Stone Soup (A.K.A. Play Day)

The idea of bringing bits and pieces of mundane objects together and assembling them in different arrangements is one that has great potential to yield an aesthetically pleasing and rewarding collaborative project. On Tuesday, October 5th, our design class extended our learning experience outdoors as we left the lecture hall and ventured outdoors to create an art piece in a public space on campus.
This notion of collectively making something out of not much, is inspired by Stone Soup, a children's folk tale written and illustrated by Marcia Brown in 1975, in which local villagers all pitch in to make a hearty soup for everyone by filling a cauldron with stones and an assortment of vegetables. With this idea in mind, each student brought a combination of recycled materials and art supplies to throw into the "pot," a challenge in which we worked together to create something delicious out of nothing, even though the final product was a visual treat and not an edible one.

As our group sat in a circle in the grass, we revealed our items and brainstormed about the myriad possibilities and options we had to work with, considering the size, colors and shapes of what we had in front of us. We began the process by wrapping a long piece of butcher paper around a lamppost, and we continued to "stir the pot" by adding foil, wooden sticks, useless bike tubes and plastic. By weaving the materials around the pole and feeding off each other's creative juices, the overall piece assumed a tree-like representation, with crinkled paper bags and glow sticks as the "branches," and strips of denim fabric and tissue paper dangling from them, resembling leaves. We topped it all off by shaping a cardboard box around the base of the post, serving as the "trunk." Thus, with the use of the lamppost as our concrete structure for creation, we spontaneously made a site-specific installation.

Such artistic improvisation stresses the value of sharing ideas in an open environment, allowing team work to result in eye candy for lucky pedestrians strolling through campus from around 11:00 - 11:50 A.M. In conclusion, I challenge anyone who says that "play day" isn't the best source of inspiration for brainstorming and design.
-AM