Hello from the Art Room! I like to have a culminating show at the end of the year in which students share their favorite works from the year. In year’s past this has dovetailed nicely with the Harwood Artist’s open studio events. As there was no such event this Spring—and in the tumbling rush towards summer—I decided to do our “Open Studio Show” online. I interviewed students about works that they love. I find it fascinating, funny and insightful to hear students talk about their artworks and I am sure that you, like me will learn a lot! Not everyone decided to participate, but I hope that you will ask your child about their work even if they didn’t do an ‘interview.’ Talking about about art yield interesting results. We learn to see more, and I think that students learn more about what they value and what matters about their work when they talk about it. Suggested questions: What do you like about it?, what do you want people to know about it?, What did you do to make it? Happy summer everyone! –Ms. Christy
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Creature and it's House by Killahani. “I like this one because it’s very cute to me. And it’s funny that the rugs are made out of--are literally handkerchiefs. She can go in a bed (demonstrates). Well… [the process was] fun.”
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Nightmare Machine by Sebastian and Benji (Pictured: Ms. Tanesia). “I think it’s creepy, not that creepy, but still. It has some kind of black liquid in it that nobody knows what it is, unless you read the labels on the side: blood plus broccoli. Definitely drink it, it’s recommended for health… Kind of a safety warning: don’t drink it unless you have O blood because it has O blood cells in it. It’s made from cardboard, we had to design a special stand to hold the bottle up, or else it slips out and then it falls into the tube.” -Sebastian
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Wand Design by Tavo. " I'm proud of it because I really am into Harry Potter, and I think it will be really cool once I can carve it out. I want people to know that Harry Potter is better than Percy Jackson."
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6x6 by Ingrid. “I think it’s so cool and inspiring to other people. I worked so hard on it and it took me hours to make. I used some paint and some pencil. It’s like blood, it’s like sorta like, yeah, it like has three faces, and yeah.”
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Moss Monster and Spider Bug by Reed. “One of them was my actual 6x6. The other is something that came from my dream. I want people to know that this ‘Moss Monster’ is made from moss that grows on a forest floor that became animate, and then it started to attack people in a horror dream I had. But it wasn’t actually real. We were acting as the people in a horror movie. There was me as the Moss Monster along with Killer Scarecrows and the Human Hunter. For ‘Spider Bug’ I splattered some red paint on until it looked like a leg and then I started making it a spider bug, the jaws of an ant, the legs of a spider and stuff and it also has human legs. And also there’s all these weird colors in the background. And if you noticed, it gets lighter at the top and darker at the bottom of this and I guess it’s because it’s like a swamp and it gets brinier.”
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Wrecking ball necklace by Desi. “It’s a cool thing to do. I thought of a wrecking ball for some reason because necklaces swing around on you a lot and wrecking balls swing so it was kind of cool. They’re related. I thought that it was just a fun idea, and something fun to do! It was just a simple project!”
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ID by Bella. "I really wanted one (an ID). I picked a picture, Ms. Christy took a picture of me, and then it has hearts, that was the picture. I like it a lot, I love it."
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Pillow by Damien. “I’m proud of this because I can sleep with it. It was hard to make, I mostly just used a sewing machine. And I want to say ‘Hi.’”
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6x6 by Michael. “I’m proud of it because it’s the only thing that didn’t get destroyed. I want people to know that I worked really hard on it, and if you want to add donations for ribbons you can. So first I had to put a lot of stickers on to here (gestures) to put this fork onto it. I had to put this huge bead on, but first I had to glue these ribbons onto the bottom of it.”
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House by Leif and Arthur. “It was very hard to make. And we made doors that open and close. And we made an interior with a bed, tv, and what else?” -Leif “Uh, sofa. It’s a gold house, it’s made out of gold. Aleah gave us the golden box, I actually got it from Aleah, I asked Leif, “what do you think we should do with it?” “And then I said, make a house” Then we noticed we could put that inside. We made this sideways, and we put the bed in and the sofa dn the TV. We made a kind of slanted roof and the attic. Leif is going to take it home, but every play date Leif is going to have it so we can play with it.” - Arthur
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The Dumb Ray (not pictured) by Julian. “I got the idea from a show and I love shows. That’s like the only feature it can do [Make someone dumb] but actually it can make you smart again… but there’s also another feature: whoever is holding the dumb ray gets whatever smartness got sucked into the ray by the person getting dumbified. ‘I got your brain!’ I used a container, some cardboard, a cork, and lots of tape.”
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Sculptural instrument by Campbell. "It makes a lot of annoying sounds. I got a box and I got a clay thing and I attached them, then I opened the box and I made a hole in the top of it so that the empty clay thing would connect into it. I also put a couple of bottle caps inside so it would shake around a lot.”
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ID and cape by Iggy. “Making it was weird, it felt weird.”
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Sleep Set by Quinn.
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Among us Stuffy by Benji. "He’s about 2’7,” he’s like a month old maybe, a month, maybe three, old? We used a sewing machine, we used some soft black fabric. We used some blue soft fabric. We had to stuff it, it took four people to stuff it. Me and three seniors who can stuff really fast, I have learned. And yeah, that’s about it."
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Stuffed Creeper by Audrey and Maya. "We both (Maya and Audrey) worked on the head, and I worked on the face. It’s for Mojang studios themselves. So if we can send it to them, if not, I can just give it to somebody. We had to think of how—what blocks we needed to use for everything. We had to measure, put the fabric down, and then cut. I did everything with embroidery floss, by hand." -Audrey
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A painting was Hope’s favorite thing she made this year. Hope drew and painted on paper, cardboard, fabric, and banana tissue paper. She liked drawing on the banana paper the best. She likes paints, sharpies, markers and paints are her favorite.
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House by Maya. “I’m proud of it because I’ve been working on it all year. I love it, I love the thought of tiny people living in here. I mostly just love designing my own house without making it BIG. I spent a lot of time on this, and I hope little fairies will go inside of it. I had to do a lot of hot gluing work, I also hid a little secret in it.”
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Little clay heads by Bella. "I’m proud of them because I just painted them right now. I painted one pink and pretty. This one has an egg behind its back. They’re cool, bye!"
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Doom Helmet (not pictured) by Parker. “I worked very hard on it, I thought of all the details in my head. I know how he [Doom] works and I know how he does stuff. That’s why I made the Doom helmet, because I love the game and I’m about to finish it, and it’s in ultra night mode. If you guys would like to know about my helmet. I’ve been with it for a long time now and pretty much I love this, and… my baby brother, he destroyed it. I think I can make another one, but the actual shape cause that was only a test demo. I didn’t really need it anyway. How I made it is, first I thought of Trey’s helmet. At first I was going to make a VR, So I made kind of a little short house kind of thing with two things on it. Then, the next thing I did, was put half of a helmet on it and it was like a full on helmet, it was like glass but it was plastic. Then I pretty much made the Doom Helmet. I used tape, lots of it, cause I’m the tape user. I popped my head in there and I saw the vision of the Doom Slayer. I wore it for a week. I went to this fiesta and I put the actual whole entire costume on. I had the actual costume at home, and I had the helmet for it and I was tall. And I was walking through there just looking at stuff. All of a sudden, everything turns dark in the mall, all of a sudden it says “Intruder” and I was not actually an intruder and straight up everything goes dark, cause it was nighttime this time, and literally I just felt something on my arm so I immediately just went ‘Bbbt’ and I literally blasted a person all the way to the door. And there was like iron and they just shut all the doors. I just turn on my helmet flashlight and just get my fists ready. All of a sudden another person jumps, like leaps at me and I just grab them and just throw them across the whole entire fiesta. They were just like this; “Ahhh!’ And this was in a building. They were like this: “Shtpt” trying to dragon ball z style, yea, and um then it said like “intruder not found” then I come out and I’m like “wait a second, what is this, ahhh” and I just realized it was all a dream. And I’m like “oh. I still like that dream though.” And then I went to school.”
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Tank and Literal Mushroom Cloud Nuke by Will and Stevon. “It was very hard to make. We figured out a lot of things. It was very creative to make this item and to use another item as a nuke. First we had this (gestures), then we attached it to this (again), then we attached these (gestures), that(continues gesticulation), that(again) then we hot glued this(indicaties) but before all that we put this in there(final indication). It could also be a Nuke. We used lots of tape, this as the tread thing, this top as the cannon part, this as the barrel and that’s basically it.”
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ATAT and Discovery Model (not pictured) by Logan. “They look cool and they were super fun to build. The space shuttle Discovery was the second space shuttle ever made, went on 35 missions and ran for 35 years. Now they’re all retired. ATAT is from Star Wars, it’s the Imperial Walker and commonly used on the Battle of Hoth. Gotta say making the ATAT was a pain in the butt. The shapes of it. Both of them were fun projects.”
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Wax Painting by Lena. “I’m proud of it because I made it and it really reminds me of something that I love. I really like going on the beach and watching the sunset come down, it’s pretty. I used some crayons, and I melted them, and I used a paintbrush to paint all over it.”
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Dollar by Esequiel. “I like the games and I like making dollar bills. There’s different ones, Shapes and Beads, Geometry Dash, Project Arrhythmia… So I just made it like other dollar bills except I looked up the game. It was a little bit different this time making it but I don’t know why.”
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Cape, ID, and Big Guy (not pictured) by Calvin. "Why I like this is because it says 'My name is not Calvin, even though it’s up there, my name is actually Calvin and Hobbes' and because that was really actually a joke--and my name is actually Calvin. And because it has my favorite character from Zelda, Zelda. And why this cloak is one my favorites is because these two things were my last art projects. The big guy took a long time to make. All three were very fun to make."
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Security Robot by Frankie. “It’s my security robot and I really love it because now I can sneak on the whole school. So it might be moving around on the stage. I put some electricity in there (gestures), then I put the wheels on, and then I glued it, and then, now, it’s good!”
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Mushroom, couch and ID by Paige. She discusses the couch: “I like that that was the first time that I found out how to do the flowers and I really like the couch. It’s all made out of foam, fabric, and corks. It only took me one day.”
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ID by Junior El West student. “It was fine making it.”
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ID by Ione (and house!).“I’m proud of it because I like cats. Making it was fun.”
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Sparkles the Unicorn by Ada and Wynn. Why are you proud of her? "Well, she’s really cute and I’ve been having this idea for a really long time and also I just love little crafted pets. They’re so fun, and also how she became the class pet of the art room." -Ada "Also, it was just really fun trying to make her, and all of that stuff is kind of fun, so. I’m proud cause She’s super super cute." -Wynn What do you want people to know about her? "Something kind of weird is that we could never really get the balloon out, so she’s got, and it was pink, so she’s got a loose stomach inside. Also we spent a lot of time sparklifying it by putting sparkly paint." -Ada "Yea, there's like a thousand sparkles on her. She is the class pet of the art room. She has a little tiny house that’s really cute. She is very cute, but not cuter than our class pet in here (Panda the bunny). And just to say, her legs are a little off because we couldn’t see exactly how straight they were and then we just made them crooked and stuff so (laughs). And also she’s made out of completely paper mache, paper, paint, ribbons, and a very loose pink stomach. And also made out of cardboard." -Wynn
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PSA by Miles. “It inspires people to wash their hands. I want them to know they need to wash their hands. I made it with the power of Photoshop.”
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Disco Dancer by Antonia. "If you stare at it too long you’ll disco dance. I’m proud of it because it’s really funny and I really like funny things. ‘That Antonia, she’s so goofy,’ they’ll think that. I thought I could never do it. I noticed that some people just made theirs like random, I didn’t do that."
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6x6 by Norah and her grandmother. “I put some like paint stuff, like Gaga put some paint, and that’s a heart that I drew. Gaga put her thumb and made stuff and then I colored it in. I’m proud of it because me and my Gaga worked hard on it. And when I first took it home Gaga was the first one to like experience and know what it is. I want other people to know that me and her worked hard. We did these things too (points to gold drawings on the back). I did that, like, I almost drew my whole family.”
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Pillow Canon by Aleah. "I love it and it’s made of this (displays) and this is my pillow. I made this cannon, this is my cannon—and I have this around (gestures) and this is my stuffed pillow."
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Shaq Among Us by Damien, Cy, Daniel, Trey, Parker, Axel, and Dane! “He’s big. He’s 4’4.” and very wide, chubby. He has a lot of lumps on him, a couple tumors. We got the sewing machine, and some kidnapping bags. It was fun to dance around inside of it. Right now all of his guts are over there. He’s been recycled again.”?
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Fries by Lucy. "I like fries."
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ID by Elise. No comment.
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Concert Pass and ID by Jazzi. “It’s fun and it’s nice. It’s creative. I got on the computer, I typed up cats and then I got a cat picture. Then I took a photo right over there, and then I put the photo on the picture. I put Jazzi and Jinx and 2022.”
