In the Studio Today..."Land Art" Project;
for Ross Valley Schools YES Fundraiser

April 8, 2010
Land Art by 2nd Graders, "Window of Color"; YES Fundraiser Project
I am so impressed with the 2nd graders and their amazing job on the "Land Art" project yesterday at their school. 3 classes, of about 20 kids each, created art on the campus surrounding their school. Each class divided into groups of 4-5 students, and had one adult to work with. The parent volunteers and teachers all enjoyed the project almost as much as the kids.

This image(above, entitled "The Window of Color") was created by the group that worked with one of my sons' teachers, Mrs. Olund, who has been teaching for 30 years. What a stunning piece of art! I am so impressed. The groups for the first two classes were given some constraints, such as "Circle", "Square", "Fading Colors", "Heart Shaped", "Insect". The third class to create the work was allowed the freedom to create what they wanted after seeing the 10 other projects that were done in the morning. Their group went more representational, and did things such as "Mother Nature", "Dinosaur", and "Dragon". It was a wonderful Spring day, with 76 degree weather in Marin County. Please click here to view the set of images created by the children (note: There are more images, but I am awaiting the photos from a wonderful parent photographer who assisted me on this project for the first two classes yesterday).

One of the most amazing things to happen yesterday was to witness the children protecting their projects from destruction during recess; One group of kids took turns guarding their "Spring Nest" project. Later, the kids got orange playground cones and marked their art so no one would step on it! The kids loved this project, and some of the older students were very interested in what we were doing as well. "Land Art" was a huge success for the kids, and I want to thank Richard Schilling for his website, "Land Art for Kids", and his book, "The Wheel of Life", which I shared with the children the week prior.


I will be making sets of notecards and envelopes with the kids images on the front, and selling these through the YES Foundation Online Auction to raise funds for the Ross Valley Public Schools Music, Art, PE and Assemblies. Feel free to visit their website in the next week or so and buy some notecards to support our kids!