October Sky

Julie Devine, October Sky, 2013
Oil on canvas, 42" x 60"

World Cultures Mask Project

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last month I worked with the 5th grade classes at Lawton Elementary through a Visiting Artist Program. Each year Lawon students study and celebrate cultures around the world. This year, 5th grade classes studied various African countries and cultures.

 

The teachers were interested in doing a project with discarded materials inspired by the work of African contemporary artist Romauld Hazoume. Hazoume creates masks from discarded plastic containers.

 

 

Hazoume's Studio
 

Here are a couple of examples of his masks.

 

 

For our project at Lawton, we asked people to bring in large empty plastic containers. We collected a variety of them, ranging from juice containers, to milk containers, to large containers of laundry detergent.

I took these home, washed them out, and cut them (well, actually melted them) in half. Yep, melted. Dan, my husband, rigged up a hot wire over which I held each container and slowly moved it down to cut the container in half. For the wire, he took apart a hair dryer, and uncoiled the wire inside. He then strung it across two nails and attached a car battery charger to it.

 

Next, I rewashed the containers, then set them out to dry. When they were dry, my daughter and I spray painted the translucent ones with a variety of spray paints we found in the garage. The colored containers we left as they were. We ended up with a variety of shapes and colors of halved containers. Over 80 container halves in all.

 

Back at Lawton, I gave a presentation on Traditional and Contemporary African Masks, then showed a couple of container masks I made myself as examples.  I asked the kids to bring in discarded or found objects from home to use for their own masks.

With the help of two teachers and three hot glue guns, we glued the kids' designs together. What great results we had!  These are just a taste of the many colorful and interesting masks we made. The kids also titled their pieces and listed their materials and inspiration.  Very cool project! Great work Lawton 5th Grade!

Contemporary Masks, 5th Grade, Lawton Elementary
World Cultures Project



 

 



If Crow Would Come

 



Julie Devine, If Crow Would Come, 2012
Oil on Canvas, 20" x 22"

 

It's taken me a while to photograph this painting. I wasn't sure how I felt about it, so I turned it backwards toward the studio wall for a couple of months, then came back to it. I like it.

My son calls it "the white one" or "the one that looks like snow in the sky." It's another canopy painting. It makes me think of our wild friend, the crow, who's adopted our family and visits for food and entertainment. I check the skies for him and often see his black wings in the corner of my eye.