School Auction Project: Inspiration & Plans

These little beauties are made by artist Meagan Chaney. I adore them.

Kapaa Middle School students made these! (Kawai)

In a couple weeks I will start this year's auction project for Max's class at Tara Redwood School. We're using clay as our medium this year. The theme is Northwest Native American Totems. The lovely thing about this subject is it coincides with their studies of North America as well as the Essential Education which is the foundational philosophy of the school. We will be building Spirit Totems, each child will choose a spiritual quality they feel they either embody or wish to work towards - the quality will have an animal connected to it. Salmon, Bear, Dragonfly, just to name a few. Each child will then make that animal in clay. I will make clay hollow forms, formed over small inflatable balls which will be the foundation of their animal.


This week I will:

Gather the clay, cone 5.
Gather inflatable balls, 14 (twelve kids and two teachers).
Gather old towels and blankets.
Gather plastic containers to hold the clay forms.
Gather used plastic bags and such to loosely cover the clay forms.
Make lots of clay slabs.
Purchase spray vegetable oil (3 cans).
Start making hollow forms.

Wow, now that I've made my list I'm feeling a bit nervous. :) I am going to have to get Coleman and Max to help out in the building phase. Maybe I'll even have Max work on his at home.

The following week, Tuesday and Wednesday I will work with the children in groups of three on how to build their animal totem.

I am not certain how I will guide the kids to design their totem. In other words will I guide them to create in the style of the NW Native American tribes? Will it be their own design, without too much guidance? I will be thinking this through more thoroughly while I go through more and more images. Here is some more inspiration, for your viewing pleasure:

Artist Robert Davidson

Artist Robyn Gordon

Stephen Fabrico

Artist Mardi Kearney

Artist Gary Jackson