Gearing up for a new experience with my students- Curbside Couture

I was offered the opportunity to be a part of a unique fashion show with my students. Curbside Couture Fashion Show at the Clinton Presidential Library.  This year I have some talented and aspiring fashion designers so I jumped at the chance.  Like many art teachers, we store several items that are interesting or could be made into something creative.  We often do not have a specific purpose for the things we collect but it is just too cool to toss.

  This fashion show requires the designers to create a wearable outfit for the runway show out of recycled or up-cycled items.  BINGO!  I already had a stock of cool fabrics, plastic, paper products, cardboard, etc.  I started by tapping the few students who I knew loved designing clothing.  I have a freshman who created a runway fashion show in 8th grade so she was perfect.

 

I created a Pinterest board with fashion recycle examples and well known fashion designers and shared it with my” budding” designers.  Next, I fired my students up and they began by selecting models from friends or fellow artists, who would support the idea, and they began drawing.  We scheduled several dress workshops on the weekends, to pull out all the materials, and begin construction on our dresses.  My studio looked like a combination of a recycle bin and a fabric scrap mill that had exploded everywhere.  Duct tape and hot glue was our best friend.  Armed with a needle and thread, plus our imaginations, we created our gowns in all kinds of combinations. Some of my students were inspired by color,  texture, the variety of materials, or a specific style of dress.    My students set the goal to transform whatever materials they selected, to no longer appear as the original item. 

 

I was fortunate to have two professional fashion designers come to our last workshop to give critiques and suggestions for our dresses.  Connie Fails- fashion designer to Hilary Clinton in the 8o’s and Korto Momolu- first runner-up on “Project Runway”.  

A one of a kind experience and I loved watching my students work seamlessly with the designers on their creations.

  

 I have eleven students involved in the show.  We created seven runway gowns to present to the public this Sunday.  We are so excited to share with everyone all the hard work we did during the past several months. 

My students dresses will be on the runway with several other student and professional designers.  We expect 30-40 different dresses walk on the catwalk.  I will post photos of our experience soon.  Talk about a real life art experience….who knows I may be helping to develop the next great fashion designer!

Technology is wonderful when it all works- I know you know what I mean

 

Well- I am pleased with the project we executed in class and my students did a good job creating a voicethread to go along with the process. I love the format and all the possibilities it can offer. We hit a glitch when working with the other school. The technology security framework has blocked the students from seeing our comments and from the comments that are posted by the viewer to show up on our voicethread so it could be read. It can be fixed but the remedy will not happen in the time frame we need to complete what we set up for this experience.  So we moved forward and I won’t give up on it entirely. I think I may try it again but we may need to find a new way of exchanging our voicethread. Here are some of my clever students results with the Art History Remix…I love how my students let their sense of humor come out with the lesson.

One of the best parts of this lesson is that my students learned how to use the materials that would have been tossed in the trash and instead, the materials became unique original works of art that helps to educate the viewer about a famous masterpiece.  We used an i-pad box, cardboard, scrap drawing paper, and scrap foam core.  I think you can recognize the famous masterpieces.  Enjoy!

Working on reaching outside the studio to gain a new perspective.

I am working with a college friend, who is an art teacher in another state, on a process critique lesson with our students.  It is our hope that this lesson will allow our students to reflect more about the work they create and the reasons they make decisions when creating the art piece.

This week our students will begin the process of communication with one another.  Here’s to reaching out to improve students learning.  Fingers crossed.