It’s a few weeks away still I need to begin thinking about my approach to an upcoming shibori workshop at Artspace. I’ll be working with rising 6th to 8th graders. I haven’t taught it to this age group, so I hope it has appeal. Starting on it early will give me some time to enjoy it as well as explore some outside ideas of my own.
At this point I’m thinking about the supplies I’ll want to take in to the classroom outside of what’s being provided and then again, how will the materials work?
Today I inched toward it with an origami book, fude (calligraphy brush), some sumi-e paper and blue food coloring, which I promptly spilled all over the table. That’s another thing I need to keep in mind – accidents will happen and I can make them too.
At any rate, while I’d rather be working with fabric, I feel like I need to begin walking through what my students will be doing just do see how it will or won’t work. This is probably how I will begin to approach it: on paper, monochromatic (at first) and exploring folding and itajime (clamping). These will also be some samples they can reference. I hope they’ll try a few and go on to explore on their own.
