Artist In Residence- North Prairie, WI

With a sign that inviting, you can't help but get excited about what new project awaits you when entering the threshold into Mrs. Engelking's elementary art room! Come peek with me into the project we created and the time I spent in south-eastern Wisconsin April 9-10th, 2018.

 I was approached in January about doing a school-wide felting project with her, and right away I began asking questions to start planning a proposal:

• How many students? A: 350 from K-6 grade
• What's your scheduling like/ do you have flexibility A: We're flexible in a day and a half timeframe
• What size/ scale are you thinking? A: Budget dependent, we decided 4' x 8' finished size nuno felt
• What are some themes or ideas you'd like to see incorporated? A: We're in North Prairie, WI so.... prairie? 

Typically when approached by elementary schools, I go straight away to wet felting. She wanted to do some needle felting, as her older kids had gotten lucky and been doing some in their classes already. I told her I would work on a proposal and a sketch. 

When I start brainstorming, all those factors from the questions and their answers will be building blocks in how we put together a fun, successful and inspiring cooperative fiber art project. Each one I've done is different than the other. I LOVE the challenge of that and the more I've done, the more I've learned and been able to apply to the next project. 

I broke down the design into components for each grades with a wet day (did I say wet! I mean WET!) followed by a blissful dry day of needle felting. 

• Kindergarten - Clouds and Sky
• 1st- Blending of colors for grass
• 2nd- Blending of colors for water 
• 3rd - Felted grasses 
• 4th- Rocks and Leaves 
• 5th- Flower petals and assembly (needle felting)
• 6th- Sparkly bugs and assembly (needle felting)

We arranged to have each grade rotate through the art room, divided into three, 12-minute stations. One station the kids got to watch our dvd about the animals, shearing and art made with the fiber. Then, they traveled to the teacher's station where they made an individual component for the art piece. Last, they came to my station, where we put those pieces on, did agitation, and talked about my art. It all ran very smoothly, thanks to engaged teacher support and assistance, and some wonderful volunteers and terrific kids. 

By the end of the wet day, we had used a BUNCH of towels which our awesome, helpful volunteer offered to take home and wash and we were wiped out! Despite it being very cold, I decided to trek around downtown Delafield, WI where I found some treasures...mostly window shopping...which I find equally enjoyable and far less dangerous! I also enjoyed a quiet dinner at The Seven Seas overlooking Lake Nagawicka. 

The second day began with a wonderful breakfast at the lovely B&B I stayed at, Ped'lars Inn in Wales, WI . The owners were very accommodating to my crazy schedule of arriving late and leaving early and it was very charming. I highly recommend it!  

The whole experience was terrific; wonderful people, beautiful creativity and breathtaking results! Here is the finished piece and a fabulous video about the entire project that Mrs. Engelking put together. Thank you Prairie Elementary for having me and for making beautiful art together!  

Big-Time Creativity!

This past week I had the exciting privilege of designing and coordinating a HUGE project at Central Elementary School in Riverside, IL. I was approached by the PTO in the fall, and asked to come up with a proposal to involve all the kids participating in an fiber arts enrichment. As always, I had to put on my thinking cap and come up with a custom design. 

"Beside the River", a 3' x 9' nuno felted mural was perfect. I broke down the design into three grade levels: first, second and third. Each grade would design a component of the piece. In this case, the first graders did the background colors, second grade did the trees and third grade did flowers, ripples in the stream and grasses. 

This part I worked with the kids on. We had classes about 50 minutes long, and after an intro, split the time into two stations, where they swapped half way through the class. You should have seen their eye light up when, to their surprise, they came into the art room and discovered this special project! 

Now one of the challenges was the fact that we had to do this one class at a time, over the course of four days. Typically, in nuno felting, one designs, wets and rolls to fuse the fibers right away. When I do projects like this, I might do a span of two days and we work back to front, just like a painting. 

My solution was that we work from one side to the other, essentially creating four panels that fused seamlessly into each other as we worked each day. And it worked! Now I know this is a solution and option for future projects. I just love how challenges can help us to grow and discover new bits of wisdom! 

The other component was for the kids to make wet felted balls and then with adult's help, to glue them into a real acorn top. This project went beautifully for all grades and we got a great teaching system down for this! I might have to do a video tutorial for it in the future because it is an amazingly successful, cheap and fun mess-minimal project! Woot! Woot! 

I loved the comments I heard from kids... one little boy who was having an especially hard week said this was the best day ever, and left with a huge smile from ear to ear. His teacher noticed a difference right away! I had another girl show me the piece of wool she stretched out to place on the sky and she said, "Isn't this wool lovely?" How precious is that! 

The older kids got a real treat.... 4th graders made needle felted owls and fifth grade made foxes, keeping with the woodland theme. To make it easier (and to keep Mrs. V's art room our wet-felting headquarters), we traveled to their classrooms and taught there. I had prepared a PowerPoint with step-by-step pictures which helped me a LOT, saving my voice from repeating the same thing 10,000 times over! They kids did an awesome job staying on task and getting their creatures made, having fun the whole time. 

Loved this little exchange in the 5th grade...

Mrs.Natasha: "Check out our video tutorials if you want to learn more about this art"

Boy 1: "Do you have a YouTube channel?" 

Mrs. Natasha: "Why yes I do!" (Pat myself on the back mentally for being "hip") 

{Small gasp of excitement fills room}

Boy 2: "How many subs do you have?"

{I look at teacher and mouth: WHAT ARE SUBS? to which she answers "SUBSCRIBERS" and light bulb lights above my head mentally}

Mrs. Natasha: "Over 400"

{Murmurs now ripple across room. Seeing this, I decide to add this bit of info}

Mrs. Natasha: "I have over 14,000 views on one of my videos."

Everyone: "Whoa! You're famous!"

{Totally awesome in the fifth graders' eyes now. My coolness status just went waaaay up}

One especially rewarding story was how one of the girls went home and discovered she had a felting kit laying around and went to work right away making things. She was so excited to show me, I had to take pictures of course, of her Kermit finger puppet and baby fox. Another classroom spent all their free lunch time adding to their foxes and embellishing them. It captured the hearts and creativity of everyone it touched. 

Central Elementary's staff was so kind, so close-knit, that it really felt like a family. I appreciated my time there with them, and even got a chance to explore the area a little. I went to Brookfield Zoo one afternoon and enjoyed some great dining in downtown La Grange, IL. 

Their piece will be hanging in the school and I know the kids are going to be so proud of it, because they each have a little bit of themselves in it. These sorts of projects are the kind I get really passionate about, because there are challenges to meet, building on the skills and creativity I already have and stretching me just a little beyond myself. When I come back from these artist-in-residencies, I am energized and exhausted and glowing with the feeling of joy. Joy in their little hands and huge hearts, and how we can all make the world more beautiful together. That's big-time creativity my friends!!!