Bacich Box Show March 2015 Art Blog

Please join us for the grand opening of our 2nd annual Bacich Box Art Show 

Open House: April 9, 2015 6:00-7:30 
Bacich Art Room and Bacich Library
(The Box Show will be on display for the month of April 2015)

The Bacich Box Show TK -4^th grade

The Bacich Box Show Installation is based on the “Pt. Reyes Box Show”, an annual art event organized as a fundraiser for the Art Gallery Route One in Pt.Reyes. Wooden boxes are altered and decorated by local artists and auctioned off at the closing of the event.  Our large size school community of 704 students lends itself well to create a powerful visual installation by creating our very own “Box Show”.

For the Bacich Box Show students had the opportunity to alter a cardboard tissue box into an exquisite piece of art. A contemporary artist was assigned to each grade level, (please see below). Students were guided to use the tissue box as a building block to create sculptures based on the assigned artist's work. 

Artist Theme and Concept:

4th grade: Henry Moore, wire coat hanger semi-abstract sculpture

3rd grade: Louise Nevelson, wood assemblage shadow box

2nd grade: Peruvian Folk Art, Arpilleras

1st grade: Nava Lubelski, recycled rolled paper shadow box 

TK and K: Laurel Burch, whimsical, colorful cats 

4^th grade: Henri Moore, wire coat hanger semi-abstract sculpture

Henri Moore, English sculptor and artist (1898-1986). He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures, which are located around the world as public works of art. His shapes are usually abstractions of eroded bones, stones, and sometimes-human shapes. The process of his large-scale sculptures always started with several loose sketches, transforming the sketches into small Maquettes, and lastly enlarging the finalized shapes into the end product.

Students were introduced to working in a similar way. Sketching loose, soft forms around the straight lines and right angles of a square or rectangle. The curvy forms of the sketches were used as inspiration to alter the tissue box. Students used a wire coat hanger to curve around and pinch the box. A Nylon knee-high was stretched over the structure to enclose the shape. Students carefully applied two coats of white acrylic gesso paint to turn the sculpture into a solid, semi-abstract sculpture.

3rd grade: Louise Nevelson, wood assemblage shadow box

Louise Nevelson (1899 –1988) was an American sculptor known for her monumental, monochromatic, wooden wall assemblage pieces and outdoor sculptures. Usually created out of scrap wood, her sculptures appear puzzle-like, with multiple intricately cut pieces placed into wall sculptures or independently standing pieces. A unique feature of her work is that her figures are often painted in monochromatic black, white, or gold.

Students altered the opening of the tissue boxes and used the depth of the box to create an interesting, balanced assemblage using wood scraps, corks, and egg cartons.  Students painted their wall sculptures based on Nevelson’s color scheme.

2nd grade: Peruvian Folk Art, Arpilleras

Arpilleras or "cuadros" are exquisitely colorful, detailed, hand-sewn, three dimensional textile pictures. Arpilleras illustrate the stories of the lives of the women of the"pueblo jovenes"of Lima, Peru and provide essential income for their families. The arpilleras tell stories of planting and harvesting potatoes, tomatoes, cabbages, grapes, corn; stories of spinning and weaving wool; stories of country life, of tending llamas, alpacas, sheep and goats; stories of weddings and fiestas.

Student picked a primary or secondary color as the main color for their arpilleras. Using white in addition to the main color, students learned to mix tints, from dark to light to create a sense of space to depict the Andes Mountains. Students were introduced to the concept of complementary colors to achieve effective color contrast and vibrancy between the hills and the Peruvian houses and other details. Students folded the houses for their arpilleras in an origami style. Some students experimented folding small and smaller houses to convey perspective. Students created their own narratives adding llamas, alpacas, flowers, etc. to their arpilleras. 

1st grade: Nava Lubelski, recycled rolled paper shadow box 

Nava Lubelski born in New York 1968, a contemporary artist, is known for a series of flattened sculptures made from shredded and cut paper. Lubelski likes to use recycled papers. One of her pieces titled “Tax Files” depicts an organic shape of a tree configured out of a mass of rolled up deposit slips, pay stubs, receipts and tax forms.

Students altered the opening of their tissue boxes painted  in neutral shades of black, gray and brown. The paper recycle bin in the art room became the student’s material resource. Students created a great variety colorful of paper rolls. Students sorted their paper rolls by color and size and created attractive designs. The paper rolls were glued to the inside and outside of the boxes to create a shadowbox effect.

TK and K: Laurel Burch, whimsical, colorful, cats

Laurel Burch was born in Southern California 1945. At the age of 14, Laurel Burch left her tumultuous family life with nothing more than a paper bag of clothing and the rare bone disease  osteoporosis, that she was born with. Cooking, cleaning, and babysitting for her room and board, she embarked on a search for some stable ground to support her fragile body. With no job, no money, and no dreams, Laurel Burch reached the Golden Gate of San Francisco. She started to paint and developed a unique personal style with her colorful, whimsical cats and launched her business, now called Laurel Burch Artworks, in the late 1960s. Besides her paintings she started to create jewelry out of scrap metal. Some local stores began stocking her creations, and a businessman, Shashi Singapuri, took samples of her work to China. She went to China in 1971 and discovered cloisonné , a kind of enamel work, with which she designed paintings and had the designs made into earrings.

Students fell in love with Laurel Burch's bright and playful felines. A square tissue box lent itself well for the body of the cat. Out of heavy card stock student created unique heads for their cats. Students used bright colors of oil pastels to paint the cats. Colorful, silly tails were added to make the kitty cats complete.