Fabulous Earth, Air and Water T-Shirts

This is an activity that's become a standard activity with the groups of Central American Youth Ambassadors who visit Alamo Colleges each year. We just wrapped up a week with 23 ambassadors from four countries, paired with 20 or so host kids from San Antonio's Legacy High School and the International School of the Americas (housed at Lee High School).

We start with some cutting and collage activities, then a little design seminar based on the Sensory Alphabet and then each participant cuts and pastes a logo design. The kids are in teams -- Earth, Air and Water -- serving as the "voices for the voiceless" for a short presentation that wraps up the activities each week. 

I wanted to share their designs and a little of the work-in-progress, because I think this design technique has some fine applications for coming up with art quilt designs, as well as screen print or stamp and stencil images.

The "warmup" design activities include learning how to cut notan designs, as you can see. But the kids often take the technique into new directions -- or use a different technique as they design their logo. After collecting each groups designs, I photographed them, ran each design through the "stamp" filter in Photoshop (that took out any variation in contrast and made each design a high contrast black-and-white image, even though my photos had shadows and backgrounds. Then I cropped and arranged the design images into an 8.5" by 11" design, printed it on the laser printer and made thermofaxes for each group to print in black on t-shirts. After printing, the kids colored their designs with fabric markers, and, later at the event, each autographed and wrote messages to each other.

Cutting designs.

 

 

 

Art with CAYA -- Youth Ambassadors

 

The week flew by with work at Bamberger Ranch and then at Southwest School of Art with the CAYA group, Texas host kids and families and the year-long residency group of SEED teachers. On this post, we just wanted to share some of the graphic and visual forms we worked on -- you can see more photos of the various aspects of the program, and the kids at work, on the Posterous SEED blog, if you're interested.

This is what I love about these graphic forms, and why I think they work as collaborative art projects:

First,  limit the palette in use  to some degree -- kraft paper brown, black, white and red  construction paper were the choices here (We loosen up on these color restrictions as the day goes on, figuring that the repetition will hold the general design together).

In the projects, we emphasize cutting over drawing or sketching. First, its less intimidating for kids who don't think they are good artists. Secondly, it keeps things simple and strong and bold. Black cutout letters and shapes are the bones for any little fussy stuff on top!

The t-shirts start with cutout "logos' for air, earth and water. Each kid makes a logo. I gang them together reduce each to a grid that will fit on a thermofax and the kids get to print their own shirts. Then, with colored fabric markers, each one can individualize and personalize his or her design. Again, the black ink on white shirt holds the whole design together.

The "dream towers" included collage work (each person cutout  a large word that described a personal dream, then collaged it with magazine pictures), a few notan designs, etc. Again, the color palette holds it together. I used the model of the Eames "house of cards" as patterns for the large foam board cards. These notch together with slits and make relatively stable and sturdy set/exhibit pieces that can be easily stored, recycled with new images with a new group, and infinitely rearranged. Since our final exhibit and presentation was in a gallery where we could not attach anything to the walls, these towers provided display space for work -- and they could be quickly assembled and disassembled and moved easily in the van or even a passenger car backseat!

The black foam  board cards were just taped into triangles (for stability) and stacked on top of each other. Kid wrote their recipes and remedies and cures for issues facing their world on these with chalk -- again, the boards can be wiped clean and reused. The blackboard form was fun, gave shape to the thinking and message, and was un-intimidating since if one made a mistake you could erase and do it again. And I love the black and white with the other forms.

The mask forms are simple paper bag masks using limited colors and mostly cut out shapes and forms. The kids (each in their group of either water, earth or air) chose a creature or element to personify as a mask and to "speak" for -- their assignment was to be a voice for those without words -- the animals, plants and elements of nature that depend upon survival with our solutions for the difficult problems facing the environment and our stewardship of the world, our partnership with the rest of the world. We used recycled packing materials from our lunches and other meals in these, as well.

After years  (and years) of doing collaborative (and quickly produced) art forms with kids and adults with all kinds of content, I do have my bag of tricks and approaches that help with visual strength and form, but still give everyone the sense of personal contribution and expression. I think that providing a few "rules" in terms of setting a strong format, limiting materials, and structuring the work experience all add up in the end.

Central American Youth Arrive Today

From the studio this morning, I travel to Selah, Bamberger Ranch, to help facilitate a workshop for youth ambassadors from Central America and South America. The kids, arriving here from Idaho (I think the weather will please) are participating in a three week program hosted by USAID and Georgetown University. After staying at the Ranch and participating in some media workshops, they will join Texas families for the rest of their stay. We'll be presenting work, thoughts, art and more on our themes related to leadership and entrepreneurship on Saturday at 3:00 p.m. at the Southwest School of Art.

Yesterday, I met the new group of SEED teachers -- Central American rural teachers here at Palo Alto College for a year of training. A wonderful team of spirited, strong women and men worked with me learning to lead and assist in some of the activities with the youth ambassadors. A team of ten will join us at the ranch and another team will assist in activities on the river and at the art school. If you'd like to follow along with some of the ongoing projects I do with these international programs, click over to the posterous blog at http://SEED2011.posterous.com and subscribe for updates -- or just check in occasionally to see what's going on.