Communal Art Making at Camp

Here is another installment on creating art at Camp Ramah.  This time, I worked with students to create a piece of lasting communal art as a gift to camp.

As part of our process my campers and I engaged in study of prayer, held conversations about meaning, looked deeply at the words and language of those prayers and sought personal connections.

For this project each camper chose a specific prayer from shacharit (the morning service).  They studied alone and in groups and came up with images that described their chosen prayer.

I taught them to use oil pastels and watercolor paint to create watercolor resist paintings that reflected their ideas about the prayers that they studied.  Each camper created their own images based on their group conversations and personal connections.  

Had we left the work at this stage, I could safely say that my students had a unique experience studying prayer.  They were happy with their work and they had interesting things to say upon reflection.  However, we were only half done.

Once all the work had been created, we laid out the paintings on the ground.  Students were asked to reflect on the work and start to think about how to organize them into one large painting.  There was some debate, and this was not an easy process.  However, as they got into it, the ideas started to flow.  We came up with a design that told a story and reflected the many diverse ideas we find in our morning service.

we sketched out our mural idea on paper, and then the campers got to work cutting up their art in service of the larger mural.

Once all the pieces were cut out and laid down, the campers got to work putting them all together in a way that told a story and was visually appealing.  We struggled to find meaning and connection between the disparate pieces.   

When it was dry, we detailed it with acrylic paint and outlined each piece with india ink.  I think the final result is spectacular--a true example of artistic vision and communal process.  

Here is the final piece:

We are excited to share this with camp and see it placed in a makom t'fillah--a communal prayer space to be enjoyed by campers for many years to come.  

Making Micrography and Text Study at Camp

This Summer I taught at Camp Ramah in the Berkshires (Chinuch Staff, Yahadut for those of you playing along in Ramah Hebrew).  I was excited but nervous---I have loved my two previous years in the art room (omanut), and was not sure what to expect with the switch.

In true Jewish Leaning Thru Art form, I wanted to make sure that my classes included both real art creation and meaningful Jewish learning.  I worked with incoming 7th graders (Tzeirim) and 9th graders (Bogrim).

Our first project was based on the art form known as micrography or microcalligraphy.  I taught students about the history of the form, which developed in Egypt in the late 9th century, as a response to the Halackhic (Jewish Law) prohibition against creating graven images (images that could be used in idol worship). The rationale behind micrography was that an image created out of holy words could never be used in idol worship.  Interestingly, at the same time, and completely independently, this same art form arose in the Muslim world, as a response to a similar prohibition.  It seems that all cultures have the same need to create, and given a prohibition that attempts to block this urge, artists will go to great lengths to work around it.

Omer Calendar (detail)

Italy, ca. 1825 Micrographic text: Five Megillot (Esther, Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, and Lamentations) B (NS)Mc43

My campers looked at traditional micrographic images and talked about the reasons for the development of the art form. Then we looked at modern images and played with the technique.
Then, we pulled out the siddurim (prayer books).

Each student chose a prayer or text from Siddur Sim Shalom to study.  they talked about the prayers in Chevruta (study partnerships) to help them deepen their understanding of the prayer and its meanings:

After studying they created images using watercolor paint and pencil, and filled them in with the words of the text using sharpie markers.

These campers worked really hard, they learned a lot, and had a chance to slow down and really consider the words of prayer and their meanings.  I was so proud of them and really loved working with them!