Craft for Kids: Papier-mâché Narrative Bowl

Diego Romero’s work integrates traditional techniques from his Cochiti heritage with his love for both the ancient and contemporary storytellers of Western culture. From Greek vases depicting legends of gods and heroes, to comic books hailing the deeds of superheroes of the modern age. Romero uses his pottery to tell narrative from his own experience and indigenous folklore, a contemporary storyteller within craft.

In this hands-on activity, let Diego Romero’s work inspire you to make your own bowl, and tell the story of someone you consider a hero, whether from life or legend!

Watch the video below of Diego Romero on his life and work for inspiration, and ask yourself: Who are the heroes in my world?

Video Treasure Hunt:

1. Rolling clay into a long coil shape
2. Young children dressed as knights
3. An ancient Greek chariot
4. A coyote stealing fire
5. Polishing with a stone
6. A fallen angel
7. Using breath as a tool
   

Hands-on Activity: Papier-mâché Narrative Bowl

Materials:

• 1 cup flour
• 2 cups water
• Aluminum foil
• Cooking spray
• Newspaper
• Scissors
• Acrylic paint, or markers
• Bowl

How to: 

• Cut or tear your newspaper into strips. Make sure the paper is clean and dry.

• Choose a bowl to use as a mold for your paper mache. Larger bowls will require more newspaper.
• Place the bowl on a flat surface, bottom side up. Cover the bowl with tin foil. If you don’t want your bowl to have much texture, try to make the foil lay as flat to the surface of the bowl as possible.
• Lightly coat the tin foil with cooking spray or oil. This will help make it easier to remove from the paper mache bowl when it is dry.

• In a large bowl, combine the flour and water. Mix until it resembles thin pancake batter.
• Take a strip of newspaper, dip it into the flour mixture, and use your fingers to remove any excess liquid before laying it on the bowl.
• Continue coating strips of paper in the mixture and laying them onto the bowl until it is completely covered. You may need one or two additional layers to strengthen the shape of the object.
• Feel free to experiment with different shaped vessels, like cups or glasses. When complete, allow the form to dry completely overnight.

• When the papier-mâché is dry, remove it from the tin foil. Trim any rough edges with scissors.
• Now you can paint or decorate your bowl however you may like. Here are some ideas:
  • Choose a scene from a myth, legend, or story that influenced you and illustrate it on the inside of your bowl.
  • Create a portrait of someone you consider a hero – it could be a specific person (a relative, a friend, or a public figure), a role in society you respect (doctors, teachers, or firefighters), or a fictional character that inspires you (a comic book hero or figure from literature).

Happy Crafting!

Craft for Kids: Make Your Own Clay & Sculpt Away!

Cristina Córdova explores the human figure, and all of the expressions and emotion that can be found within. Using clay as her medium, she allows the material to guide her through the act of sculpting, finding the character as she moves through her process.

In this hands-on activity, make your own “clay” from materials in your pantry, and sculpt your own expressive features with this easy salt dough recipe. You can craft facial features, different parts of the human form, or an entire figure!

Watch the video from our IDENTITY episode below about Córdova’s life and work for inspiration, and see what expressive characters you can sculpt as you craft at home.

Treasure Hunt: Watch closely! Check off these visual clues as you find them in the video.

• A woman among ferns
• Trio of photos on a studio wall
• A pool of sunken ships
• Using vinegar as a tool
• A mural featuring a flying animal

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Hands-on Activity: Make your own clay, and craft your own human sculptures

Materials:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup fine salt
• 2 tbsps. vegetable oil
• ¾ cup water
• Food coloring, optional
• Sculpting tools (toothpicks, popsicle sticks, rubber stamps, etc), optional
• Acrylic paint, optional

How to: 

1 – In a large bowl, combine the flour and salt. Use fine salt if possible, as courser types will lead to granular dough.

2 – Add the vegetable oil, then gradually mix in the water until you get a clay-like consistency. You may add another tablespoon or two of water if you need more.

3 – If using food coloring, separate the dough into portions and add a drop or two of color to each portion, mixing well.

[TIP: Food coloring may stain your hands while working with the clay.]

4 – Once completely mixed, use the dough to sculpt your desired shapes or figures. You may craft a part of the body, a whole figure, or a variety of facial features with different expressions.

[TIP: Be careful not to make your sculptures too thick, or they may crack while baking.]

5 – Bake your finished sculptures in an oven set to 250º for one hour, making sure that they do not burn. Some sculptures may take more or less time, depending on how thick they are.

[TIP: For a golden look, you may brush egg yolk over your sculpted pieces before baking.]

6 – Allow finished sculptures to cool completely, and decorate your sculptures with acrylic paint if you wish. Be creative and experiment with imagining a personality waiting to be crafted from clay!

Happy Crafting!

Craft for Kids: Cardboard Animal Sculpture

Wendy Maruyama’s recent work, The WildLife Project, was inspired by the harm being done to African elephants. Informed by the issues and problems of poaching and its impact on wildlife, her wood sculptures of elephants bring new life to the animal. Each knot representing a desire to repair the damage done to these beautiful creatures, Maruyama connects ideals of conservation to the art of craft.

In this at-home activity, we will connect another aspect of conservation to craft: recycling! Watch the video clip from our IDENTITY episode below to learn all about Maruyama’s work, while keeping an eye out for the treasure hunt clues. Then, using recyclable materials like cardboard, create your own elephant sculpture with these simple steps!

Treasure Hunt: Watch closely! Check off these visual clues as you find them in the video.

• Woman wearing a face shield
• A dog shaking hands
• A yellow rose
• Maps as skin
• A bird hitching a ride

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Hands-on Activity: Make your own elephant sculpture!

Materials:

• Scrap paper
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Ruler
• Clean cardboard
• Glue (optional)
• Paint & paintbrushes (optional)

How to: 

1 . Sketch out the basic shape of the elephant’s side view onto a piece of paper or directly onto the cardboard – do not include any limbs or large features. This is our base shape.

2 . Mark on the top of the base shape where the pieces for the head and body will be (Make at least 2 marks for the body). Draw a line at each mark across the base shape. Use a ruler to measure each line. Write those measurements down to help you remember!

3 . For each measurement, draw a circle with an equal diameter. You will have at least 3 circles: 2 for the body, 1 for the head. 

4 . Draw ears on the smallest circle for the elephant’s head.

5 . Draw the shape of a pair of legs for the elephant. You will make 2 of these pieces.

6 . Cut all of these shapes out of the clean cardboard. You will have:

• The base shape
• 2 body circles
• 1 head (with ears!)
• 2 pairs of legs

7 . Make a cut about halfway into the center of the body circles, the head, and each pair of legs. This is how the pieces will attach to the base shape.

8 . Make a cut for each piece into the base shape. Make these cuts equal in size to the cuts made in the pieces themselves. Cut the slits for the head and body pieces at the top of the base, with the legs attaching to the bottom.

9 . Ready to assemble! Place each piece into its corresponding spot, using the cuts you have made to slide them onto the base shape and push them into place.

10 . Ta da! You have made an elephant! Feel free to use glue to keep the pieces in place permanently, or have fun taking it apart and putting it back together again. You can also decorate the cardboard with scrap or wrapping paper, paint, or markers! If you do, make sure to let the cardboard dry completely before you connect the pieces again.

Experiment with making other animals using these same steps, but with different shapes. Get creative and happy crafting!

Craft for Kids: Book Arts!

Artist Felicia Rice‘s work explores how to draw the viewer into a story contained within the pages of a book. Artist books must be handled in order to be fully experienced, and can contain many different forms of media! This activity teaches us about one of the most versatile artist book styles – the accordion book.

Watch the video below to learn all about the incredible craft of book arts & Felicia’s work, while keeping an eye out for the treasure hunt clues. Then, get creative telling your own story with the activity below!

Treasure Hunt: Watch closely! Check off these visual clues as you find them in the video.

• Leopard print in a book

• Pink armchair

• Purple ink

• A doctor’s stethoscope

• A face on a metal plate

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Hands-on Activity: Make your own accordion book!

Materials:

• Blank paper – any type or size will do.

• Scissors

• Glue or tape

• Any art supplies you have – crayons, pencils, markers, etc.

• Cardstock or cardboard – cut out cereal boxes work too!

• Decorative scrap or wrapping paper (optional)

• Decorative materials – stickers, feathers, fabric, sequins, etc. (optional)

How to: 

1 . Cut (or fold and tear) a piece of paper in half lengthwise to make two long, skinny rectangles.

2 . Fold each piece of paper in half widthwise.

3 . Fold the top flap in half again, with the bottom edge of the paper meeting the first top crease.

4 . Flip over the paper and do the same fold. Your paper should now look like a W.

5 . Repeat this with the other rectangle of paper so that you have 2 Ws. (You can begin with more sheets of paper, and make more Ws for an even longer book!)

6 . Glue your Ws together to make an accordion (or use tape if you don’t have glue). If you are using a thick type of paper, you might want to use a heavy object like a book to press down on top of it for a few minutes.

7 . To make your book cover, take two pieces of cardboard or cardstock (you can cut up cereal boxes too!) and cut them to the same size as the accordion. 

8 . Take your decorative or scrap wrapping paper and cut two pieces a little larger than the cardboard, about an inch or two bigger on each side.

9 . Glue your cardboard in the center of the scrap or wrapping paper, decorative side out. Clip the corners of the paper, then fold and glue in the excess paper on the sides.  Repeat for each cover.

10 . Glue the covers to each end of the accordion. You might need to press the book under something heavy again for a few minutes.

You’re all set! Now you can decorate your beautiful book however you decide! You can add decorations to your cover, like ribbon, glitter, feathers, rhinestones, or anything else you can think of. You can use the pages of the accordion to tell a story, create drawings, collect pictures…the possibilities are endless! Be as creative or as colorful as you want, and have fun!

Craft for Kids: Photography

Explore the photography of Cara Romero and tell the story of a person in just one picture.

You can bring the joy of craft and the handmade right into your home with these activities designed for all ages! Inspired by the amazing art featured in Craft in America’s episodes and exhibitions, these activities aim to encourage exploration and creativity for the whole family to enjoy.

Watch the videos for each activity, keeping an eye out for answers to the clues in our visual treasure hunts, or just jump right into the hands-on craft activities that go with them.

There are no rules! Simply have fun and be inspired by the marvelous makers of craft in America.

Treasure Hunt: Watch closely! Check off these visual clues as you find them in the video.

• A tree branch underwater
  
  
• 3 pine cones on a pedestal
  
  
• A boy sitting on a rock on a billboard
  
  
• The wings of a bird
  
  
• A cross on a hill

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Hands-on Activity: Tell the story of a person or persons in just one picture!

Materials:

• A camera
  
  
• Anything you have around! You can use clothing, costumes, toys, objects from nature, or whatever you can find to stage your photograph.
  
  
  

How to: 

1. Ask yourself: Why do we take photographs of people? How can photographs tell us a story? If you watched the video segment about photographer Cara Romero, think about how she used her photographs (see below for examples of Naomi and 17 Mile Road) to tell stories about her people.
   
   
2. Think about and decide who you would like to represent in your photograph. Will it be a portrait telling the story of you or a family member? Will it be a character from your favorite book, movie, or your imagination?
   
   
3. Think about how you will tell a story about that person by what you include in the photograph. Where will you take the photo? Consider different settings, inside or outside. What objects or clothing can you use to tell the story?
   
   
4. Gather everything you need to stage your photograph, and pose your model in the frame. Your model can be yourself or a friend! Set up your shot, and take the photograph with a camera.
   
   
5. Show your photographs to others, and see how they react to the story or describe the person in the image. It’s always fun to hear other people’s perspectives! Set up and stage different photographs for different people you would like to tell a story about. You can take as many different pictures with as many different environments as you want! 

Heal the Bay at the Center

This past Saturday, Heal the Bay’s Dave Weeshoff gave an incredibly informative talk here at the Center in Los Angeles to a multigenerational audience in attendance.

Weeshoff, a bird enthusiast and passionate environmentalist, started out by showing photographs that he had taken of birds. He has taken seven trips to Antartica! He effortlessly transitioned into talking about our current exhibition Arline Fisch: Aquatic Bloom by mentioning that sea jellies are a favorite food of turtles. Balloons and plastic bags look like sea jellies in the ocean, so birds and turtles will eat them thinking it’s food.

Weeshoff stressed how important our oceans are to the health of the planet. 1 billion people rely on the ocean!

He also gave us information that we found fascinating. Even though compostable and biodegradable products will get broken down in dirt, they will not break down in the ocean because it’s not the right environment (too cold, not the right bacteria…). He also mentioned that plastic bottle caps, when in the ocean, forms a film around them that smells just like food to birds. When the larger birds eat them, they feed them to their young who aren’t able to get them through their system and end up dying.

He did mention that California is a leader nationally and globally for environmental policy.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Purchase more thoughtfully
-reduce the amount of plastic you purchase
-say no to straws and lids when possible
-purchase more handmade objects, these will be more precious and you’re less likely to throw them away

Recycle intelligently
-clean any object that goes into the recycling bin
-any paper good that is coated in plastic is not recyclable
-any paper/cardboard that has food on it or soaked into it is not recyclable
Check with your local sanitation department to see what can be recycled in your area.

Help clean
Organizations like Heal the Bay organize beach cleanups. These are the last chance to stop this plastic from getting into the ocean.

HELPFUL HINT

In beaches near urban centers, do not go in the ocean for 3 days after a rain because of all the runoff from cities.
Summer usually has good beach water quality because there is less rain.
Heal the Bay actually produces a report card for the beaches in Southern California.

Millinery and Fascinators Workshop

On Saturday, the Craft in America Center hosted a hat workshop with professional milliner Yvonne Lewis. It was a 3 hour workshop that included a brief introduction to fascinators and the materials often used in creating such headpieces. All the guests who showed up were more than impressed with the various materials they were offered to use on their own hats, material like: feathers, horsehair (crinoline), fabric, sinamay, jinsin, and veiling.

During the workshop the Center also showed the 144th Kentucky Derby live on television in honor of the event that holds high standards for its hats as much as its horses. It was very important to have the Derby play in the background because it allowed for the guests to socialize about how fascinators, like the ones they were making, are very special, use fine materials, and are usually only worn very rarely and/or on special occasions like Spring festivities i.e. Easter, Mother’s Day, Kentucky Derby, a Royal Wedding, or high tea.

Overall, the guests took exactly 3 hours to complete their beautiful and unique headpieces, allowing them to have had a personal workshop with the artist guiding them throughout the process.

Craft in Action: Art & Mental Health

To join in on the conversation, use #craftinactionmentalhealth on social media.

This past weekend, the Craft in America Center hosted the second in series about art as a vehicle for social change: Craft in Action: Art & Mental Health.

The exhibition Kazuki Takizawa: Catharsis Contained set the stage for this talk between artist Kazuki Takizawa and author and USC professor Elyn Saks; the conversation was moderated by Dave Leon of the Painted Brain and began with each of the speakers taking us on each of their personal journeys.

Kazuki spoke about how the systems in Japan and the US are shrouded in stigma and he makes work to try and make something beautiful to start a conversation about the topic and why he works with glass: “When I think of glass I think about it breaking. It’s very precious – throughout history only the wealthiest could own it. It’s a very poetic expression to use specifically glass. Glass can be so many different things: transparent, opaque, sharp, smooth…”

As Saks spoke about her dealings with mental illness, one of the things that really stuck out was what helped her get through it: excellent psychotherapy, supportive family, work that’s engaging, and work with a support system with a system to check her work. “My mind is my best friend and my worst enemy,” Saks related.

Dave Leon spoke about wanting to specifically not be profit oriented, to do no harm, and to actually do good. For Leon, the most helpful things to deal with his mental illness is to stay creative and stay active, be surrounded by caring people, and feel like he’s making a change. Leon split off from Didi Hirsch Mental Services to create the Painted Brain–where it had started as a group class, so they could engage with a younger audience–using the arts as a vehicle to be together and feel safe with each other. Leon expressed that art can capture so many feelings and words don’t really express everything we feel.

A common trope throughout the talk was the acknowledgement that there are a lot of people dealing with mental health issues but are keeping it to themselves because of stigma. Saks told a story about how she had been given a T-shirt with schizophrenia on it and was ashamed to wear it, but would she be ashamed to wear a cancer pin? Leon suggested having compassion for one’s self and he actively tries to help people look inward and how to not turn against themselves.

In regards to mental illness and art making, all three agreed that seeking help from professionals and even prescribed medication did not take away from the creative process. A question that Takizawa gets asked often is, “Would you be creative if you were healthy?” Takizawa’s response is always, “I couldn’t make work if I wasn’t healthy.”

After the talk a representative from Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services gave a suicide prevention talk that was very helpful. Below are a few slides from the presentation. Feel free to share.

Independence Day Special: Interpreting the American Flag

Happy Fourth of July!

To celebrate our nation this year, Craft in America looks back at fiber artists who have interpreted the U.S. Flag. This iconic symbol has become a powerful tool as artists negotiate ideas of nationalism, patriotism, immigration, race, gender, identity, and community. Take a look at the image gallery and video link below to learn more about artists who have used the Star Spangled Banner to create new meaning in their work:

Jim Bassler creates hand-woven interpretations of the American Flag, building social commentary into the structure of weaving. Faith Ringgold integrates figurative representations of American people into a “Bleeding” Flag, pursuing the human identity of national symbolism. Victor De La Rosa has been working on a project called Future Flags of America, where he invents new versions of U.S. Flags that reflect an increasingly Latino United States. Victor’s Study for 2050 U.S. Flag was installed on the streets of San Francisco, where it became a participatory platform for passersby to mark themselves. Consuelo Jimenez Underwood uses the flag to speak to the politics of the U.S.-Mexico Border. Learn more about Flag projects by Underwood on her segment from Craft in America’s THREADS episode: Consuelo J. Underwood segment from Threads

Photos from paper cut workshop with Lorraine Bubar

Papercut artist Lorraine Bubar shared her knowledge – and a few trade secrets – with an eager group gathered at the Craft in America Center for a workshop on March 21st. Lorraine first gave a brief overview of the history and practice of papercutting, including stories of different techniques from China, Japan and Poland, where they cut the most delicate of patterns using sheep shears! For the next two hours, each workshop participant created a unique piece, learning to choose and layer colors and encouraged to be surprised by the shapes and curls that can be created unexpectedly.