Recycled Plastic Bag Mandalas- Green Week Project

Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide… that's over one million plastic bags used per minute! Roughly 80% of those bags are used in North America and Western Europe and sadly, less than 5% of plastic grocery bags are recycled in the U.S. Most end up in landfills or as litter that finds its way to our oceans, where they take up to 1,000 years to break down. This plastic directly threatens our environment, particularly the lives and health of marine mammals and sea birds. In fact, at least 267 different species are known to have suffered from entanglement or ingestion of plastic marine debris. 

          It is SO important that we make sure that bags that are consumed are recycled, reused or repurposed and kept out of our environment. The artist Virginia Fleck does just that, creating site-specific, ecologically conscious artwork made exclusively of recycled plastic bags. She has been commissioned for several high-profile, green building projects including the U.S. Embassy in Rwanda and Whole Foods World Head Quarters in Austin, TX. Fleck fuses colorful plastic bags to create large scale mandalas. A mandala (Sanskrit for “circle”) is a sacred, symbolic diagram, used as a meditational aid in Buddhism and Hinduism, and they are often constructed with an intention of planetary healing and are used in peace ceremonies. Because of the mandala’s meditative and healing properties in the east, the argument could be made that art from one person's promotional products (that would end up in a landfill) has a healing effect on the environment.

          During Calvert’s Green Week, 6^th and 7^th graders used irons to fuse over 300 recycled plastic bags together. When four bags are trimmed, layed flat and ironed together, they form a thicker piece of plastic “fabric” that can be used in a variety of creative ways (we followed this tutorial). Inspired by Virginia Fleck, we cut our fused bag material into triangles and pieced them together to create the eight beautiful mandalas on that are now on display in the Atrium. They are about 3.5'-4' across and are suspended above the lunch tables and in the Atrium hallway. We spent four periods on Thursday and one on Friday just fusing bags. Friday's classes cut the material and assembled the mandalas. 

I put out a call for bags and the faculty raided the heaps under their kitchen sink to donate them!

You have to cut the thick bottom seams and handle from the shopping bags first so they can be opened completely. 

7th graders cutting the triangles

  Mandalas on Display (a bit tricky to photograph):

Getting ready for this project, I learned a LOT of really scary facts about plastic bags and their impact on the environment. While I have never considered myself to be very "earthy," you better believe I am now a woman on a mission after doing this- I will NEVER use a plastic bag again without thinking twice and vow to only use reusable bags when grocery shopping in the future. Hopefully the kids who did this art project will encourage their families do the same in their homes and in the future!!

Bonjour Deuxième Partie (Part Two)

Yesterday afternoon was the opening reception for the second 8th Grade Art show at Bonjour Bakery. Just like last week a lovely group of artists, parents, administrators and teachers assembled to admire the artwork and indulge in something sweet! As a reminder, this set of paintings will remain on display through this Sunday, April 29th. Hope you can swing in to see it if you live locally- you won't be disappointed! 

 I had to take a picture of the bakery's display case, as it was SOOO Wayne Thiebaud, the artist who inspired our project. He admired the orderly rows of food and consumer goods on display in drugstores, bakeries and hardware stores which ultimately inspired many of his paintings:

Warm/Cool Portraits with Tesselations

Third quarter portraits are finally up! We ran out of time last quarter so kids have been coming in study halls to finish, which took what feels like FOREVER. Interesting observation about this group... Students may choose a warm or cool color scheme for the tessellation portion of this project and then they do the opposite color scheme on their face. All but ONE student this quarter chose to do cool colored tessellations and warm colored faces! I noticed this as they were painting, but I think the cool part is that they still all look totally unique and different since each color is mixed individually and everyone's tessellation shape is so unique too:

Art Show Opening Reception

Yesterday after school and athletics was the "opening reception" for the first art semester students and their families at Bonjour Bakery (which basically means we mingled, admired the work, and ate tasty fruit tarts/pastries). Thank you to those who could attend and also to Dr. Martire and Mrs. Lears for their support! 

8th Grade Art Show!

The first semester 8th grade art class' Wayne Thiebaud inspired paintings are currently on display at Bonjour Bakery & Cafe in Baltimore (an appropriate place for pastry and cake themed paintings, don't you think?!). Paintings will be on display through next Sunday, April 22nd, when the second semester students' paintings will replace them for a week, through April 29th. Tomorrow, Tuesday, April 17th, there will be an opening reception to celebrate the artists and their beautiful work... If you are in the area, please feel free to stop by and join us at 4:30pm to admire the art and share a sweet treat, or stop in anytime this week to see it! The following Tuesday, April 24th, we will gather again at the same time to celebrate with the second semester class :)

Bacteria Led to Art!! (It's True!)

I had the pleasure of guest speaking/teaching today in two of Mrs. Finnegan's 7th grade Science classes! They have been talking about unicellular prokaryotes (single-celled organisms with no nucleus), otherwise known as bacteria. One example of bacteria that made a big impact is Yersinia Pestis (pictured), more commonly known as the Bubonic Plague, which led to the death of one third to one half of the population of Europe in the 1300's. Such a decrease in population was sure to lead to major changes in society, and in this case, it led to major changes in the world of ART too! Mrs. Finnegan invited me in to talk about those changes and to lead a Renaissance-inspired art project for her students.

I specifically talked about Michelangelo and marble carving today, and I showed them images of his "Michelangelo's Slaves," the unfinished carvings originally intended for the tomb of Pope Julius II. These unfinished sculptures give us insight into the great master's carving process- we can see that he would bring certain areas and forms to a high state of finish, while other pieces of the marble are left relatively untouched, which is a unique and impressive way of doing it! I showed the kids how marble is typically carved using a chisel and hammer, but today, they got to try their hand at carving bars of white soap with my clay modeling tools! I think they gained a better appreciation for the genius Michelangelo was... to be able to create a subtractive sculpture as large and breathtaking as David is what sets him apart in the art world. And to think, it was all because of a bunch of deadly bacteria...!

Buon Compleanno Leonardo!!!

This Sunday, April 15th, would mark Leonardo Da Vinci's 560th birthday, so it was only fitting that we celebrated his special day in Art History class with a big party! Luckily, his birthday coincides with our unit on him this quarter- woo hoo! Perhaps we should have been serving spaghetti, but instead we had cupcakes, chips, brownies, cookies and soda. And, no birthday party would be complete without singing "Happy Birthday", right? But since Da Vinci was Italian, we invited Dr. P to come in and teach us to sing it in Italian, which was pretty cool. Oh, and don't worry, while noshing on all the treats and singing, we were also drawing gadgets in the style of Leonardo Da Vinci. It was a fun day!

YUM!!! Graul's cupcakes can't be beat!

Written in "mirror writing," the way Da Vinci would have done it himself!

Balloons and streamers too!

"Gadget" drawing- this table had a clamp lamp

Our resident Italian Dr. P teaching us to sing "Buon Compleanno Leonardo!"