Kindergarten has been working their way through paper sculpture at one of my schools. After studying and practicing planar sculptures in the style of Alexander Calder, we moved onto collaborative paper sculptures by looking at the found object work of Louise Nevelson and creating paper assemblages on 6x6" paper.
To teach the lesson, each table had one paper sculpting technique "sample" and each student had their own background paper. They had to try to make the example on their own by experimenting.
Every 5 minutes I would switch out the samples (easier for me to move 6 paper samples then for 24 kids to change seats 5 times!) After their final technique was added, they brought their paper back and we glued it onto a giant piece of posterboard.
For our third week of paper sculpture, we looked at the story quilts of Faith Ringgold. Since they had just finished collaborating on the Nevelson project, it was easy to link into quilts. We talked about quilting bees and other ways artists can work together. I then shared the work of contemporary artist Suzan Shutan. Inspired by her tar paper installations, students created loops and began adding to a classroom piece by directing the placement of their individual loop.
They used marker to create pattern inside their loop, but the outside of each loop remained white to create a unified design. All four kindergarten classes are displayed together in the hall and will eventually move into my classroom.
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