Materials Set the Mood

 In After School Studio it was interesting to note a change in the overall energy in the room once the group moved from creating collage covers for their sketchbooks to working with clay. The artists were silently engrossed in fashioning the front of their sketchbooks in ways that truly made them their own.

During collage, the girls chose small scraps of paper as well as other hodge podge materials and strategically arranged them in ways that express their individual identities. This required deep focus and, judging from the silence, a lot of inner dialogue with the pieces. Once finished with their covers, most artists moved on to work with clay.

A shift in materials seemed to lead to a striking shift in energy! After switching to clay, a material that really requires a lot of manipulation and physical activity, the group became excitable and energetic, laughing and socializing with their peers. The transition in materials lead to a transition in mood and energy.

Kathryn mentioned this shift in energy to the group, allowing them to process the ability of art materials to have an effect on their moods as well as how they interact with each other in the studio. Their reply that you "have to talk" when working with clay, suggests that the fact that different materials elicit different emotions and moods is intuitive to these young artists!