“Art is about ideas. Today’s goal is to shift our thinking from ‘either/or’ as in “black or white” to ‘and/both’ so we can open our imagination to greater possibilities.”
Thus, Imogene Drummond introduced Art Sparks’ Black-and-White session linking the emergence of night and day with the interconnectedness of opposites. The discussion focused on how opposite things are connected, and how we are all different and similar at the same time—like you and your shadow, and your right and left hands. To help students tap into their creativity, little instruction—except to cut their black and white papers into similar and opposite shapes—were given. They then glued their shapes onto papers of the opposite color, which were then taped together to create a diptych.
The results were terrific! Some were 3-dimensional. Some symbolic. Some “told a story.”
- Osmar depicted the Cosmos as a family with the sun and moon as its “grandma and grandpa”! He symbolized the sun as a black circle with stars radiating around it, and the Moon as a white squarish shape with big “parent stars” nearby and a stream of baby stars cascading below the Moon.
- Michaela described her 3-D piece as being about when the earth fell apart and the birds flew away. When asked if the birds were going to return, she said no. Her piece poignantly reveals the climate anxiety that permeates this generation’s lives.
- Nick made a field of densely patterned jagged shapes below a field of organic forms!
Imogene noted that the students had transformed art materials into artwork, and created pieces that had not previously existed. In doing so, each engaged in the processes of creation and transformation!
