School and Community Teaching Artist Residencies

Creative ReUse

In Burlington, VT participants from the Champlain Senior Center, Integrated Arts Academy, Sustainability Academy and The Janet S Munt Family Room helped create a community mural using “wishful recycling” items. These are items that often end up in recycling but are not in fact recyclable at most recycling plants - such as black plastic, almond milk cartons or flimsy plastic. Participants sorted through (clean) non-recyclable items to create individual tiles that make up the larger mural. You can now view this mural at the O.N.E Community Center.

One of the intentions behind the mural is to inspire us to remember that if many individuals do their part to reduce waste and think carefully about what we are putting into recycling, we can have a positive impact on our local waste stream. You can find more about this project and activities you can do at home at www.creativereusecommuinty.com

Restoration

Restoration is a tactile fabric cyanotype mural that was made from pieces of the original Creative ReUse mural and installed in the same location to replace Creative ReUse. Four years of admiration and frequent touching caused Creative ReUse to slowly fall apart. This process highlighted the need for a purposely tactile mural in this public location.

The quilted fabric of Restoration is variety of shades of calming blue. Different silk and cotton fabric with variable surfaces create a scene to replace the Creative ReUse blue landscape. Pattern and texture were added to the fabrics through cyanotype exposure and a variety of sewn stitches. Plastic objects from the Creative ReUse mural were reused as exposure objects. Silk pieces from public artwork, Blue Alchemy by Renee Greenlee, were also reused in the quilted mural. The mural display includes an image of plastic items that were used in the cyanotype exposure for viewers to match and find. Participants can interact with Restoration by looking for objects in the sky and touching the different fabric and stitches.

JJ Flynn Elementary School

As a collaboration with teaching artist Kate McKernan, this residency worked with the entire school to create a new mural for their library hallway. The 4th and 5th grade students of 2020 stuck poses in some of their favorite school activities to create life size silhouette paintings. The rest of the school community pressed textures in clay to represent the tools and patterns of school life. This mixed media mural connects viewers to the things they love about their school community as they walk the halls.

For more about the project, check out the Flynn Flyer

Champlain Elementary School

5th grade students at Champlain created this installation as a legacy project to leave with their community as they ended their elementary careers and moved up to middle school. The entire project was completed remotely during spring 2020 due to COVID-19 school closures. Alissa shared video lesson plans and held studio work session online with students. These weavings are made from reused plastic that students collected during the year, learning about the recycling and waste cycle in Chittenden county as well as their own classroom. This project is installed on the neighborhood community garden fence for all who pass by to view.

Essex Elementary School

All k-2nd grade students made texture tiles and mapped mural images while learning about shape, color and pattern. With six murals in total, the Essex Elementary students worked hard to decorate their school with original art. This residency was made possible by funding from the Essex PTO and community fundraising.

hyde park Elementary School "It Takes a Village Mural”

Every student and teacher at Hyde Park Elementary School created an individual clay tile to create a mural of their village school. Made possible from funding from the Vermont Community Foundation’s SPARK! Connecting Community grant.

Integrated Arts academy, Burlington Vermont

5th grade students leave behind memories of their time at IAA in the form of an art project each year. The 2017 5th grade class left behind their version of carin stone stacks in the school’s garden. The 2019 5th grade class made modern fossils from moments and objects they remember from their years in elementary school. All “fossils” were glass casted.