MixedMedia

During the weekend of April 11-13, more than a dozen Twinfield staff, parents and students helped to sort, record, and mount the more than 450 “Peace Tiles” that would compose a new mural in the school’s cafeteria. The Peace Tiles – individual collages on 8-inch square wood panel – each responded to the question, “What is my place?” When combined into a mural, they produced single image representing the Central Vermont landscape where they live – a theme selected by the 2008 graduating class.

While the mural represents one of a few large works in the school, there is some concern that students will find the mural a ready target for vandalism. I am not so certain, for two reasons. First is that each student has a piece in the mural: everyone contributed to it, and as a result I would expect that it feels more “owned” by the entire student body. The second reason is that the mural should have some longevity: every student, from pre-K up to the graduating class, contributed to the mural – which means it could be up to 12 years before that bit of school history graduates. In my mind, that’s a pretty lengthy bit of time for a story to circulate. Both aspects of the mural I hope will garner students’ delight and respect for many years to come.

In any event, it was a pleasure to work with everyone at the school, and I certainly learned many good lessons for how to take the Peace Tiles mural project “to scale.”

[In the picture lower right, a Twinfield student places the last tile of the school mural]

Had my first workshop with seniors in “twintown” – that’s our name for the combined towns of marshfield and cabot. about 15 people showed up, all of them women. turns out the group is a “homemakers” club that gets together every other week. so they know each other pretty good.

this gang had a terrific sense of humor. they took each others’ ailments in stride (health was a source of quips and caring updates alike) and also shared alot about each others’ work. it was interesting to see how much they asked each other about their memorabilia – much more so than in other groups i’ve observed. i also noted that many of them expressed much stronger doubts about their creative capacities. i am not sure what was the source of this, but i suspect basic health – for example eyesight – played a significant part.

one of the most popular themes in this group was family, in particular small children – grandchildren to be exact. even though each secretly seemed to know that they were kin to the sweetest little one, they gave each others’ equal care and attention. it was really fun to work surrounded by the bouyant humor – some of it even risqué and surprisingly brusgue! – and sharing in a few of their memories.

one of the most poignant tiles was made by a woman who’s husband’s parents had once owned a farm. she found a picture of a barn, painted in a beautiful sky and landscape for it complete with clouds and a tree and then, in a pure twist of collage abstraction, placed two different calendar months floating in the sky, slightly overlapping. on a particular and different date on each month she had marked the day with a tiny glass bead. these were the birthdays of her parents-in-law (“My husband loved them very much” she explained). Also floating in the sky was a quote which, paraphrased, read: “Journeying together to the undiscovered country.” Just beneath it, a tiny locket in the shape of a heart with a tiny key on the same chain.

Very sweet. A lovely combination of fine painting skills, mixed media, and kitschy items combined to make a lovely memento.

At the end of the session, which lasted about an hour and a half, we had a chance for everyone to hold up their tile and share what it was about. Everyone jumped in, no one held back. It was nice to see them sharing stories with each other that might not otherwise have come out.

[Photo courtesy of John Cameron: Global Issues Peace Tiles workshop in Salt Spring, British Columbia ]

Mine is the bottom right. The “cloud” text says,

Children of the earth
moulders of clay, movers of rock.

In making the tile, I was struck by how well the lighting worked between the girl and the cloudy background I’d painted. That was a pleasing result. The concept continues my interest in the representation of “fundamental” materials: stone, mud and clay, metal, wood, fibers, etc. Materials as archetypes of both process and meaning.

Had a just lovely workshop with 32 AmeriCorps/VISTA members (these are young people typically just out of university who are spending a year volunteering in a community. Many in this group are working on environmental education and with at-risk populations, which is to say young people who are disproportionately likely to drop out of school, abuse drugs and alcohol, etc).

Since I have done workshops for AmeriCorps before, I though it was a great opportunity to share the “facilitation” role with their full-time staff. So I basically just introduced the program and the process, and Amanda, my amazing artist-cofacilitator for the day, gave more explicit instruction around the theme (“What is the change I want to make in the world?”) and debrief/discussion.

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Today marks the final day of my work with Twinfield students. All in all it was a lovely experience. The students were so welcoming, and most eager to experiment and “play,” which is a big part of what its all about. I think its fair to say that they are really excited to see what in the world will be done with all of the images. So am I

So now I will begin the long and detail intensive process of cataloguing all of the tiles, and arranging them into the mosaic. Workplan looks something like:

• Photograph tiles
• Work with school to develop “source” image (might be a tile to create a fun micro-macro “find the source” game)
• Create composite image
• Number tiles
• Create directory (so people can find their own, friends’ etc by name
• Install

Something else I have thought of along the way – which hasn’t been approved yet – is to “float” some really elegant quotations about place just off the surface of the mosaic. I am thinking they could be etched (sandblasted) or screened onto the narrow (8″ x 72″ say) plexiglass strips and fastened 3-4″ off of the surface using narrow metal risers – like bolts without the threads. We’ll see how far that goes.