Art at RMS

Star Wars is still a popular theme for middle school artists at RMS. Here, two learners have appropriated the class laptops, setting them up in the sculpture center for easy visual reference, as they design their light saber handles.

Avid (rabid?) Puff City master-mind and collaborator, describing his work to his parents:
“Here is Puff city, and this is the Puff jet and this is the Puff armored chamber, and this is the Puff escape hatch, and this is the Puff pilot, and …”

Parent: “So, it sounds like everything has to start with ‘Puff…?’”

“And this is the Puff- lookout tower, and here is the Puff-gondola, this is President Barak O’Puffa, and here is Vice President Joe Puffin, and these are the Puff …”

When I bought the GIANT bag of pom-poms, I envisioned them decorating sculptures and collages and works in fabric. But I should have known better, ever since the first pom-pom entered our studio, they have had, well, personalities. They are not decorations they are beings. Two years ago it was “puff-pets.” Last year, I hid them. This year, they were requested, begged for and finally released from their plastic bin hiding place. And “Puff City” was born.
What started as a two-kid collaboration has become a long-term project which now involves “almost every boy in the class.”
The girls, meanwhile, have been making “babies” out of aluminum foil, or creating fashions in the Fabrics & Fibers center. They glance over now and then to survey the project.
The newest response from the girls has been puff-torture. It was'nt long after the encaustic (painting with melted, pigmented wax) mini-center appeared that puffs started showing up encased in wax. This hostile discourse was unexpected, and the boys are not sure how to respond. Is it a coincidence that Puff-City has been temporarily laid aside?