Last year... I mentioned
working on art with the kids at my children's elementary school. Every year our school(Yujin Gakuen Japanese immersion school) hosts a dinner and auction to raise money... The main attractions are of course the classroom art. I have had a hand in many of these pieces over the years... I seem to start traditions, (like the 2nd grade origami people) and have so many great memories working with the kids and other Moms... It has truly been one of the highlights in my life... And now, as this year comes to an end... my youngest is moving on to middle school... so our time at the school is also coming to an end. Since this was my last piece of artwork, it seemed fitting to repeat 5th grades artwork from last year... A landscape made out of 1000 origami cranes, folded by the kids themselves. 1000 cranes is a symbol of good luck in Japan... and to me, it also symbolizes the kids taking fight and moving onto the next stage in their lives. And since it is a send off for me too... I wanted to create two landscapes...
Day...
...and Night...
The kids did an amazing job... and folded 2000 origami cranes from 6x6 sheets of paper(this took about a month and a half). After they were folded, I counted and then sorted them by color/shade...
Next, I roughly sketched out the landscape on a piece of poster board... and started gluing them on... one by one... row by row...
Forming the hills, sky, and river as I made my way down...
It took about 40 hrs to complete each landscape... with a lot of late nights... and multiple cups of coffee...
But, when the last rows were laid out... and I could see an end in sight... I kept thinking about my time at the school coming to an end... and it was bittersweet...
I have given gladly, all of the hours... days... and weeks... that I have volunteered at the school...I will never tire of singing praises for our dedicated teachers and staff. The time I've spent on artwork through the years, was hopefully letting the teachers know how thankful I am for all that they done. Our children have been given such a strong foundation...they are ready to take flight...
Arigato!
*** Jennifer
No comments:
Post a Comment