Art at RMS

6 year old (almost 7) “K” has been working for three weeks on this embroidery, ever since the Fabrics and Fibers center opened.

With ten minutes remaining in class following a long interactive, multi-media presentation to introduce the idea of poetic inspiration for artists, this middle school student produced a fanciful bird image using cut and torn paper. “A present for my grandmother,” he reported. Since most of the class period was given over to discussion and brainstorming, I think this student NEEDED to MAKE some art, and not just TALK about art!

“K” will turn six next week. This is her “American Dinosaur,” made from clay and painted in acrylic. “You can tell that it is an American dinosaur because it has red, white and blue!”

Hand-building with clay: the joy of feeling the cool, soft terra cotta and forming it this way and that. The drying shelf in the clay center is full and the kiln is almost ready for the first firing of the year. In the RMS art studio, there are many clay artists.

My new middle school class tumbled into the art room for their first day of art last Tuesday and it was as if they never left. One student was carrying his shiny black star craft, almost finished before the summer “interruption,” One reached for his “moon station”, on the shelf where he left it last June, and the two plugged in the hot glue guns and started in. Across the room, a student who before summer interruption was involved in acrylic paintings on canvas board, set up his palette and began. My youngest student prepared to use the potter’s wheel (a scramble for me because I hadn’t planned on even opening the clay center yet!) and proceeded to instruct a new student in the finer points of wheel throwing. There was “J,” over at the drawing center, starting a new, intricate line drawing with his favorite fine-tipped markers, as two friends settled in at the clay table with some new hand-building projects. Two confirmed digital-artists grabbed seats in the computer center and was joined by another new student, eager to try a computer program he had heard about but “never had a chance to try before.” A dedicated collage artist decided instead to try his hand at puppet-making, and his collage-partner headed to the Construction/Sculpture Center, to make a light-saber handle. ”D,” who spent many classes last spring making complicated puppets, arrived with plans for a series of puppets to compliment those waiting at home. He got right to work mixing papier mache’.
I looked around with pride and wonder at this motivated, capable, self-directed group of young artists on their first day of art. Our Choice-Based art studio was humming with activity and off to a grand start.