Mommio: Art Class- Christo and Jeanne-Claude

Art that makes a BIG impact...land art....environmental sculpture!  That was our focus for our Artistic Pursuits class today.  We learned a bit about a famous European art duo, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who have traveled the world creating amazing, large scale, temporary art installations.  We looked at three of their installations by watching videos from youtube.  The first one is Reichstag done in 1995, the wrapping of the German parliament building in Berlin, Germany.

Next we look at The Gates, an installation of  7, 503 bright orange gates in Central Park, New York City in February 2005.

And then we watched one more video clip of the artists discussing The Umbrellas, in installation that took place in both California (1,760 yellow umbrellas) and Japan (1,340 blue umbrellas) in 1991.

After being inspired by the couple the kids split in to two groups and developed plans for their own environmental sculptures, including sketches, written plans and material lists.  We'll be taking time to install these next week.  Here are the artists and their plans:
The Spoon Forest
By Connor, Gabe and Kiki

The Idea: Hang 150 orange, red and yellow plastic spoons from Nana and Popo's fish deck trees.
Supplies:  150 plastic spoons (orange, red, yellow), string (LOTS), red electrical tape, scissors, ladder
Steps: 1. Throw ball of string over branch.
2. Cut to height.
3. Tape both ends of the string to the spoon.

Walking Up The Trees
By Mason, Avery, Marney and Max

The Idea: Put big footprints going up the trees in Nana and Popo's backyard.  The prints will be made out of hot pink and baby blue poster and then attached to the trees with staples or nails.  Each tree will have five sets of footprints.
Supplies: foot patters, hot pink (10) and baby blue posters (15), scissors, staple gun, staple, ladder
Steps: 1. Cut out the foot pattern on the posters.
2. Attach the footprints to the trees.