The Memory Project

Following the success of the Sliney Workshop, the Art Club began its search for the next organization that the members would contribute to. During our pondering, Mrs. Kaiser revealed to us a touching video that she had found on a project that has high school artists creating portraits of orphan children around the world. This organization, known as the Memory Project, sends high school teachers pictures of orphans from various countries; each photograph costs $15, and the portraits are then sent to the children to keep ! All of our members are working very hard on this project, and we will be sending them in at the end of May. For more information on this organization, click here.

 

Enriching the Community in an Artistic Way

The Tisko Workshop was a great success, leaving the Art Club with a grand profit. Because we had made several hundreds of dollars, we decided unanimously to donate some of our gains to the community in some way. The club brainstormed for a while, throwing around many different names of organizations to whom we could aid in an artistic way. Our advisor suggested the Branford Community Dining House, and all the members agreed that this place would be a great place to enrich artistically. We donated $100 worth of art supplies to the organization, and one of our members was able to deliver the supply basket along with Mrs. Kaiser.





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Murphy Workshop

Our third and final workshop of the school year took place at Mary T. Murphy Elementary School in Branford. Just like our previous two events, we received a largely positive response from both the children and the parents, and we raised a large amount of money for the club. We are all very grateful to have been able to share our love of art with the younger students in the community; I believe that both sides equally enjoyed this wonderful experience. We hope to create new and exciting projects for next year's workshops ! Thank you to all the Art Club members who were able to attend the workshops and help out ! Thank you as well to all the children who attended for your enthusiasm and your stellar behavior that gave us the strength to work our hardest during these events !

Sliney Workshop

Following the success of the Tisko Workshop, we immediately scheduled another event at Sliney Elementary School this time. The projects were the same here, but there was the task of teaching new students. Thankfully, this project was also a success, earning us a hefty profit that would be used for one of our largest projects that will be coming up in the next few posts.

Tisko Workshop

Our first major fundraiser for the art club came in the form of a workshop at Tisko Elementary School in Branford. We really wanted to create a project that would both bring us profits and enrich the community with art; in a unanimous decision, the club decided to hold a two-day workshop at the elementary school in which the children would create various works of art relating to nature.

After Hurricane Irene hit the North East, many trees were ripped from the ground and tossed aside. Branford High School teacher and art club advisor Mrs. Kaiser cut rings of wood from fallen tree trunks that would be used as the surface upon which children would paint a gradient and then fashion a tree on top with different types of tissue paper. Also, children were able to create little magnets for the fridge that also displayed some symbol of nature.

In the end, we received an overwhelmingly positive response. There were around thirty children from the first to the fourth grade that participated in the workshop, and a great number of them were very excited and hardworking throughout the event. For the art club, we had achieved both our goals of raising money and spreading our love of art to the community.

"The Look for the Good" Project

One of our first major projects of the school year was "The Look for the Good" Project. Artist and author Anne Kubitsky created this project in which a person would make a small card describing what he or she is thankful for as a way to encourage people to reflect on what they are grateful for in hard times like now.

Our members found this task very interesting, and many members submitted pieces with a variety of different messages. All the cards were showcased at a few locations in New London in January; some of the cards were quite familiar to our art club members ! The project is still on-going, so anyone can continue to send in cards if interested ! For more information, click here.

Paper Making

One of the first projects that the art club encountered this school year was the task of creating paper. We used different types of materials, like colored tissue paper and printing paper, to add some color to our paper. Once enough material was shredded, we placed heaping amounts of the assorted paper into a blender with water, creating a paste that's called "slurry." After the mixture was placed into a large vat of water, we used a deckle covered with a screen to scoop up the slurry to fill the square shape of the paper mold. When the excess water was eliminated, the square solid was left to dry, becoming dry, rough, and colorful paper the next day !
We all enjoyed this experience, and many members created their own paper to take home. You can see our members working below.