Artist in Residence

My 4th graders are doing amazing work on their mosaics.

Mosaics being made by one of my five classes of fourth graders.

I have five classes of fourth graders at Goodview and Jefferson elementary schools (one class on Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday and two classes on Thursday). The Artist in Residence program is funded by a Laird Norton Family Foundation grant.

In the classes on Wednesday & Thursday of last week and Monday & Tuesday of this week we talked about mosaics and looked at several images of old and new mosaics. After the talking and looking I gave them grids and colored pencils and had them plan out their mosaics.

I gave them some Latin vocabulary terms: tessera/tesserae, andamento, and opus regulatum, which they had no problem with. Amazing kids.

Today the Wednesday class started the tile work (the others will start next time I meet with them). Some got pretty far. Some are taking it a bit slower. They will have one more class to finish them up. I think most will finish.

In May there is usually an art show with the students' work from the Artist in Residence program. The last few years it's been at Saint Mary's University in our wonderful Lillian Hogan Davis galleries. We're going to hang all 110 mosaics together, salon-style. It should be an impressive display.