Verde Valley Leadership --Art & Media issue day
In May 2013, I was invited as a guest speaker to the Art and Media issue day for the Verde Valley Leadership class VII program. My lecture discussed art as an economical drive and community art as a primary factor. And for part of my presentation, I had them participate in a community art project. A weaving of sorts.
The idea of this project was inspired by a friend of mine named Wendy Harford, an artist located in Cottonwood, Arizona. Wendy creates weaving walls with children by weaving fabric through fence to create images. For the past year at various festivals, she has been working on a weaving wall of the Arizona State Flag. I've helped her at a couple of these festivals, and watched kids really get into helping her make something beautiful.
I thought this was a pretty neat idea... and even more so if you focused on the idea that multiple people are coming together to work together to create something beautiful.
So, for the Verde Valley Leadership Art and media issue day, I decided that it would be interesting to show potential new leaders how important it is to work together in a community by having them create their own wall.
To start, I got some chicken wire from a local farmer as my "wall" and weaved canvas and green fabric strips into the wall. I gessoed one side, and then spray painted a river scene on the other side. The river scene was to symbolize the Verde River, an important factor in the economic growth of the Verde Valley, as well as a core reason of why we have the Verde Valley as a community.
Each strip was numbered on the left side, and then removed from the wire. When I presented the project to the program, they only saw chicken wire with two strips left, to show what we were going to do. I gave each participant two strips to paint. They were invited to paint what ever they wanted on the white side. Then, each, each strip was weaved back on the wire in numerical order. The intention was, if the strips were all weaved back in the correct way, my Verde River painting would reveal itself on the back side. Showing that when a community comes together with their unique, original efforts/ideas, then a cohesive outcome will occur.
The strips were not exactly weaved in correctly, but with any community art project, there is always room for change. The collaborative expression of all the students is on one side, and an abstract painting is revealed on the other. Still indicating, when people come together, something beautiful can happen.
I unfortunately did not get any before pictures... but the after pictures are far more interesting than anything I planned.
I thought this was a pretty neat idea... and even more so if you focused on the idea that multiple people are coming together to work together to create something beautiful.
So, for the Verde Valley Leadership Art and media issue day, I decided that it would be interesting to show potential new leaders how important it is to work together in a community by having them create their own wall.
To start, I got some chicken wire from a local farmer as my "wall" and weaved canvas and green fabric strips into the wall. I gessoed one side, and then spray painted a river scene on the other side. The river scene was to symbolize the Verde River, an important factor in the economic growth of the Verde Valley, as well as a core reason of why we have the Verde Valley as a community.
Each strip was numbered on the left side, and then removed from the wire. When I presented the project to the program, they only saw chicken wire with two strips left, to show what we were going to do. I gave each participant two strips to paint. They were invited to paint what ever they wanted on the white side. Then, each, each strip was weaved back on the wire in numerical order. The intention was, if the strips were all weaved back in the correct way, my Verde River painting would reveal itself on the back side. Showing that when a community comes together with their unique, original efforts/ideas, then a cohesive outcome will occur.
The strips were not exactly weaved in correctly, but with any community art project, there is always room for change. The collaborative expression of all the students is on one side, and an abstract painting is revealed on the other. Still indicating, when people come together, something beautiful can happen.
I unfortunately did not get any before pictures... but the after pictures are far more interesting than anything I planned.
Close up of participant side
Close up of my side
|
Artist Keith Schall added a little out of the lines addition. Schall was also a guest speaker for the day.
|
Verde Independent ran an article about the day, read the article here.
