Sunday, February 25, 2007

Women's Kaleidoscope

Kaleidoscope: (kə-lī'də-skōp') n. A series of changing phases or events.

For the past 10 years (?) our church has sponsored a children's art camp, called Kaleidoscope. They hire artists to work with the kids and there is usually a theme. The kids spend the day learning music, putting together a drama, making giant (and I mean giant!) papier mache puppets to be used in the drama, and some other art form, sometimes story cloths, or mosaics, or quilts or...Anyway, Audrey attended for 2 years, and every day when I took her, I would whine about why there wasn't one for adults. Apparently, I was not the only one who whined. Over the weekend, we had Women's Kaleidoscope. The classes offered were: rug hooking, vintage windows, painted floor cloths, painted screens (an old Baltimore thing), and mosaics. A light breakfast was provided at 8:30am, classes started at 9, lunch at noon, then classes again at 1. We ended at 4pm. Rug hooking and painted floor cloths were offered both in the morning and in the afternoon. Mosaics was an all day workshop. Vintage windows was an am thing and painted screens was a pm thing. The only catch of the day...I had to teach...all day.


I taught a rug hooking class. It was labeled hooking with rags, incorporating clothing, cast offs, and what not into a hooked piece. My intention was to teach how to deconstruct clothing, which I did with a turtleneck and a wool skirt. I had hoops and hooks and my whole stash of wool. The drew a simple design on burlap, chose their colors and started hooking. All was well up until then. I had forgotten how it can be difficult to get that rhythm of hooking, especially with a hoop. They did not finish their pieces, which was a disappointment to me. All other classes went home with a finished project. I still think that as a whole, it was successful. I had 8 students and only 2 that did not really enjoy the process. That's what it's all about. Learning and expanding. This was a totally new experience for me. I felt quite honored to be asked, as the others had been involved in the children's Kaleidoscope for years. I promised them a photo tutorial on finishing so that means I've got to get cranking on my piece so I can finish it.

Here are some of the projects from the day:

a vintage window and a hooked mat








mosaic



windows and floor cloths



hooking in progress





painted screens

2 comments:

weirdbunny said...

How wonderful to focus on the adults creativity not just the kids. Can't wait to see your finished peice.

Gina said...

How wonderful!