “warm-up” and often artists need to warm up before embarking on a bigger project.
There was a steady “buzz” in the room as families transformed, tore, cut, envisioned, folded, and collaborated.
Each family was then given a brown paper bag filled with materials ranging from pipe cleaners to tin foil. The challenge was to create a collaborative chair that somehow visualized a family value, or a cultural connection. The chair could be 2-D or 3-D. The multi-purpose room was transformed into a studio space as people worked with all kinds of materials.
We then shared our creations as a group, recognizing the many different ways to make a work of art.
What do you want to do now? “I want to do more art making as a family at home.”
What did you learn? “We learned to let art be art.”
What inspired you? “Simplicity.”
