MEGAfauna Summer Fellowship

This summer I worked with K-6th grade campers, making prints and a baby mammoth! This was for the Summer Spree camp at the Community Art Center.

This year's camp theme was BIG TIME, and of course having been an artist/scientist-in-residence at the Wagner for ten years, the first thing that came to mind was mammoths. 

For this project, I taught the campers about the extinction of megafauna of North America at the end of the Pleistocene, and we then used those animals as inspiration for relief prints. Campers also learned about baby mammoth mummies like Yuka and Lyuba who were frozen in ice for tens of thousands of years before being discovered by humans. We used that as inspiration to create a full sized baby mammoth of our own, using wire armature, plaster wrap, acrylic paint, and yarn.

This was my 4th year doing a summer fellowship at CAC. The other projects were: 
Pollinators, 2021 
Whose Hoo Around the World, 2019 
Big Relief!, 2018 

Pollinators: Collaborative Installation at CAC

I just made this awesome installation with K-6th grade campers at the Community Art Center!

This was for a teaching artist fellowship during the Summer Spree Art Camp. The theme this year was SPREAD YOUR WINGS, and since I was invited to also show some of my own artwork in the gallery, I showed all the mandalas for my 2020 Pollinators Calendar as well as the 100 Acts of Kindness puzzle print organized by Maria Arango Diener. For the fellowship I taught the kids all about pollinators and had them create relief prints that went into this installation. 

This was my 3rd year doing a summer fellowship at CAC. In 2018 we did BIG RELIEF! And in 2019 we did Whose HOO Around the World. 

Whose HOO Around the World (Summer Fellowship)

Owls, owls, everywhere! The last week of June I had a wonderful time doing a fellowship for the Community Art Center's Summer Spree camp. 

This year's camp theme was WIDE WORLD. Having created a whole series of linocut prints of owls, I decided to put owls at the center of my project. 

Each group of campers were assigned a list of owls particular to one region of the world. They heard folktales from cultures in that part of the world and then made relief prints of owl species from that region. We printed the owls on cloth banners and hung them all around the children's garden. So much fun! 

This was my 2nd year doing a summer fellowship at CAC. My first was last year: Big Relief! 

Big Relief! A Collaborative Print at CAC

This is a mixed media (mostly collograph prints) installation at the Duke Gallery at the Community Arts Center. This was the project I developed for the teaching portion of my teaching artist fellowship at the Community Arts Center's Summer Spree camp. The project was largely inspired by Maria Arango-Diener's puzzle print projects, the last of which I participated in. That work - the Peace Puzzle Woodcut, featuring work by 160 artists from around the world - was displayed in the gallery, and I used it as a visual aid to explain the project to the campers.

I based the design for this work on the camp's theme: Imaginarium. On the right, a watering can emerges, pouring liquid out onto the floor. The liquid pools and spreads, and eventually plant-like forms grow out from it, one of which shoots out a multitude of round bubbles. The whole piece was designed specifically for this indented window space in the gallery. The overall image is a metaphor for inspiration; it suddenly pours in after a period of contemplation. At first it can seem a bit chaotic, but soon orderly and unique forms emerge from it. And while the whole affair might seem unusual or somewhat out of place, it makes meaningful connections that soon allow it to fit in in a new way and make its own sort of sense.

The whole shape was divided into over 80 pieces of various shapes. Each camper received a puzzle piece and used various materials such as craft foam, yarn, lace, buttons, bubble wrap, and burlap, to create a plate to print from. The resulting prints were put back together to make the installation. Camp aids and volunteers added some color with tissue paper to work it more organically into the space, add a 3D element, and visually pull it all together.

My aid and volunteers putting together the puzzle

The finished work was completed and installed today by 68 campers (ages 4-11) with one amazing aid and a few helpful teen volunteers. It will be on exhibit through July 20, alongside the Summer Fellows Exhibit which includes all the artwork for the Nautilus and the Ammonite, selections from other books projects,  some of my related ceramics, and of course the Peace Puzzle Woodcut.

"Imaginarium" Summer Fellow Exhibition in Wallingford

THIS SUNDAY, Imaginarium Reception: June 24, 2pm to 4pm

Duke Gallery at the Community Arts Center

414 Plush Mill Road, Wallingford, PA 19086

Summer Fellows exhibit in the Duke Gallery of the Community Arts Center. The show will include all of the artwork for my newly released book "The Nautilus and the Ammonite", many works from my other book projects, as well as the debut exhibit of some of my new ceramics.

On view: June 23-July 20