BEYE Discovery

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Rachel Harrison Inspired Sculpture with Andy Coppersmith

Post Contributed by Jocelyne Adkins, Program Director,

Beye Discovery's Andy Coppersmith conceived and taught the lesson below, inspired by the work of artist Rachel Harrison. In his lesson titled "The Potentiality of Materials" students worked with a variety of ordinary materials, often destined for the recycle bin or garbage, to turn them into something interesting, curious, and artful. As students joined individual items together, new sculptural forms emerged that were then unified by colorful tissue paper wrappings. A week later, students took their work a step further, using paint, collage, found objects, and other embellishments to complete their sculptures.

These fun, colorful sculptures were exhibited in the second floor display case. As in Rachel Harrison's work, we experienced how ordinary objects, transformed by the artist's hand, can make us stop to look with curiosity and wonder : ) Thank you Mr. C. for such a terrific project!

Aidan and Mr. Coppersmith leading a discussion about Rachel Harrison's work. Leila shares her observations.

Observing a second exemplar by Rachel Harrison, held by Heidi

Mikel, part 1, building the sculptural form

Joseph, part 2, adding tissue paper

Elise, part 2, tissue paper

Aidan receives assistance from Mr. Coppersmith, to join objects together

Aidan sculpture, with tissue paper

Anika and Andrew working together to create their sculpture

Eva, with completed sculpture (notice the deer tracks, lower left side)

Ben, completed sculpture (I wish I had taken a photo from the top view, it was very clever!)

Ms. Jenkins assisting Cassie

Laila, part 3, adding details

Jackson, left and Dexter, right

Aidan, adding embellishments

detail, Aidan

Laila, finishing touches

Jackson, completed sculpture

Elise, adding finishing touches

Laila, completed sculpture!

Kiran completed sculpture

Dexter, completed sculpture

Elise, completed sculpture

Emory, completed sculpture

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Nature Walk: Spring Blossoms

Post contributed by Jocelyne Adkins, Program Director

Spring is so beautiful, with blossoms emerging from tree branches and the earth to paint our landscapes with gorgeous color! Spring color is also fleeting, so we took the opportunity to photograph some early signs of the season on our nature walk today. We also collected blossoms blown from trees (magnolias & maple tree flowers), small fallen branches, stones, dried cracked earth, pinecones, bark, and more! Rolly-pollies and ants were carefully examined, but returned to their homes : )

Front: Laila and Joseph; middle: Jackson; back: Andrew and Anika

Andrew, Anika and Joseph observing a rolly-polly

Anika and Joseph

Ornamental pear trees with white blossoms

Daffodils

Pink hyacinth

Left to right: Jackson, Joseph, Andrew, Anika & Laila. Background: magnolia tree blossoms

Yellow forsythia bush

Tulips and groundcover

Back in the classroom, we selected one or more of our items from nature to inspire a watercolor painting. It was rewarding and heart-lifting to see how carefully the children examined their specimens, noting overall shapes, colors and their variations, and textures (older students). The completed watercolor illustrations are beautiful renderings of nature and we invite you to take a look below.