For the last five years I've been invited to the Worcester Art Museum to participate in an event called " Art Allstate". The Worcester Art Museum has been putting this event on for 25 years. The State of Massachusetts's best High School art students are juried in to this event. They are selected by a committee and for two days the convene at the Worcester Art Museum to create Art.
About a hundred and fifty students are broken down into groups of about 18 and are partnered with two artist/mentors. I was one of this years mentors. My partner this year was Meghan Burch, a multi media artist.
The idea is that the students are given a studio and limited supplies and materials. They use these limited materials to create an installation piece. It's awesome. The job of the artist/mentors is to act as facilitators, helping the students think about what they are going to create and how they are going to create it using the materials at hand. It is always a challenge to get them to work collaboratively, some take to it better than others. It is also a challenge to get them to work out of their comfort zones and to try something new. For example: Get the painters to sculpt, etc.
I love doing Art Allstate. I mostly work alone so it is great to see how energized the students are, it's very refreshing and at the end of a long two days of work I always come back jazzed. The pace is fast and furious, the music is playing and at the end of two days all eight studios have some pretty amazing works of art to show. This years Allstate took place on May 29 and 30 Th. It was great'
Our groups materials to use was cardboard, plastic bags and orange plastic construction tape. Out of this material developed a giant hand representing rebirth and taking control. The student were awesome and did a great job.
