I’m excited to share my latest e-design project with you! I was recently hired to help a mom of two girls, ages 3 and 7, get their art nook organized. Her goal was to refresh the space with new containers (that fit better aesthetically and spatially), find a solution for accessing supplies in the deep cabinets, and get inspiration for new materials and projects for her kids.
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Tiffany Shlain is a mother of two, acclaimed filmmaker, writer, founder of The Webby Awards, and co-founder of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, Ken Goldburg, and her two daughters, Odessa (10) and Blooma (4). Tiffany and her family exude creativity and are always cooking up fun, artful ideas- from cardboard sculptures to wacky house parties! I recently visited Tiffany and her daughters at home to check out their art pantry and find out a little more about the importance of art in their lives.
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Over the winter break, I cleaned out, organized, and added a few new things to the studio. I think for the kids sake it’s important to keep most things familiar, but to also add something new as an element of excitement and surprise.
When you walk up to the studio you’ll see a new sign hanging on the front door that says, “atelier,” which is “studio” in Italian (it is also the name given to the art studios in Reggio Emilia preschools). Of course this is more for me than for the kids, but I found it at an antique fair and couldn’t pass it up!
Inside the studio, I added icicle lights to the ceiling beam to add some warmth and magic during this cold, rainy winter.
Lately the children haven’t been using the chalkboard as much as I thought they would. Why use chalk when you can use paint? So I added some shelving low on the wall for paint cups and fastened a large canvas to the wall for painting. This will now become a rotating wall for various painting projects.
With many new kids this past fall, I created new photo documentation panels to display on the wall. I wanted the new children to feel as much a part of the studio as the children who have been here all along. Seeing photos of themselves on the wall helps them to make connections between present and past work -as well as feel a sense of ownership here.
I’m excited for a new session and a new year!
For the final week of the fall session, we focused on beaded sculptures and jewelry. For each child, I pre-made a base for the sculpture using a wood block, nails, and plastic coated wire. Then I offered the children beads for stringing onto the wire. For the older children, I also offered them elastic beading cord for making jewelry.
Instead of planning a second project for when the kids got sick of beading, I wanted to offer them an “open studio,” with most of our materials accessible to them on the shelf. I began the fall session with only tools on the shelf (and paint at the easels) then eventually placed the glitter on the lower shelves as well. Now that the children have had weeks of experience with the materials, It is time to give them a greater sense of autonomy in their creative process. On the lower shelves I placed glitter, markers, oil pastels, tempera paint, liquid watercolor, colored glue, collage items, paper, and a variety of tools (the rollers, brushes, and eyedroppers were new additions). I was curious to see how the children would respond to the variety of choices and accessibility.
In the first few classes, the children came into the studio and immediately began beading, without noticing the new shelf set-up. Their focus and fine motor skills were incredible!
Luke and Brooks checked out materials on the floor while the big kids worked on beading… too cute to not include!
When the children finished beading their wires, I helped them to twist the wire around the other nail head and… voila! A wire sculpture that you can bend and shape again and again.
While some kids took to beading right away, others spotted the new set-up and went straight for the shelves!
The children were encouraged to use the materials on the shelves, even if that meant gluing all over their bead work or passing up the beads all together.
I think it is important for children to learn at an early age how to be self-starters and creative thinkers. In my experience it seems that young children naturally start out this way, but aren’t always allowed the opportunity to strengthen these skills. This is something that I work on with the children throughout each session. I was delighted to see on this last week that without planning and prompting from me, most of the kids knew exactly what they wanted to do and how to do it.
The rest of the photos will give you a glimpse of the “open studio” work of the children.
Thanks for a wonderful session and Happy Holidays!
Before each session, I try to bring new life into the studio. I do a major clean-up, add new materials, and re-organize. It’s important for me to reflect on how the children have been using the studio and re-work the environment to fit their movement and curiosities. As they say in the preschools of Reggio Emila, the environment is also a teacher. So it’s always a work in progress!
Organizing the collage materials into glass jars and displaying them together on the top shelf adds an element of sparkle and intrigue. Because of the glass factor and organization, they are just out of reach, but always available if anyone asks for them. I also acquired some new buckets to organize the brushes and tools. I’m curious to see if the kids will carry these around the studio because of the handles!
Let the fall session begin!