Artists from Qassiarsuk, Greenland create self portraits using words, images, and photography.
USA
Traces of You and journalists from Seyðisfjöður
2022, 2nd Grade, 3rd Grade, Iceland, USACommentDeep in self-reflection as art practice
2022, 3rd Grade, Dear You Art Workshops, Iceland, Ukraine, USACommentWho am I?
2022, Dear You Art Workshops, Ukraine, USACommentHVAÐ ER SÉRSTAKT ÉG? / How am I special?
2nd Grade, 3rd Grade, Iceland, USACommentFreedom of expression!
2021, 3rd Grade, 4th Grade, China, USACommentPutting sounds in the background to the foreground
3rd Grade, 2021, China, USACommentLetting the art flow
3rd Grade, China, USACommentAs we started the second pathfinder, students were uneasy about how they were going to visually show the sound of their friends' voices. Once we got the art medium in their hands and replayed many of the recording, the students allowed their creative juices to flow. All the teachers are very impressed with the visual art these students produced.
Being in and enjoying the process of overcoming artistic challenges
8 years old, 9 years old, China, USACommentDear You in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement
2020, USA, Together 2020, PeaceCommentThe continuous murders, racism, and discrimination happening in the United States and worldwide needs to stop immediately. Educate oneself, discuss amongst friends and family, ask questions, listen and most of all take action. Find in the post a list of resources on how to talk about racism and to stop injustice. The time is now!
Oh my! Our first package has arrived!
2018, Finland, USA, 1st GradeComment
1B class in Helsinki, Finland were soooo excited to have received such a big package full of fantastic greetings and pictures from their new friends! Most of the children in the class have not visited NYC yet so their friends’ description of what Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens are like gave more juice for the imagination than you can begin to imagine!
Everybody first had a go at reading their friend’s letter by themselves. I think that the kids were too excited to focus on the words! After everybody had read their letter they started their response. Some wanted to start by drawing a picture and others immediately wanted to answer their friend’s questions.
This was wonderful as we got to practice how to be conversational on paper. The questions the New Yorkers asked were just lovely! How many people live in Finland? What is the weather like? Do you have any pets? There was a range of questions, but what was also lovely was how open and sharing everybody was. What a welcoming start to a long distance friendship!
We read and responded to the letters at school and soon realized that this was also a great opportunity to involve the parents. The parents helped the kids write their responses and find out facts for the curious New Yorkers. For example, we learnt that there are more people living in NYC than all of Finland! I think the parents had fun finding all of this information with their child : ).
The package will be sent to USA first thing tomorrow morning. Keep your eyes peeled!
With love,
Arlene & 1B
The students in Grade 2 (7-8 years old) at NEST+m in NYC are making and sharing art with the Grade 1 students at Ressun peruskoulu (7-8 years old) in Helsinki, Finland.
The kids in NYC kick off their friendship with their new pen pals in Helsinki!
2018, 2nd Grade, 7 years old, 8 years olds, Finland, USAComment
Amanda Sainsott and her class of 2nd graders from Manhattan, NY have started an exchange with Arlene Tucker and her 1st graders in Helsinki, Finland!
The letters were full of warmth, excitement, and unexpected details about themselves and where they live. Such great questions they asked! The students also included pictures they drew. We could catch a glimpse of what their homes look like and where they like to play.
Reading their letters made me want to go visit all the lovely parks, zoos, and experience the bustle of the city myself!
Let’s see where the conversation and collaboration will go!
The students in Grade 2 (7-8 years old) at NEST+m in NYC are making and sharing art with the Grade 1 students at Ressun peruskoulu (7-8 years old) in Helsinki, Finland.
Listen to the Tigers tell 'Joulupukki goes to India' and 'The Ice Cream Story 1'!
2017, 4 years old, 5 years old, Collective Art, Dear You Art Workshops, Finland, USAComment
Who wouldn't be in the creative mood with the smell and looks of these delicious handmade gingerbread cookies?!?! With these in the air of the Tiger's room, we got straight to making the art work for our Full Moon friends in Philadelphia!
We started by looking at all of the artworks they mailed us. This gave us inspiration for our stories. We got into two groups and worked together to come up with characters and an amazing story line. Have a listen!
These artists create and told the story of Joulupukki goes to India! ps. Joulupukki means Santa Claus in Finnish :).
Jumping with joy, the artists of The Ice Cream Story 1 say woo hoo!!
The Tigers are so grateful and happy they had this time to make and share art with you all! Thank you and we wish you a HAPPY HAPPY New Year!
With love,
Arlene & The Tigers
The Tigers from Your School Espoo, Finland are making and sharing with the Full Moons from Moonstone Preschool in Philadelphia, USA. Both groups are 4-5 years old.
"Banana Sonic Jellyfish Turkey"
2017, 4 years old, 5 years old, Dear You Art Workshops, Finland, USAComment
Hey Tigers,
Please enjoy our covers. We greatly enjoyed weaving our old mural work into primary colored
foundations. We cut our first mural (the shadow one) into strips.
While we weaved we looked at woven baskets and pondered titles. In the end we all agreed to call the book, Banana Sonic Jellyfish Turkey.
Here is how we came to our title. Everyone who had a suggestion, suggested. Then we read off the suggested titles and collectively voted on our favorites. There was a three way tie for Banana, Sonic and Jellyfish. So we decided to have all three/ to make it fair, we rearranged these words in a variety of combinations.
Sonic Jellyfish Banana.
Jellyfish, Sonic, Banana.
Everyone, aside from three friends, thought Banana Sonic Jellyfish was the best title.
To accommodate, we asked our three friends what word they liked. One said, Turkey! (Because
we are celebrating Thanksgiving tomorrow), everyone got excited, so it was added to the end.
Everyone loved it, it was unanimous.
Here were our other choices:
We are grateful to have this art pal friendship and the opportunity to share our work with you,
Johnny Buckley and the Full Moons
Moonstone Full Moons, 4-5 year olds from Moonstone Preschool in Philadelphia, PA, USA, are making and sharing art with the Tigers, 4-5 year olds from Your School in Espoo, Finland.
"Ladybugs"
2017, 4 years old, 5 years old, Collective Art, Dear You Art Workshops, Finland, USAComment
When I got to Your School I was so happy to hear that another magical package from Moonstone Preschool in USA had arrived!! We opened it and pondered over the amazing questions the Full Moon artists posed to us. In short, YES! We like Halloween too!!
For this next project, Weaving Environments, we thought about how the art technique can support the idea symbolically, but also practically. Since the aim of this month's project was to make a book cover, we first talked about the title of our story. How do we unanimously decide on something when there are so many of us? For example, when our friend wants to play a different game from you, how do we come to a peaceful conclusion? The Tigers had so many lovely ideas such as take turns. Seeing that we are such a big group, we thought to take a vote, which is something the Tigers do in the classroom too.
Here are the many different ideas that the Tigers came up for the title of their story.
Everybody could have one vote. And the winner is Ladybugs!!
This was the first time the Tigers had a go at weaving. They all did an amazing job taking their time and making sure that they are going under and over when needed. They got very good at seeing where things need to be corrected, which is a big part when one is weaving. The artists could choose if they wanted to write the title 'Ladybugs' or draw ladybugs on the book cover.
I am so proud of them and they are of themselves, which is the most important part!!
We hope the Full Moons like our patterns, weavings, and book covers!
With love,
Arlene, The Tigers, Iveta, and Atefeh
The Tigers from Your School Espoo, Finland are making and sharing with the Full Moons from Moonstone Preschool in Philadelphia, USA. Both groups are 4-5 years old.
Questions are colorful!
2017, 4 years old, 5 years old, Dear You Art Workshops, Finland, USAComment
Hey Tigers,
Questions are colorful. Stories are colorful. Friendship is colorful. Enclosed you will find our questions on collaborative prints. We wrapped them in our new favorite punctuation... can you guess what it is? This project has turned us into inquisitive printers. Let’s print! Let’s assemble questions!
Did you know a printer has four little houses inside it? These houses are called toner cartridges and color lives in them. Each color lives beside another color. There is a red house, a blue house, a yellow house and even a house filled with black, like night. When we have an idea, say a dream, a question, or a story to share, these colors come out and mix together. They can be any color we want them to be depending on quantity. So we mix.
To recreate the inner working of a printer we turned ice cube tray wells into toner cartridges and dipped brushed into them to invite the colors onto our acrylic plexiglass screens (our landscape). There was a place space for, red, then yellow and then blue. We added black the next day when we attached our fonts. We created fonts by writing out our vowels, consonants and questions marks onto letter grids. We then cut them out into respective squares and shared them with one another. We also cut our A4 rectangle paper into squares by taking a way a few inches at the bottom. We reattached them at the end with tape as a way of including a space for thought and questions and also as a silly way mix up our questions and pictures.
We also made a large mural painting of question marks and color mixing exploration. Other friends in our school helped. We are the oldest kids in our school. We like to collaborate.
Questions are colorful and we think letters are the bones of words.
What is your favorite color? What is your favorite letter? Have you ever seen a cat? What is the weather like?
Cheers,
MoonTigers (a.k.a. Full Moons) & Johnny
Moonstone Full Moons, 4-5 year olds from Moonstone Preschool in Philadelphia, PA, USA, are making and sharing art with the Tigers, 4-5 year olds from Your School in Espoo, Finland.
The Tigers are great storytellers!
2017, 4 years old, 5 years old, Dear You Art Workshops, Finland, USAComment
The Tigers are super welcoming with their big smiles and good creative energy! Today was extra special as I got to tell them that we have new friends from Moonstone Preschool in Philadelphia. Immediately the questions started buzzing and they tried to make connections. They started sharing stories of who they know in the USA and if they have ever visited the country.
This was the first time the Tigers had ever made carbon transfers. I am so proud that they all took their time to cover their paper with graphite. The magic started when they began to draw. That's when they got extra excited and thought it was magic at first! Some got frustrated when the marks didn't go through, but they persevered and got it to work for them!
When we were finished we all sat down together to look at each other's artwork. The pictures are so descriptive of who the artists of, where they live, and what they like. Erik said, "I am on a bus. I am riding the bus to my home. This is big me and little me." Mikelus said, "I am walking outside and stop in the forest for the postman." Vanessa decided to make a family portrait. Leevi said that this picture is of a happy person. I love the positive image Leevi has about himself! Reno said, "a tiny baby superman is playing basketball with me." Who wouldn't want to play with you?!
Can you find the portrait of the carpetman?
Which pictures are of a happy person?
Which picture has somebody walking through an apple orchard?
We are so happy to make a collective book with our Moonstone friends!
With love,
Arlene & The Tigers
The Tigers from Your School Espoo, Finland are making and sharing with the Full Moons from Moonstone Preschool in Philadelphia, USA. Both groups are 4-5 years old.
Moonstone Full Moons + Your School Tigers = MoonTigers!
2017, 5 years old, 4 years old, Dear You Art Workshops, Finland, USA2 Comments
Dear Tigers,
We hope you will enjoy our collective contributions. Enclosed are our portraits along with our handmade transfer (carbon) paper. Feel free to separate them from our portraits and reuse them in your transfer explorations. It was fun (and messy) creating transfer paper.
While we worked on our portraits we thought about shadows and became shadow catchers, trying to capture illusive shadows casted by flashlight and lamp. Shadows have no eyes and they do not speak. Sometimes they grow, other times they bend under doorways and hide in dark corners. Our transfer paper making inspired us to take two large collaborative pieces of art and make a huge transfer portrait/piece, representing our unique and collective selves. Like unique individuals, groups are often unique assemblages. We are excited to art pal with you. We are calling our unique collective: MoonTigers.
Paint, pencil, charcoal, graphite and pastel are the featured materials in this piece along with our imagination (an essential). We applied our paint with squirt bottles and casted shadows with brayers, tiny little rollers. They really helped us spread the darkness. This large piece was then placed onto (above) for transferring. Here are our portrait samples (below).
We look forward to making art with you!
Cheers,
Moonstone Full Moons + Johnny Buckley
Moonstone Full Moons, 4-5 year olds from Moonstone Preschool in Philadelphia, PA, USA, are making and sharing art with the Tigers, 4-5 year olds from Your School in Espoo, Finland.
Dazzles and a double rainbow
2016, 7 years old, 8 years olds, Finland, USACommentMata sings while making scratch art for the Layers of Love project. With love from Brooklyn, NY to Espoo, Finland!
The perfect picnic!
2016, 2nd Grade, Dear You Art Workshops, Collective Art, Finland, USACommentHow happy we were when the table cloth arrived! It is a beautiful piece – and the fish is so appropriate because here we love fish and Siglufjörður is famous for fish industry (herring industry) in the past. And also now, although we don´t fish herring still. We have already had picnic twice and used that beautiful tablecloth, as you can see on the pictures. It was quite a good idea to have the names of the kids on the cloth, then their friends could sit at the „right“ place.
All the projects in the Dear you work have been inspiring and brought out creative thinking – good for both children and teachers. We would be happy to take part next year, it would be better not to start in August/Sept. .... maybe January would be good for us like this year. Tomorrow is the last day of school for the kids, but teachers will be working until 9th of June.
Thank you Kathleen and Arlene!
All the best,
Halla and Guðný.
The 1st and 2nd graders at Grunnskóli Fjallabyggðar in Siglufjörður, Iceland are making and sharing art with the 2nd graders at Amy Parks Heath Elementary School in Heath, Texas.
