Teaching in greater Minnesota has its limitations. No art supply stores. Can't ship book glue in the winter. No shiny metal museums to inspire (or intimidate) you. Just a simple landscape and cold winters... right? 20 miles from Canada, the tundra exists. Beautiful horizons of simple snow, line, sky. Lots of sky. An abstract painting in some places would be hyper-realistic in this part of Minnesota.
I was invited to Kittsen Schools, to teach bookbinding to K-6, the last week before the holiday break. A school without an art program, but with teachers passionate about bringing in the arts, meant that the week would be full of attentive students and excited teachers. (and Christmas had nothing to do with it, I’m sure!)
I had 2 sessions with the younger students (K-4), and 5 sessions with the older (5 & 6). We made accordion house shaped books, that I called “Village Books.” Display them in a group, you will have a town to explore. The concept of the book allowed the kids to cut rooftops, where their motor skills could be at any level, because “no roof top is perfectly straight, especially with snow on it!” And they learned about the tools of bookmaking, like the bone folder (oh, how we could talk about what kind of bone it is made!) The inside of the book, the village, was painted with bright watercolors. They created landscape collages on the covers using tissue paper and scrap paper from my “treasure of random papers!” The older students made hard cover, accordion books with a spine, as well as many other types of folds they could use in their classrooms or at home.
