Wednesday 4 January 2012

Tiny clay beginnings

It's coming together.
This idea has been bubbling about in my head for a month or two. I made one attempt at sketching/painting out my ideas, and that was enough to show me that I needed to go 3D to really explore my ideas.


We have a Secret Garden for our preschoolers. It's looking a little tired currently, and the cubby that was in there deteriorated within a few months and desperately needs to be replaced.

Over a year ago I went to a workshop with Rusty Keeler from earthplay.net
Some of his ideas got me inspired, some of the images have stayed with me very strongly, bubbling in the background waiting for an avenue to be exploited. One said image was of a children's cubby made from cob; a mix of straw, clay and sand, mixed together by stamping it into a workable mass, then built up; no need for structural support or construction knowledge/training. You just build.

And this year I'm becoming our Outdoor Teacher.
I'm inspired.
I'm hoping to design and construct with the children and families our own cubby, built with our own hands.

So now I have my own little model made now. Which means it's time for some pictures.

The structure as a whole:

Fern impressions in one side:
Shelf/windowsill, bench, sink. This window would face the primary entrance to the Secret Garden.
View in through the doorway, note the little storage/hiding spaces under the bench seat? The intention is for children to make mosaic tiled squares to fit on the seat and windowsills (currently represented by buttons):
View from above, I used beads to represent having wishing stones pressed into the cob around the window. This windowsill is shaped to become a writing/drawing desk for children sitting on the bench. The cut green straws are representing how I want to fit glass jars into the walls to let light in, an intriguing little pocket:
And finally a tree worked in clay to 'grow' up the side, with leaf impressions pressed into the clay, the leaves were dusted with chalk to make the impressions more visible:

I'm nervous about this project. And I'm sure it'll evolve. This is my initial model, I'm looking forward to seeing how future incarnations look after integrating the children's own inspirations. Tomorrow I get to show this model to our Director. I hope she likes it, and isn't too overwhelmed.

No comments:

Post a Comment