Our Craftiest Christmas To Date

Ellen Dissanayake (1995) famously suggested that art is the act of “making special.” From that standpoint, I cannot be more satisfied with our family’s crafty Christmas this year. Folks were making things around here for a week and it was wonderful. (Read more about it.) I was proud as a mother. I was engaged as an art educator, facilitating as much as seemed necessary to keep Santa’s workshop operating at maximum velocity. Makes me wish, for the first time in my entire life, that it could be Christmas everyday.

George the Sculpey Charmer

Dan stole my heart by proving, once again, that he is an artist through and through.
Vintage guitars on wood veneer with freehand drawn detailing.

Some folks limit their icing color palette for the holidays. We don’t get that.
Cora’s cookie for Leigh, our music teacher. (Sorry Leigh, I think she ate it.)

Cora-crafted wrapping paper with her personal signature.

The contents of the box. Aluminum foil bead bracelet, from Kid Made Modern.
(Which I’ll be writing about very soon!)

Our third (or fourth??) annual handmade gift exchange for adults in the family rocked.
(back to front) Charley Harper inspired sandpaper paintings, wood box, fudge, oil painting of a cow on a slice of wood, guitar magnets, reusable snacks sacks and sandwich wrap, handkerchiefs embroidered with internal organs.

Parenting Perk of the Day: Making Halloween Costumes with/for Your Kids

As I wrote this time last year, Halloween is a serious affair at Rosa’s elementary school. This is her final year there and she wants to go out with a bang. It’s amazing to see how far her thinking on the subject of creative costuming has become. This year’s idea was pretty meta.

For the past two years, Rosa and Cora have worn related costumes. Three years ago, Rosa wanted to be something BIG, so she and her mom cooked up a giant jack-o-lantern for her to wear. Since I hadn’t had any brilliant ideas yet, and the costume looked nice and warm, I used some of the extra orange felt from Rosa’s costume and a piece of foam I had lying around to make something similar for Cora. In homage to Rosa’s obsession with mustaches, I gave Cora’s gourd a furry upper lip.

Last year, I was inspired by this tutorial for the most gorgeous DIY wings I’ve ever seen. Again, looking at fabric hanging around in my stash, I decided to make two sets of wings, one for me and one for Cora. I also made some masks and we were transformed into owls. I attached the wings to sweatshirts to make them easy to get on and off and to keep us warm (notice the trend here?). A week before Halloween, Rosa hadn’t decided what to be. She tried on my wings and begged to wear them. How could I say no? I was honored they would be part of her school’s annual costume parade.

Rosa wanted to continue the tradition of dressing up with Cora. Like most little girls I know, Cora has an interest in dressing up like a princess. Fortunately, this hasn’t developed into a full-blown obsession. I don’t think I could handle that. (See: Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein) Watching her sister play dress-up with her friends transported Rosa back in time. She and her girlfriends mastered the art when they were in preschool and kindergarten. They couldn’t last 5 minutes together without disrobing and cloaking themselves in new identities. My favorite was when they would just trade for one anothers’ street clothes. This year, Rosa declared, she and Cora would be princesses for Halloween. “It would be so funny because noone dresses up like a princess in 6th grade.”

So, we headed to the thrift store, where she found and fell in love with a gorgeous Betsey Johnson dress with the tags still on. Price = $89.95. Rosa was floored. “How could they charge so much? It’s the thrift store!” So, we talked about non-profit organizations and their need to make money and the fact that while this seemed expensive for Volunteers of America, really the dress was a bargain. If she were 5 years older and headed to the prom, I would have snatched that thing up in a heartbeat. But, it was Halloween, so I suggested we examine the dress, think about what made her like it so much and a) look for something similar but less expensive, or b) try to recreate it ourselves.

Of course this didn’t go over well because what Rosa wanted to hear at that moment was that she could have the dress. And if I were made of money, I would have said yes. Like I said it was a beautiful dress the purchase of which would surely have won me some stepmom of the year award. But I’m not made of money and I recognized this as a teaching moment.

I reminded her of the fashion camp she attended this summer and asked, “What would Jen Gillette do?” Jen was Rosa’s instructor for Fashion Blasters – a tall blonde who greeted the kids on the first day with her hair teased out and up like a runway model, wearing an outfit she’d made of found materials held up by super high platform shoes she’d bedazzled from top to bottom. She’s gone to study theater design and production at Tulane, but her spirit lives on in Columbus through the folks she inspired during her time as a Creative Consultant at the Columbus Museum of Art’s Center for Creativity. Including me.

We put our heads down and went back to the racks. I found a hot pink cotton tube dress the top of which was a lot like the Betsey Johnson design. Rosa found some curtains that were made of a similar material as its skirt. At home we talked about how to put them together. I’ve always been hesitant to sew clothes – I’m not precise enough to make things fit –  so I was proud of myself for figuring out the sewing aspect. But I was sad that Rosa didn’t feel confident enough to help me. I powered through on my own. And then I realized, While Rosa wasn’t doing the sewing, this experience gave her an opportunity to spiral back to creative thinking and problem solving skills she learned this summer. And, as I reminded her to do so, I was practicing those skills too – setting a challenge and figuring out a way to address it.

Are your Halloween preparations presenting any creative challenges to you and your kids? I’d love to hear about them. You’ll see ours in a week. Sorry, no peaking.

Gardening is Magic

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One afternoon last spring, I updated my facebook status to read, “Planting seeds is the greatest act of faith I know.” The words just kind of flew from my fingertips. It wasn’t a thought I had consciously nurtured for any length of time. It just felt true to my experience. It really seems magical how you put these teeny tiny things in the ground and they grow to be bigger, in some cases enormous, things with just a little sunshine, water, and time. The element of time is the most elusive, and possibly most important, ingredient in this equation.

When I was a kid in Hebrew school, I heard a story that put it in perspective. “An old man in ancient Israel was planting a fig tree, when a Roman general happened to pass by. The general says to the man, ‘Don’t you realize it will take twenty years before that tree will grow enough to give fruit, and you will be long dead by then?’ The old man responded, ‘When I was a small child, I could eat fruit because those who came before me had planted trees. Am I not obliged to do the same for the next generation?'”

I didn’t realize until just now the impact that story had on me. But, I like to think I honor its spirit both in my own work in the garden and by teaching my kids to appreciate the power of such actions. When we work the land, we are working for ourselves and for those who come after us.

Yesterday Cora and I planted some spring-flowering bulbs. She did an incredible job following each step of the process and even developed her own system for evenly distributing the different varieties among the containers. Then she went to the rain barrel and filled her watering can. I nearly melted into the ground. It reminded me how capable three-year olds can be when given a chance to do something real and meaningful. It’s no wonder there are so many Montessori schools with gardens.

Together, we put the containers in the shed and covered them with a burlap blanket. She knows they will spend the winter there, I’m just not sure she knows what will happen next. That’s where the wonder, and magic, come in.

A Task, But Not a Chore

Sometimes I feel like I have been living under a rock the past few years. Under a couple of kids is more like it, but the fact is that this weekend I encountered two cultural phenomenon that made the rounds over the past few years without crossing my field of vision, even as shadows: “Caine’s Arcade” and Oliver Herring’s TASK. Once again, I’m grateful to the super cool folks at the Columbus Museum of Art’s Center for Creativity for bringing me up to speed.

“Caine’s Arcade” is a short film about 9-year old Caine and the arcade he built primarily out of boxes he found at his dad’s auto parts shop. The film has been viewed nearly 4 million times on YouTube alone. Yesterday, in conjunction with the Imagination Foundation (read about it, it’s really cool), the CMA hosted a cardboard challenge to celebrate that group’s Global Day of Play. Dan, Rosa, Cora, and I rolled through asking people about their projects, but we saved our energy for TASK which had been highly recommended during the previous day’s discussion of Play=Art.

Participants spun an inspiration wheel to get their imaginations going…

Come as you are. Lots of cardboard and other materials were on hand!

Brain + Anti-Gravity = anti-gravity brain helmet

Father and son team up on a futuristic people mover.

Welcome to TASK…

Everything started out quite neat and tidy.

Cora gets into the action.

Playing dead.

Conga on a string…

Oliver Herring with young TASK participants.

Cat meet monster. Monster, Cat.

Weekend warrior? A new form of tefillan?

The web.

“What are you making?:

Herring has been hosting TASK events and parties around the world for over ten years. (Turns out I can’t completely blame the kids for missing this one.) This is how it works: Herring writes a few directions on scraps of paper and puts them in a bin. Participants retrieve tasks, complete them, and they write new tasks to add to the pool. It’s kind of like DaDa meets participatory performance art. This sampling demonstrates the wide ranging nature of the tasks we encountered:

“Make a string web.”
“Host a talent show.”
“Write 5 tasks.”
“Everyone play dead.”
“Lead a conga line.”
“Ask a child about what they are making.”
“Imitate someone for 5 minutes.”
“Make sushi and give it to a dad.”
“You are a fish.”
“Cut the web.”

Most definitions for the word task include some level of discomfort, a chore one is assigned to complete. I’m sure Herring understood this when he chose that word as the name for his project. For while TASK can be a fun-filled venture that invites moments of play, Herring doesn’t believe play must always be pleasurable. Conversely, he suggests play can be an opportunity to break free of routine, to push one’s boundaries. I like this idea. It resonates with my growing sense that disruption can be a powerful catalyst for play and creativity.

It’s been nearly a year since Dan and I brought George to the CMA to participate in Dispatchwork. That had been such a great experience for our family I really wanted to try another round; this time with Rosa as our focal point. But while we started out collaborating on a task, she wanted to do the next one on her own. And the one after that. And the one after that. Dan and Cora also got involved in their own projects as I fell into a participant-observer role and chatted with some of the other educator-researchers in the room.

Our family has been working hard on home projects lately and this was a welcome break from our regular routine. Dan was reluctant to give up time for his works in progress, but ultimately said he was glad he went, that he took the time out. Rosa has had a few good experiences at the CMA recently, and was less difficult to convince. This came as a bit of a surprise since she is a teenager who values her weekends as time to do, pretty much, nothing. When I asked her how TASK was different from art class at school she told me, “Here you have something to do, but you decide how to do it. At school you have to follow the teacher’s instructions.” For us all, this activity was a task, but not a chore.

(Final note: I’m interested in learning how educators have integrated both of these activities into their work. I think the dynamic of TASK must be much different with a finite and more homogeneous group. I’m still processing. Have you got anything to share? I struggle with activities that expend excess amounts of material with ephemeral results. But that’s a big part of process art which I fully support. For now, I think the Makedo reusable cardboard challenge kit is going to be my new “go to” birthday gift.)

Making Music Together, Apart

Well, we are back in music class after the summer recess. And Cora is back to running circles around the group as most of the other kids sing and dance with their parents and our teacher Leigh. As long-time readers already know, and you can too if you read this post from last year, I think the world of Leigh and have learned so much from being a student in, and of, her work in with young children. You’ll also know that Leigh has encouraged me to embrace Cora’s ways of working through the music, even when those contrast with what the rest of the class is doing. And, as I’ve written before, that isn’t always easy for me to do.

Today I reached the end of my rope. Cora was joyfully running around, between, and through the group as we sang and danced. I was singing and following Leigh’s direction, trying not to let Cora’s behavior stop me from participating, but simultaneously feeling like she was disrupting others and that we were in no way making music together. What was the point. For the first time since our first class a year ago, I actively tried to control her body by reaching my arms out to draw her in as she zoomed past me and begging her to sing with me.

Then, this afternoon while we were on the swings, something amazing happened, as it seems to do just when I need it to. I started singing a song Cora likes from the new collection, “There’s a Little Wheel Turning in my Heart” (here’s another version) and Cora asked me to stop singing that song and asked me to sing something else. As I started the new song, she sang about the little wheel. She was not distracted by the words or melody I was signing. I went through three very different songs, but the she just kept turning that little wheel…

I’m not exactly sure what that demonstrates. Maybe Leigh can help me figure that out. But I do know we’ll be back in class next week. And I’ll try to remember that even when it seems otherwise, my child is learning. Often much more than I can imagine.

Permission to Play: Paint by Squirt Gun

I had a stroke of genius today. Luckily, Google was there to tell me just how many other parents of toddlers already had the same idea, and wrote about it on their blogs.

With Crafty Cora’s birthday party next week, I’ve been brainstorming activities to entertain her and her wee friends. I’m going with a kind of carnival theme. I figure that way they games don’t have to have too much in common. I’m thinking of making a little passport that parents can put stickers in as their kids finish each “event.” There will be a tricycle course, balloon jump, balance beam, bean bag toss, and other things I haven’t thought of yet. I was considering something where kids shoot squirt guns to knock things down, but I know their aim isn’t that good yet. And then I had the idea!

Cora and I often bring food coloring into the bath tub. We have a set of translucent tupperware that are red, yellow, and blue which we use to play with mixing and changing the colors. Every time we do it I think about all the conversations I have had with students over the years about teaching the elements of art and how I have advocated going beyond such formal art lessons. Somehow, however, this activity never gets old and I know Cora is learning not only about the interactions of color (Albers, 1963), but also about scientific principles like cause and effect. This is playful learning.

Could we put the colored water in squirt guns?

On a quick run to the friendly neighborhood Target, we found some little squirters (on sale for the end of the summer!) and filled them up as soon as we got home. Cora was engaged from the first shot. We hung an old cloth over her easel and set to work. After about half an hour we had completely filled our canvas with a beautiful tie dye. I think I had just about as much fun as she did exploring the different kinds of marks we could make by moving our arms in different ways as we shot or moving our bodies closer or farther from our work. I can’t wait to see how the kids (and adults) at the party explore this process.

Postscript: I would be remise not to report just briefly on what my Google search for “squirt gun painting” revealed. Most posts advised against painting with food coloring because it stains. I think washable tempera is pretty damned hard to remove too. So, pick your poison, I guess.

Some parents, including one very angry Montessori mother, questioned the use of water guns and made me wonder why I didn’t question that more. Of course, her kid was involved in an activity, at school, where kids were shooting at other kids. Little Tykes meets paintball. I can remember the first time I saw Cora playing with “shooters” at her friend Maya’s house. Watching her shoot at me with foam bullets jarred me for a moment, but I think I was more concerned when I first saw her put on a princess dress and talk in a lilting voice about going to a ball.

Finally, I came across a Kickstarter campaign run by NYC-based artist Brian Ermanski, to fund a series of squirt gun paintings. Further Googling revealed Ermanski has earned a reputation as a sort of “bad boy of the art world” and his squirt gun series, of which I can find no documentation online other than this youtube video with just 21 views (3 of which were mine), seems like it was just another art world stunt.

Picturebooks on the Potty: Vol. 1, No. 6

“So I asked my mama, Mama, dear….
And SNIP, SNIP, sew sew… New skirt, hello!” – I Had a Favorite Dress

“Tom was so pleased that he wore that bow-tie in sunshine and in snow, in rain and wind. He ran and jumped and splashed and rolled in it.” – The Blue Coat

Baby Elizabeth and Weezy enjoyed this week’s stories as much as we did.

Regular readers know that I am working hard to pass on my passions for creative sustainability to my kids. Crafty Cora‘s lessons started early as we used her 3-6 month old clothes to create new fashions for her (mostly-handed-down from big sister Rosa) baby doll collection. Recycled dolls, upcycled clothes. Double win.

This week we happened to bring home a book from the library that helps support this message. Upon reflection, I realized I Had a Favorite Dress (Ashburn & Denos, 2012) wasn’t new to us. It follows the same trajectory we’d read a million times before as the Yiddish song-turned-story told in Joseph Had a Little Overcoat (Taback, 1999) and “The Blue Coat” (Lupton & Fatus, 2001). You can find the latter in a collection called The Story Tree: Tales to Read Aloud which I wrote about last week.

Here’s how it always goes down: Character X has a piece of clothing s/he loves more than anything. Said article gets worn out and X is very sad. Someone helps X to salvage the garment by turning it into something new. X loves the new item and wears it ’til its threadbare. And the cycle continues a few times. Each time, a refrain like those at the top of this post repeats, pulling the reader through the story as if by needle and thread. In the end, X is left with nothing to wear, but a beautiful story to tell about how how to find new uses for old things.

Daniel Tiger: New Kid On Our Block

For some children, being a generous giver and a gracious receiver are natural. But other children may need more time and more help from us … When we show children we care about their feelings and that we enjoy giving and receiving, we help them understand how much we receive when we give and how much we give when we receive.
– Fred Rogers

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Since I mostly use the television as a babysitter, I am only partially aware of what Cora is being exposed to when she’s watching. This is definitely at the top of parenting guilt list, but it’s just the way things go around here sometimes as I try to be a full-time mom and part-time professor. This week, we discovered the PBS series Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood on Netflix.

From what I picked up in passing and from my perch at the kitchen table, I liked the way Daniel addressed real life topics that were age-appropriate and that the music wasn’t too terrible. I even recognized the theme song as a throw-back to Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, which I can remember watching as a child and even made reference to in my dissertation. Curious, I turned to The New York Times (my trusted source for great television reviews) and found a nice background story that outlined the connection between the two programs. As it turns out, Daniel Tiger is an intentional reincarnation, cooked up by the same people that brought us Mister Rogers.

I love the fact that the main objective of these shows is social-emotional development as opposed to mastery of the ABCs and 123s. Parents can read more about this on the program website, including timeless quotations from Fred Rogers like the one at the top of this post. Talking about feelings isn’t easy for anyone, let alone an almost 3-year old. While Cora hasn’t seen Mister Roger’s yet, Daniel seems to be reaching her in some powerful ways. In the past week I’ve caught her singing a song about stopping to look both ways before you cross the street and playing school with her dolls, both direct outgrowths of what she’s seen on the show. These are pertinent topics for her to consider at this time – she’s been spending lots of time riding her tricycle around our neighborhood this summer and is anxiously awaiting a bit of preschool in the fall.

All this was great, but I was sold when I heard Daniel singing “Making something’s one way to say, I love you.” Regular readers know I am a big fan of anything handmade  and that I’m working to instill that love in my kids (see, for example, Crafty Cora and My Step-Monster’s Kitchen). But it wasn’t just the song. As Daniel made a card to send to his father to show him that he loved him, Cora got out some paper and crayons and announced she was making a drawing for her dad. While I helped her write a few letters and open a drawer or two, she was nearly on her own for this one. I was amazed to listen to her talk about what she wanted to do and to use skills we’d practiced in the past but hadn’t utilized in awhile. Nothing short of amazing. As was the love she was expressing for her dad. I only wish he’d been home to see and hear it.

A Photo a Day: Little Hands Doing Big Things

Those who know me know that I love to sew. I came to this later in life, as a way to pass the time in graduate school. Like doing dishes, it was a way to keep my hands busy with little things while my brain was processing big ideas. Over time I’ve taught myself to read patterns and, eventually, experimented with how to alter them. I’ve taught Rosa and George how to run my sewing machine and even Cora has pushed the peddle for me from time to time. As I’ve written about here before, I don’t think it’s ever too early to instill an appreciation and love of hand-crafting in kids.

So, I was absolutely delighted today when Cora picked up some felt, needle and a thread I’d set by my side and began mimicking the running stitch she’d just seen me using. She excitedly held up her work to show me how she stuck the needle through one side and pulled it out the other end. And I excitedly ran to grab my camera.

Friedrich Froebel, the inventor of kindergarten, used 20 activities to introduce young children to a variety of skills. He called these “gifts.” Sewing cards were number 12. Watching Cora today, I understood the real meaning of that label. She was so pleased with her work. She knew that she was on to something big. And I can’t wait to help her do even more.

A Photo A Day: It Started Out Innocently Enough

I’m not really sure I need to write anything about this one. But here goes.

Since we still have a construction site in our house (our new kitchen should be finished any week now – more on that later) we have a dedicated space for making great big messes.  Combine that with temperatures in the 90s that were perfect for a hose down or two, and I was perfectly happy to let Cora paint as freely as she wanted. Child, and her mother, couldn’t be happier.