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.
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