“For the past one hundred years,
artists have seen creative possibilities in cast-offs. Pablo Picasso, one of
the foremost artists of the twentieth century, fashioned a bull’s head from a
discarded bicycle handlebar and seat, while Marcel Duchamp, a founder of the Dada
movement, asked viewers to see sculpture in a urinal and snow shovel.
During the 1930s and 1940s, Alexander Calder made whimsical animals from coffee
cans, while Joseph Cornell created intimate, surrealistic tableaux from found
objects.” - Recycled Art - Willamette University
www.willamette.edu/arts/hfma/pdf/teacher_guides/Recycled_Art.pdf
For years, artists
have used their imaginations and creativeness to explore the possibilities of
recycling materials discarded from their original use. Just look at Picasso’s
‘Baboon and young’ displayed at MoMA, what do you think the head as been made
out of?
For us, as
teachers of early childhood student, recycled materials are a cheap and reasonably
easily accessible resource to use to explore sculpture with our students. If we have a
project in mind, just asking the school community to collect rather than throw
away materials, and putting labelled collection boxes left in the playground as
a reminder, will quickly provide a large quantity of what we need. Storage is
always the problem so asking for specific recyclables is a must!
For inspiration,
a class visit to Reverse Garbage at Marrickville could provide students with
ideas, (however the variety material available can vary so it might take a few
visits.) http://reversegarbage.org.au/
Then you allow
students to explore and get creative with the materials and just watch what they
come up with…
More resources
for using recycled materials:-
http://www.kid-at-art.com/
Belinda
