International Art Project Between Children of Morija, Lesotho, and Whitehouse, Ohio, America, Developed by Artists Patrick Rorke & Shari Densel

The Project and how it all began…..

Notes from Shari Densel on the development of a great student project and learning experience:

In the summer of 2011, I had the incredible experience of co-leading a seminar for U.S. secondary art and social studies teachers that included five weeks of travel in the countries of South Africa and Lesotho. The program was funded by the U.S. Department of Education through the Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad program. In order to give participants:

• knowledge of international issues and Southern African culture and politics, through study and first-hand experience

• to internationalize their own curriculum and classrooms

• to develop and disseminate a curriculum to be shared with other educators and school systems that integrated the social sciences and art to address issues related to the quest for personal and social meaning.

About a week into the tour we located ourselves in Morija, a mountain village in Lesotho were I met the artist Patrick Rorke. The more we talked the more I realized his name sounded so familiar. I discovered he was one of the original artists selected to be a part of the art that became an integral part of South Africa's new Constitutional Court. He created 200 copper carved plates in a permanent installation at this nationally significant venue. He has lived in South Africa and Lesotho off and on throughout his life and career. Patrick currently lives in Morija were he grew up with his lovely wife, Aasha. Aasha, also an artist, currently runs Maeder House, a wonderful little art gallery of a small but growing community of artist, crafters, and creative spirits.

As Patrick and I conversed, I discovered he was also volunteering to teach art at a school in Morija. I told him about an international mural project I had organized last year between my students in the U.S. and students from Tanzania. He loved the idea of an international exchange project and we made time to work out the details.

We developed a lesson titled "How Do I Fit Into The World?" Children from his class and mine will spend the next year communicating through email and this blog site to learn more about each other. Then they will create images that reflect their thoughts about where they fit in the world or how they want to fit into the world in the future.

The students will then each create a copper carved plate that reflects t their idea. Once all of the plates are completed we will bring them together to create an international installation. Our vision is for the plates to hang from the ceiling wherever they are displayed, so that the viewer can walk in and out of the pieces. One side of each plate will contain the student illustration. On the other side will be the student's statements. We plan to also incorporate videotaped interviews from the students regarding this year-long process.

With nearly 74 copper images created by individual students, we are confident that this display will be full of powerful, positive message from today’s youth. We hope to be able to display the student’s artistic message in many various venues, such as government buildings as well as galleries in both countries and other parts of the world.

As the project develops and the final touches are added, we will be looking for ways to obtain support to finance shipping and installation and will be seeking out sponsorships, donations and grants.

Ultimately if this first year goes well we would like to add plates created by other children from other countries, so that each year this installation could grow with the voices from every continent.

We welcome and invite all to follow our blog and discover how this project develops over the next year. It will be an amazing learning experience!

A little about myself and my students who will be involved….

My name is Shari Densel. I have taught visual art at Anthony Wayne District School now for 14 years. The school website is http://www.anthonywayneschools.org/ This is a public school located in Whitehouse, Ohio, U.S.A. My current position is teaching students in 7^th and 8^th grades ages 12-14. I teach 2 semesters a year at this school where I will see nearly 200 students a semester. I also teach a visual art education practicum class three nights a week at Bowling Green State University to senior level art education undergraduates. As an artist I enjoy working in all media from painting and drawing to sculpting and printmaking.

The students I will be selecting to participate in this project will be from my first semester 7^th and 8^th grade students. All of my students will be involved with this lesson however only a select few will be working to create a piece that will be part of the final collaborative installation. By late September or early October, I hope to be introducing my selected 37 students to the students they will work with in Morija as well as to this blog.

from Morija..

When Shari Densel and her collegues visited Morija I had little idea that their visit would sow the seeds of such inspiration. I have long believed that art is a language and that this language should be one that is able to join people living in far flung places in a profound communication. That this will be happening with students who are at the beggining of the long and extraordinary journey in the discovery of art is fitting and something really worth celebrating. My own sense as an artist is that I always yearn to return to that seminal moment when I first began making art; the first brushmark, the first smeared colour. The beginning of the journey.
Now we have seventy or so students from two vastly different continents about to discover that art making is a profound language and that these ideas are indeed more than just the rantings of a slightly dipsy art teacher.
As I am slightly ahead of Shari and her students as far as time tables go, I have been able to broach the subject with my group of students. The idea was met with some bemusement at first but soon the students began enthusiastically scribbling away at a random coollection or series of connections showing the beggining of their unfolding ideas of who exactly they see themselves as being. "Who am I?" will be followed eventually by "Where do I fit into the world?"
I am a relatively inexperienced blogger but as I get the hang of it I will include portraits in words and pictures and videos of each of the students. Hopefully as this happens, I will be able to take more and more of a back seat and the students, boisterous, noisy and full of life, will be able to take over. In the immortal words of Brancusi we will find here no great mysteries or hidden formulas but simply pure joy.
Thankyou Shari and thankyou to your collegues and from Morija, Lesotho I say: "Let us begin. Let us take the first steps, however tentative they seem."

Our Favorite Place - a 3-D postcard in clay

1/18/2012

My Favorite Place....3-Dimentional Clay “Postcards”
Tonight the student were introduced to their next project dealing with identity. For this project student selected a place that they felt happiest in, safe.... the perfect place for them. We briefly looks at the clay artist Szilvia Vihriälä, Michael Anthony Thomas as well as how clay jewelry artist dealt with this topic in their medium. Following our discussion students sketched up their ideas and started rolling out their clay bases.







Students in Lesotho and in the U.S. are really starting to get excited about being part of this International Art Program. We have finally found a way for our students to communicate. It is slow but the impact and the energy it is creating is simply amazing. I can not wait to share more as I we meet each week, I'll share our progress weekly as well.

Feb. 20, 2012

My Favorite place in 3-D. Construction is complete

Students in the U.S. as well as Lesotho have now finished the construction of their Ceramic sculpture that communicates their ideal place, one that they feel most comfortable at. We had many group discussions regarding this project. Through our discussions students began to make comments that showed they are beginning to understand how social, cultural, and political factors affect what artists or students in this case create. The students are discovering how much they have in common. Here are just a couple of the constructed sculptures with the student reflections:

“My favorite place and inspiration for this project is anywhere with my friends. My friends always cheer me up, except when they are mean to me. The picture is 2 people sitting on the ground and 2 people sitting on rocks.”

--Sidney :)

“My clay is a picture of me and my house in the far back. My house does not look like that, but because I am not a good sculpture I made a simple house. I feel safe in my house because it is where I have grown up my whole life. I feel secure there knowing that nothing can harm me or hurt me when I am protected.”

---Kitty

My favorite place is a tree I used to visit in Poland. It is a very big maple tree that I climbed when I was young. I feel safe by that tree because it is located in a forest near my old house. The forest is very peaceful and I would enjoy relaxing there. There are leaves on the ground around the tree because my favorite season is autumn. The tree looks beautiful in autumn with all of the colorful leaves around it. Since I enjoy nature the tree is the perfect place for me.

Another very gifted individual. Montsi is quiet and unassuming almost
to a fault but there is a piece that cries out to be cast!

Kao, our resident BASOTHO BOY. Can you feel the wind in his face?

Mantai, as always, dead serious. She seems to have modelled a grave? I
will get her to explain tomorrow..

Graffiti Art Project

Here are just a few for the final Art pieces that the students created early in the program.

U.S. Project #1 Graffiti Art
With this lesson my students will be able to demonstrate new skills and knowledge by…
1) Effectively identifying different graffiti styles.
2) Implementing learned styles used in graffiti art, and apply it to their own work.
3) How to express their identity through their graffiti tag design.



Our next step is for the students to finally make contact through Google Documents and Presentations. The school felt this would be a safe way for the students to freely communicate as they will now begin planning and designing projects together. Patrick and I will continue to up date this blog site as to the students progress and learning experiences.