Ceramics Flashback

This jewelry box was from my eighth grade art class. (I re-found it recently packed away in a box.) Once upon a time it had a square lid with a handle that fit it approximately. The lid seems to be a casualty of time, but the box itself is in one piece. It still is engraved with my last name and class period on the bottom (from before it went in to kiln) as well as my full name, year, and what appears to be y teacher's grade penciled on the bottom of it. (Pretty sure it was an A.)

 It may not have been perfect but for a kid it was my way from the shape to the heart on one side to the rough rainbow on the other and the green and brown glaze.

I have a lot of great memories from that lass... it seems some that even have something to do with art. It was the last art class I took in school choosing to spent my high school arts in music.

Middle School Shop Projects

Across the country school systems are struggling to keep art and shop programs. Budget cuts of arts programs are partly the cause as well as people who consider some programs obsolete. When I was in seventh grade shop was 1/3 of a life class required (along with home ec. and a language class), by the next year the seventh grade shop was replaced by a computer skills class for 1/3 of the class. A sad commentary on the changing of times. (At least in my mind.) I was one of those kids who took in both the required 7th grade class as well as the optional 8th grade class. These classes & skills are important, more important than some school officials realize & help give kids excess to skills they might not otherwise have access to.

The aluminum owl was a project from my 7th grade shop class while we were doing metal skill work. After the hot metal was poured and let to cool completely, we filed the edges to clean it up. I have memories of my  shop teacher adding aluminum cans to the melted metal, possibly using cans for the entire metal used, but I don't know or remember. Budget-wise it would have made great sense for a public school. (It hangs on my wall even now as a piece of my past.)

The scotty dog lamp was an 8th grade shop project. Often we were given an option between two projects at a time, one being harder than the other. This was the harder of one of those options, but I do not remember the other one at the time. It was a combination of wood and electric with our choice of fabric pulled over wire mesh. To turn the light on or off, you push the tail.

Don't let Middle School or High School Ssop classes be cut.

Camp Tales - A Girl & a Drill Press

One of the benefits of working at camp as an Arts& Craft Instructor, was being able to teaching basic woodworking to kids 9-14, a good portion of them never having any previous experience with it. This was especially true with many of the young girls. It was nothing too difficult; hammering (for string art), wood burning, sanding, and the drill press (for wood games using golf tees and wooden squares pre-cut for them). I had safety lines, safety goggles, and strict rules about no one using the drill press without my supervision and wood burners needing my supervision or the supervision of one of my counselors or other staff.

I was exposed to woodworking young through my grandpa and 4-H, debating in Middle School of becoming a Shop Teacher. I took woodworking projects in 4-H and even built a cedar chest that went to State Fair (for another story). I even helped with 4-H woodworking judging at State Fair one year (a great story for another time). I wanted my campers to be safe, but I also wanted them to know that the basics were attainable.

One sunny afternoon, I had the usual mix of boys and girls in the Craft Hall ready to take on the drill press. A little girl of about 9 or 10 crossed my red line into the drill press area, safety glasses on, her sanded & marked piece of wood in hand. She didn't act too sure about the powerful machine she had watched others use & was now standing before. I went over the basics again, encouraging her that she was just as capable of this as anyone else. There was no rule that said girls couldn't do woodworking or handle power tools. We lined up the first hole to be drilled as she took a hold of the handle, slowly and gingerly pulling the drill bit down into the wood, making the hole. As she raised the handle and released, I watched her change as her face lit up. In an instant, something changed and suddenly the little girl timid about a power tool knew that she could do it and knew that she had done it. There was excitement and a realization that come about in drilling that first hole as well as a truth that she was truly just as capable as anyone else. That day a little girl was introduced to woodworking and maybe to the power she was a capable of.

Perhaps, it's the feminist in me or a reminder of the little girl I was, going to woodworking judging surrounded by boys, but that afternoon a little girl realized that girls can and being a girl shouldn't stop her. That afternoon, I got to be make a difference in one little girl and I got to watch it happen.

Crafting a Rebellion

What am I trying to do? Yes, I am trying to Craft  Rebellion (can not resist those puns) of types to encourage others to express themselves. I have worked with kids in one way or another since I was one and it struck me some time ago, that many grown ups (or those perceived as grown ups) are hungry for the days when they could paint something "just because." At camp I always had other staff visiting to make their own treasures. As much as the kids, they needed someone to set the tools in front of them, help them, encourage them, and mostly just give them the opportunity to color in or out of whatever lines that were set before them. Isn't that part of the reason there are scrap booking supply shops in even small towns and card making classes popular? Isn't that why Martha Stewart has made an empire focusing on people who have a desire to do things with their own hands?

Whatever you do doesn't have to look like or be like anyone else's, the difference is where the real beauty and the real art lies. I want people all over to know that it can be your own and your way is awesome. We all need the simple satisfaction of making something with our hands sometimes, even if that means hot glueing seashells to a picture frame.  Too often we seem to lose touch with that as we get older and we forget. No more forgetting! It's time to pull out the stored away seashells, that chunk of clay, or those paints you're just itching to dig into. It's you chance to shine and to ignore the words of that art teacher somewhere you may have given you a lower grade on something just because your person didn't look like he/she thought it should. Just create for the sake of creation. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

"The reluctance to put away childish things may be a requirement of genius." ~Rebecca Pepper Sinkler

Craft Rebel

What does it mean to be a Craft Rebel? It's an honest enough question with a list of possible answers.

To me it means a lot of things. It means that I have a right to be who I am and to celebrate my creativity and my heart anyway I must. The world is full of creative people who just don't realize it. They've been told in Middle School and High School art classes that they can't draw or paint or do all those other classical art things and that they are not artists. My attempts at drawing always end up stick people or abstract. My painting is the same way. I've dabbled in other things, but I don;t do things the way people with "training" do and I don't believe I should have to. It comes down to my own expression. Creativity is one of our greatest gifts and no one has a right to tell us it's not good enough or it's not right. I don't do it to hang in a museum or to go down as one of the greats... I do it for me. I do it because I enjoy it and it makes me happy. I do it because we each have a right to express ourselves our way.

Create. Inspire. Express. Be. Love. Be a part of your own craft rebellion.