Create your own delicious looking salad out of junk mail!
As a person with an unusual diet, I am ALWAYS thinking about food! AND everyday we receive marketing materials that are mailed to us – an endless supply of different colors and textures of papers.
Envision your favorite items at the salad bar. What beautiful produce is coming in from the garden this month? Scour sale ads and random envelopes for colors that match and those that appeal to you. Curl, tear and cut creating a variety of textures and “flavors” for your salad. Use a pencil to curl strips of paper around, use a paint brush and water to “paint” a tear line onto paper to make it rip easily and where you want. Use scissors and paper edgers to create distinctive shapes for your salad. Accordion fold and then cut paper to simulate shredded veggies. Anything goes! Plate your creation on Grandmas’ China or on a paper plate!
Find a CMA Studio Challenge that speaks to you and thanks to everyone who has participated. Share your creations on social media by tagging #myCMAstudio.
#myCMAstudio challenge brought to you by:
Brooke Hunter-Lombardi
Brooke is an urban gardener, lover of backyard chickens and indoor bunnies. Brooke’s current body of work incorporates her love of science, history and storytelling through watercolor, mixed media, printmaking, book arts, assemblage and ceramic sculpture. Teaching since 1994, she seeks to facilitate maximum learning: more books, more artists, more exploration, more inspiration, more techniques and more ideas!
Brooke currently teaches Visual Art to talented and kind high school students at Arts and College Preparatory Academy https://artcollegeprep.org/ in Columbus where her son is a recent graduate.
#myCMAstudio is a digital version of our drop- in program, Open Studio. Which is currently unavailable to the public due to Covid-19, and part of CMA’s JPMorgan Chase Center for Creativity Studio to explore ideas, solve creative challenges, and collaborate with friends and family. Pick up a Studio in a Box with all the supplies and materials needed to aid you in our weekly challenges or allow our CMA educators to guide kids Pre-K – 8th grade in an online Weekly Studio Meet-up.
Discover the fabulous textures around you while you play with a fun & versatile design tool in this week’s #myCMAStudio challenge.
Make a “stencil” in the shape of a jacket, skirt, pants or hat… and go on a hunt for eye-catching textures to fill it. A paper towel or piece of paper folded in half makes a symmetrical stencil shape if desired. What happens to the edge when it’s torn or cut? What shapes make a funky, classic or street vibe to your stencil?
Grab a camera or phone and tour your bedroom, closet, kitchen, yard, basement or garage holding your stencil up to different textures you find. Let yourself get absorbed in the process and snap photos when you get that feeling of discovery. How many different ways can you use one texture? Which ones work or do not work and why? What do you notice about the scale (relative sizes) while you design? Use your collection of images as reference for fashion illustration, character creation or whatever suits your fancy.
Find a CMA Studio Challenge that speaks to you and thanks to everyone who has participated. Share your creations on social media by tagging #myCMAstudio.
#myCMAstudio is a digital version of our drop-in program, Open Studio. Which is currently unavailable to the public due to Covid-19, and part of CMA’s JPMorgan Chase Center for Creativity Studio to explore ideas, solve creative challenges, and collaborate with friends and family. Pick up a Studio in a Box with all the supplies and materials needed to aid you in our weekly challenges or allow our CMA educators to guide kids Pre-K – 8th grade in an online Weekly Studio Meet-up.
-Melanie Holm is a High School Art Teacher at The Arts and College Preparatory Academy. She teaches art with a focus on building skills, vision and student voice, and getting into ‘the zone’ when making stuff. She travels and explores the outdoors, likes to fix things and collects found objects for inspiration. Melanie moonlights in an all-mom rock band (Trachete) and recently became a certified yoga instructor.
The action of unraveling means to unravel apart, so as to create new beginnings. I find myself always collecting interesting papers, fabrics, textiles, magazine clippings, items that have been ripped or torn, that should be thrown away but I just can’t seem to do so (ahem- potential hoarder alert!). I have this LOVE for old books, the antique paper inside, the smell of those pages and the way they tear with ease. These artifacts seem to pile up in places all around my life and work… just waiting to become something else.
Un●rav●el – Verb
undo (twisted, knitted, or woven threads).
investigate and solve or explain (something complicated or puzzling).
When I started to think about unraveling as a theme, I looked at the definition. Then, I grabbed all this collection of papers laying around the house, the gatherings from my life. And I started deconstructing and unraveling them by either cutting them or tearing them. Without much thought, only intuition and action, I deconstructed them without plan. Just the simple ACT of unraveling.
First, set some rules for yourself in each step, this is something that is so necessary for me when making. I need to simplify through the steps, to keep my focus and to stay on track.
Step #1– Tips for Unraveling:
Step #1 rule Deconstruct. Move fast. Don’t think. Most times, when I am making art, I think too much, it holds me back or makes me stop working.
Cutting and tearing all of these items into 2-3” strips, I followed my instinct and the process felt easy and relaxing. It was quiet but I also was very mindful that I wanted to not spend much time thinking, that was for the next step.
This time working seemed like a meditation. I didn’t think, only participated in the unravel.
I chose to build inside of an 8x 11’ shallow box as a canvas. This created a structure and boundary for adding the unravel.
Step #2 Re-Constructing the Unraveling of:
Step #2 Rule– Pair materials, stack and collage together. Think more than step #1 but still move fast and with your intuition.
Use this time to also unravel your thinking… So much is happening right now in this world. Check in with those inner feelings while you work. What feelings can you infuse into the work? Unravel your thoughts, process them and make them into something new. While I worked, I found these thoughts came into my awareness. Does life unravel? What really unravels? Are the events happening in current events unraveling? Is it slow or fast? What happens after the unravel?
When I went into reconstruction of the materials, I decided to start by stacking the strips and gluing them together. I used stick glue, double sided tape and hot glue for the varying materials.
I also added magazine papers to the mix to add color and another paper texture. I mostly folded and rolled these papers.
Step #3- Adding to the Canvas Box
Step #3 Rule: Stick with your artistic instinct. Don’t make a plan.
This is always the step that kicks up the most of my insecurities. As you work, push those feelings aside. Make for the sake of making. Explore what you find yourself really enjoying during the making.
What I appreciate about this work is that I made it with little to no plan, this work is filled with moments that unraveled, deconstructed and, finally, reconstructed. What a metaphor for the life we are living right now. And that I finally created space for the chance to put to use that ol’ recycled paper collection I had piling up around the house. Ironically, this work became one of those works that is located somewhere between the 2D and 3D, which makes sense because that is my favorite space. The unknown, the space that teeters in between two realms. Another beautiful metaphor for daily life in 2020.
Sarah Danner Hebdo is the 3D Arts & Computer Graphics teacher at Whitehall Yearling High School. She has 17 years of experience as an art educator in middle and high school settings.
Find a CMA Studio Challenge that speaks to you and thanks to everyone who has participated. Share your creations on social media by tagging #myCMAstudio.#myCMAstudio is a digital version of our drop- in program, Open Studio, which is currently unavailable to the public due to Covid-19, and part of CMA’s JPMorgan Chase Center for Creativity Studio to explore ideas, solve creative challenges, and collaborate with friends and family. Pick up a Studio in a Box with all the supplies and materials needed to aid you in our weekly challenges or allow our CMA educators to guide kids Pre-K – 8th grade in an online Weekly Studio Meet-up.
I often say that the story behind the story of how a film was made can be as compelling as the actual film. In July of 2017, a casting director for a reality-based TV show in LA reached out to me after discovering one of my scripts through a local contact. She shared with me that she wanted to put me up for consideration to join the cast of a show that would give first-time filmmakers a chance to produce their first film on a micro-budget and in a short amount of time. I told her I’d be thrilled! I went through an interview process and was told I’d hear from her in about a month.
Well in that time I decided that the two scripts I had previously written were too “big” to fit into a short film schedule with a micro-budget. So that meant I had to write a new script. I already knew that for my next script I wanted the premise to be social justice and a significant moment in Black history that few people knew about. The next step was to find that moment.
One day I was in the St. Louis airport looking at books. I randomly came across a book called Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America. After reading the description on the back, my heart started racing because I know I found my moment!
In 1912, the population of Forsyth County, Georgia was around 6,000. Among those 6,000 residents, about 1,000 of them were Black. Following the rape and murder of a White woman, 3 Black men were captured and almost immediately hanged before even going to trial. Within a week every Black family living in Forsyth County, Georgia was forcibly driven out by the KKK and other White citizens living there. They left their land, their homes, and their jobs in fear for their lives. For the next 75 years, the Black population in Forsyth County remained at zero. In 1987, efforts to bring positive change to Forsyth County were once again met with violent opposition from the citizens committed to keeping it all White.
I was so inspired by this story that I wrote the entire script in 2 days. After sharing it with 6 readers, I made edits and settled on a final draft. About 90 percent of what we filmed is what I wrote in those 2 days.
In The Right to Remain, we tell the story of Danny Pittman, a White police officer who sees what’s happening in his community, isn’t 100% sure where he stands on the matter, but struggles with what would happen if he spoke out against it.
His fellow officers and other Forsyth County residents feel they have a right to remain an all-White community. Danny feels he has the right to remain silent about the injustices happening all around him. And the former Black population feel they had a right to remain in Forsyth County in the first place. These differing views reach a boiling point and lead to an explosive climax.
I had written a script that was dialogue driven and I felt could be shot on a micro-budget and a short shoot schedule. I was ready to go!
Then I got the email; “Thank you for your willingness to be a part of this project, but the producers have decided to go a different direction.”
My almost immediate reply to that email was, “Thank you for considering me. This has been an enjoyable and educational experience. The next email you receive from me will be an invitation to the premier of our film!”
I knew I had a shootable script and that I didn’t need to be on a reality show to do it. So, I put together a team of crew and actors and we shot the entire film in 19 days for $10,000!
It was an amazing experience and we are all proud of what we produced.
For me, the goal of making this film is ultimately about impact. It is an alignment with what I do every day as a creative. My personal mission is to move people from inspiration to action to outcomes through art and education.
Our world and our every day lives have been significantly disrupted. And I think that’s ok because there is no growth in comfort. The film is designed to make people uncomfortable, but not just for the sake of being uncomfortable. We want to challenge people to reconsider their worldview and how it may directly or indirectly contribute to the oppression and mistreatment of others.
Ultimately it is our mission to create a world where every single person knows that they are safe, valued, and necessary. That starts with careful and critical consideration and reflection. Hopefully our film will challenge the viewers to do just that.
-Javier Sanchez is a Columbus-based producer and filmmaker. Hear from Sanchez and the cast and crew of Right to Remain when you register for the June 25 Meet Your Creative Community conversation via Zoom. For more about the film please visit www.therighttoremain.com.
How do you stay active? How do you connect the mind to the body?
Today we explore how movement shapes us. How can you capture movement around you?
Join in on this creativity challenge by taking pictures or making works of art that reflect motion.
We encourage you to use materials and mediums that speak to you, be it sketching, collage, painting or photography. Get scrapy with items you can find in your home recycling bin or junk drawers. Share your creations on social media by tagging #myCMAstudio.
Find a CMA Studio Challenge that speaks to you and thanks to everyone who has participated.
-Megan Green brings more than a decade of creative entrepreneurship into her role at CMA as the Manager of Studio of Initiatives. She’s shared her passion for supporting artists through her direction at Craftin’ Outlaws and Midwest Craft Con.
Open Studio is a drop-in program hosted on Saturdays and part of CMA’s JPMorgan Chase Center for Creativity Studio to explore ideas, solve creative challenges, and collaborate with friends and family. We look forward to inviting you back to Open Studio and other CMA experiences when we reopen to the public.
Enjoy this cocktail straight from the kitchen of CMA Executive Chef Laura Richmond. This drink is simple to put together, but will elevate your own home kitchen experience!
INGREDIENTS
Peaches
Ginger beer
Mint leaves
Bourbon
Brown sugar
Water
SUPPLIES
Shaker
Knife
Glasses
Muddler
DIRECTIONS
Making the simple syrup:
Combine a 1:1 ratio of brown sugar and water (start with ½ cup of each, add more as desired), place over medium heat and bring the mixture to a boil.
Once the mixture begins to boil, shut off the heat and place it in the fridge to cool.
Making the drink:
Add 2 oz of simple syrup and 2 oz of bourbon to a shaker.
Cut up 2-3 mint leaves and roughly a quarter of a peach. Add both to the shaker.
Lightly muddle all ingredients together, being careful not to over-mix.
Shake the mixture and pour over ice.
Top off with ginger beer, sliced peaches, and mint.
