What We've Been Up To in 2017

ACAS has been up to a few things these past months, and it has been super fun! 

In September we created painted drip pots for our AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING Mount Washington Made craft extravaganza! That was awesome! The pots were displayed during the Pancake Breakfast, and the little makers got to take them home after the event. It was fantastic. 

In October we had the incredible Sayde from Makers Mess host our pom pom making craft event, and it was an overwhelming success. I know every kid that came through created a pom pom, Makers Mess provided them with rings for mobiles or little keychains to hang from back packs, lanyards, or even hats! 

Next Month we'll have Capoeira in collaboration with Michele Czernik hosting an open studio for PTA Reflections. This will be a great day to make some noise, bust some moves, and create a work of art for the upcoming contest, PTA Reflections. 
Please add us on Instagram 

https://www.instagram.com/artscollectiveafterschool/

More posts to come! I look forward to seeing parents and students alike. 

Hack Your Plushie with LA Makerspace

LA Makerspace visited Mt. Washington Elementary on December, Friday 16th and presented Hack Your Plushie!, an e-textile workshop, in partnership with Art Collective After School. The workshop was sponsored by the Kids Made student artists.

LA Makerspace's instructor, Amanda Horowitz, demonstrated the basics of circuits, sensors and switches, and then the students created their own sensor-activated buzzers using a lithium battery, reed sensor and piezo. They learned how to create closed circuit with a switch. The reed sensor in the circuit was triggered when a magnet got too close. Once the sensor was triggered, the switch turned on and the buzzer was activated. The circuit portion took concentration and patience, and all the students rose to the challenge.

Once the kids made buzzers, they participated in the sewing component of the workshop. They used felt to create pockets, capes, satchels, patches and necklaces to conceal their buzzers on or in their plushie. The workshop was challenging and the kids stuck with it, bringing their own solutions and hacks to their individual project. The participants took home their unique creations for the holidays.

Lonnie Marshall – RUBBABoX PlAySHop - 11/4/16

For our most recent Arts Collective After School, we had artist and musician Lonnie Marshall do a sound and building workshop with the kids. First the kids decorated a box top in any way they wanted - they then added rubber bands as strings and a strap so they could play hands free.
 

 

 The kids had a great time building their instruments and then getting to play them with Lonnie hooked up to a amplifier. 

Karate & Caligraphy 7/10/16

For our past Arts Collective After School we had Pacific Marshall Arts come and share their practice and teachings with the kids. The event started with a demo of Karate, then the kids could either take part in a karate class or practice Kanji Caligraphy. The students were encouraged to think about the ways they move their bodies both when practicing karate and practicing Calligraphy.

In the Kanji Caligraphy, the students practiced drawing the symbol for water, they could only draw each stroke once.

Fabric Forms 9/16/16

For our first Arts Collective After School of the 2016/17 school year we had a in-house project to make fabric forms to use as decoration for our upcoming pancake breakfast.

The kids started with a wire hanger, they could change the shape by bending the wire or leave it the way they found it. Then they could choose from baskets of fabric strips,  colors and textures to add to the form - tying or looping  them on to the wire. 

There were quite a few creative solutions to the simple prompt and selection of materials, some children wove into the center of their wire form and some created fringe with the material. 

We had quite a lot of white cotton (from tearing down sheets) which I worried would be less exciting to the kids.
Several kids commented on the small of clean laundry that the white had and decided to use only that material for its sensory qualities, and some children found the white to be a excellent canvas for adding their own images.

Caltech Education Outreach Program 5/6/16

At our last Arts Collective After School of the year we had Caltech's education outreach program on the campus to run a event on Neuroscience. The event started off with a quick talk on Neuroscience, focused particularly on the Stroop effect. The Stroop effect is when the brain has difficulty reading a color word in a different color pigment. Here is a link to more information on the Stroop effect test if you are interested, 

http://www.onlinebraingamesblog.com/online-brain-games/a-very-cool-brain-game-the-stroop-effect-test
  
Kids were able to print t-shirts using stencils that referenced the Stroop effect during the event. There were also two other activities, one with visual illusions based in Neuroscience and one where kids were able to look at, handle and watch dissections of sheep's brains.
Caltech had three students and a researcher at the event who engaged and interacted with the kids, answering all sorts of questions.

Thank you so much to Caltech's Educational outreach program for coming to the school, and to Friends of Mt Washington with help for the funding of the shirts and to Philip Soderlind for cutting the stencils.

Cal Arts Community Outreach Program - Dance & Movement 4/8/16

Our past Arts Collective After School had Cal Arts Community Outreach Program running a event focusing on movement and dance, the event took place in the MPR as it was a rainy day - it was a crazy mix of rain boots and dance moves! Thanks so much to Cal Arts for coming out and giving everyone a way to release some pent up energy during the rain.


 

Purple Twig - Building and Collaging 3/4/16

 Our Past Arts Collective After School had the arts school Purple Twig from Eagle Rock running a program encompassing both building and collaging. The children would first choose wooden blocks to create their city from and then choose from imagery what kind of city they would like to create.

 

Special thanks to Purple Twig for bringing this project to our school and to Brian Hollenbeck for donating all the beautiful wood.

Cteate LA - 3D form to 2D observation 2/5/16

Our past Arts Collective After School had the organization Create LA run a program encompassing both 3D building and then 2D drawing of the forms they have made.

The kids had a great time building forms - the one prompt they were given was to try to make the form stand up on its own. 

 



When drawing the forms the kids were given a wide selection of materials and asked to draw the energy and movement of the form. It was wonderful to see the different resolutions in both building and then drawing.







 

Silkscreening 12/4/15

Our past Arts Collective After School was a great celebration, we raised funds from a sale of the kids handmade objects to have Grow Your Own Media come onto the campus to run a silkscreen event. The event was so popular that there was a very long line of kids waiting to have their shirts printed.

There were four different options of shapes and colors that the kids could choose as the base for their shirts.

The children would cut out a shape from paper to act as a resist, thus - creating their own graphic for their shirt. This project was a great way to show positive and negative space and how it is used in silk-screening.

 

 The garbage was pretty gorgeous at the end of the day. 

Woodworking 11/13/15

Arts Collective After School on November 13th
had Philip Soderlind running a project on 
woodworking. There were three models of 
objects kids could make or they could choose
 to design their own form.

Regardless of weather the children choose 
their own design or followed a model, the 
first step was to draw the form and to figure 
out how many pieces and in what sizes they 
needed in order to construct the object.

This project was lots of fun and the kids had a
great time using the tools.
 
 

Papel Picado 9/18/15

Our first Arts Collective After School for the 2015/16 school year was Papel Picado with Maricella Sosa, the children made multiple sheets of colored cut tissue paper. Each child started with a template to cut and then when they got comfortable with the process they cut a pattern of their own creation.

They took home half of what they cut and then we used the other half to decorate our lunch pavilion for the pancake breakfast. It was a stunning transformation of the familiar space and the kids are all quite protective of it at the moment.

This was a wonderful project to use to decorate a large space because multiple sheets can be cut each time one cuts a pattern. It has been great fun for the kids to pick out their individual  contributions from the many. 

Scarves from our last event up at school!

We made a banner from a few extra scarves that the kids made and it is now hanging on the yard to celebrate spring.

Colorhue dyes & silk scaves 4/10/15

On our last Arts Collective After School, we had artist Connie Rohman showing the kids how to work with Colorhue dyes and silk, each child got a silk scarf to dye. The dye colors were so beautiful and set instantly with the fibers of the silk and then were neutralized. 

 We played with different techniques for applying the dye, it was a lot of fun opening up the scarf at the end and seeing what you had created.

 

We had scarves hanging to dry all over the campus and many of the kids who took part earlier in the event stayed to help teach the kids who came along afterwards. Thank you so much to The Arroyo Arts Collective and to The Mount Washington Neighborhood Association for their help with the cost of the materials for this project.

 

Bookmaking 3/6/2015

We did a workshop on Bookmaking with artist Linda Ravenswood that was a huge success, each child sewed a small folio (book) and then was able to turn it into whatever they wanted. There were joke books, journals, sticker books, cook books, books of mystical creatures and so many more.

The Exploratory, Circuit Blocks 2/6/15

   We were so excited to have The Exploratory (theexploratory.com) come and do a project with us on electricity. The kids worked with circuits blocks and alligator clips to work out the function of a circuit, teamed up in groups of two they added complexity to their circuits as they gained understanding. Working with supplied materials the design challenge was then to build something around their circuit that would make someone laugh.