KETCHIKAN, Alaska (AP) - The Ketchikan Area Arts and Humanities Council classroom fills with excited chatter Saturday mornings and when it empties two hours later, students’ hands are stained with paint and they are excitedly talking about their latest adventure in art.
During the past four weekends, students have woven paper into “quilts,” painted reusable shopping bags, made “bowls” from coffee filters to resemble blown glass art and created dream catcher window hangings from discarded CDs at the council’s Saturday Morning Art class.
All the projects are made from discarded items, including bottle caps, cardboard trays, bubble wrap, plastic bottles, scrap paper, discarded newspapers, yarn, paint and markers while crowded around a newspaper-covered table and using their imaginations, glue, markers and paint.
“The class is all about reusing materials that you otherwise would have thrown away,” teacher Maria White said. “We talked about when you throw something away, what does ’away’ mean? The thing still exists, but it’s just in a different place now.”
White has a bachelor’s degree in art education, and spent the past year in the Bahamas teaching at a high school study abroad program. She said the curriculum focused on environmental conservation, and she wanted to have a similar focus here.
“I thought it was important, especially in a small town where we don’t have a lot of ways to dispose of things, and we’re right on the ocean,” White said. “I thought it was important to talk about it.”
The weekly class, called SMART for short, features two sections - one for kindergarten through third grades, and one for fourth through seventh grades.
Near the end of last week’s class, White had students tearing colored paper into piles. White said she was going to soak the paper during the week and use it to make new paper with the students.
“It’s totally different than any art teaching I’ve done before,” White said. “I Just wanted to see what would happen when you introduce the same ideas to younger kids that you introduce to high school kids, and it’s really amazing all the things they can conceptualize.”
White reveals a mystery item from a bucket every week and asks the students what they could do with it. She said one week she showed them an empty Pringles container, and was surprised at the suggestions they came up with.
During the course, which runs through March 8, White is basing lessons on well-known artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Gustav Klimt and Dale Chihuly.
“I show them the original and we talk about it, and then I have them make their own version using things you find laying around,” White said. “It’s been a lot of fun.”
White approached KAAHC in the fall with the concept for the class, but without a place to do it.
“I went in to ask if they knew of a place in town that I would be able to rent,” White said.
“Instead, they offered their space downstairs.”
KAAHC Education Director Anita Maxwell said part of the council’s mission is to encourage life-long learning, and the youth art class plays well into current programming.
“It’s been great,” Maxwell said. “I’ve had parents stop me in the grocery store raving about Maria, and the class, and that their kids are having a great time. We’re really happy with our first Saturday Morning Art Class.”
White works at Snorkel Alaska during the summer month, so Maxwell said they are unsure if the class will continue in the summer. But Maxwell said she would love to have some form of the class continues.
“We’re looking at different things as far as school-based learning, but this is a great opportunity to make it accessible outside of school time,” Maxwell said. “We are so pleased with Maria’s work, and she’s been a fabulous instructor. Hopefully it’s the first of many.”
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Information from: Ketchikan (Alaska) Daily News, https://www.ketchikandailynews.com
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