Tuesday, January 06, 2009
The Enduring Power of Glitter and Macaroni
Posted May 30th, 2008 by Arnold Aprill
A few weeks ago, in a combative mood, I gleefully posted an attack on “tacky craft activities” as the enemy of aesthetic education. Today, in a more contemplative mood, I am wondering what is it specifically about these activities that make them so perennial? I’ll pose, as a case study, the “macaroni covered mother’s day gift”. In my day, the object on which the macaroni was typically glued, before gold spray paint and glitter were applied, was a cigar box. My mother worked as the office manager in a bowling alley that sold cigars, so I had my own private access to a ready supply, but why it was considered a good idea to direct children to associate with smokers, or why young mothers would want a shiny cigar box that reeked of tobacco and was covered with pasta to be the repository of their costume jewelry, remains a mystery. Whatever the underlying object, the consistently typical elements of the “macaroni covered mother’s day gift” were Elmer’s glue, spray paint, glitter, earnest offerings to a forgiving parent, and of course, macaroni.
Another big favorite from my youth was the Plaster-of-Paris pencil holder, produced by mixing food coloring (and glitter) into the white goop before it set, and then slathering the mess onto the sides of a frozen orange juice can. As a child, I guzzled a lot of frozen orange juice in order to get my wet little hands on the next pencil-holder-to-be for my father’s big desk.
A number of other craft projects in my elementary school involved wine bottles and beer bottles being transformed into a variety of glasses and cups, and “mosaics” being made out of egg shells, beans and coffee grounds. Was a nicotine, caffeine, and alcohol theme being played out here? Well, it was the 1950’s.
There was a whole series of activities revolving around variations in scale: making tiny houses out of Popsicle sticks, making giant flowers out of tissue paper. I also remember a school project where bleach bottles were transformed into pigs. I was personally a huge fan of the “shopping bag turkey”, in which the top section of a plain brown paper bag has covered with crayon rainbows, the bag was stuffed with balled up newspapers, the top section was gathered and fanned out to form the tail of a turkey, and a cardboard head glued on the “body”. (Elmer’s Glue really should be underwriting American arts education, considering the milky white oceans of the stuff that have poured through the corridors of American schools.) My poor family was subjected to whole flocks of these paper turkeys, and to urgent demands for my mother to go shopping, not so the family could eat, but so that I could procure my art materials. I was also a fiend for the cardboard that came back with each starched shirt from my father’s laundry, and bitterly resented his failure to soil more shirts. I was committed to my turkeys. I was furious when the local supermarket began printing the paradoxical phrase “Shop and Save” on their bags. Everyone knew that turkeys did not have logos emblazoned across their round bellies (though God help us, this may no longer be true.) I was an industrious, but demanding child.
It is fun to remember these tales from childhood, with the anxieties edited out. I become a little dime-store Proust. But this is an Inquiry Blog, so I will pose the question, and take a first stab at answering it:
What are the shared positive characteristics of these disparate, perhaps questionable, perhaps brilliant, but certainly enduring projects?
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FAMILIARITY: Inexpensive, everyday materials (and macaroni’s association with “comfort foods” probably doesn’t hurt it’s status as a staple of the craft activity world.)
THE LESSON HERE: The learner and the classroom teacher appreciate working with materials those learners and classroom teachers have access to themselves.
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REDEFINITION: Magical transformation of those everyday objects into “something else” shiny (Glitter! Gold!), animate (Pigs! Turkeys!), exotic (Teepees! Masks!), out of scale (Giant flowers! Tiny houses!), or pretending to be useful (Pencil holders! Jewelry boxes!).
THE LESSON HERE: The learner and the classroom teacher enjoy being shamans.
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FREEDOM FROM THE TYRANNY OF SKILL: Everyone can do it. Not just the talented kids (or teachers), or the kids with access to private lessons in the arts. These activities lack the preciousness that can make “Aht” feel unnecessarily effete, elite, and exclusive.
THE LESSON HERE: There are times when democratic access to participation may need to precede and then scaffold skill development.
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GIFTING: Not only are these objects an expression of familial love, they represent the impulse of the learner to make a contribution to the adult world of real work.
THE LESSON HERE: It’s not really about the materials; it’s about the authenticity of the “world of real work” aspect of the activity (for students AND for teachers) that is the cutting edge of the practice. This is the potential point of intersection between “tacky craft activities” and formal arts instruction.
Who knows, maybe one day CAPE will offer a workshop series entitled: “When Tacky Craft Activities Go Good”.
Founding and Creative Director
Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE)
www.capeweb.org
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lol
Hello Arnie, I was Google-stalking you and found your blog here. I had to register just to leave a comment- that was so funny I was laughing out loud at my computer :)
I met you yonks ago here in Sligo... I still work for Kids' Own, though Simon has moved on.
I want to contact you about a project we're working on: reporting on artists practice working with young people.
I'm going to keep hunting down info and updates about you (and your emai addy), but if you like, you can email us at http://kidsown.ie/contact and I can tell you what we're up to!