Projects & Experiences
"A thousand words leave not the same deep impression as does a single deed."
Henrik Ibsen (late 1800's)
This is the original adage that has since crossed cultures and languages for over two hundred years, and evolved into our ubiquitous "A picture is worth a thousand words". It is notable that the first incarnation seems to endorse doing, rather than just seeing. Either way, the wisdom tells us that being more present with something is better for learning than hearing it described. That said, I wish I had space for a thousand words to tell the stories behind these images...
Of the Ground
Puddle Painting
Creative Discovery Field Trip Program, 2019
Children ages 5-8 left the Natural History Museum to explore the idea of botanical painting in a nearby park. The plants ended up being a bit boring, but while washing off their brushes the children discovered a wondrous world of colors and movement in the puddles. They played and argued about the mixing and mingling of their paints and power of their brushes for over an hour...
Creative Expressions, Sarona, 2020
We work with a group of children at an outdoor location that is both park, plaza, and market. We spend a lot of time in it's nature corners, but also adore the market shop adventures and open plaza spaces. In our first year at the site we did some studies of the local flora and fauna and identified, followed and documented six species of birds. Here Davey is tracking the movement of the pigeons walking to and from across the plaza.
In the City
Creativity Camp, Lulu, 2018
We do regular "chalk walks" with children, where we take groups out "armed" with chalk for mindful walks attuned to seeing in new ways. At this city center site the sidewalks are covered with debris and ages of stains from discarded gum. The children wanted to connect the dots along our way. We don't get anywhere too quickly, and that's ok~
Creative Expressions, Old North and Sarona, 2020
We spark a special level of excitement when we do our Urban Interventions or projects that engage the children with any kind of community interaction, public audience or chatting with any random passerby. Sometimes even just a local shop visit to jumpstart our explorations provides incredible energy from the nervous excitement. Here we worked on making french fry reviews for a few restaurants. We sat and mindfully "experienced" the fries and brainstormed all the qualities they had, then checked off how they rated. Natural text integration at it's best~
Round the Table
Creative Explorers, Garden House, Old North, 2021
Food is a fabulous art medium. And cooking is one of our favorite arts. Bread making allows us to explore the mixing and sculpting, and then also the joy of ornamentation, edible in the process too! Sometimes these turn out as animals, often landscapes and portraits, but always delicious.
Creativity Camps, Wonder, 2019
Sometimes we have to turn the tables upside down to get to where we want to go. Every week of our holiday camps we anchor ourselves with a theme to explore. For this passover season it was fitting that we dove into the idea of "home". We explored all sorts of concepts of what this meant and days of constructions for all sorts of creatures and peoples, from Hong Kong high rises to giant jungle webs! (This one took longer to undo than it took to put up... and we learned many many kinds of knots on the way~)
On Paper
Creative Discovery, Old North, 2021
We found some old chunky Hebrew-English dictionaries on the side of the street and knew immediately it was meant to be our next project. The children dove into days of illustrating the pages, equal joy in ripping them out and being invited to draw on them with big black permanent markers. Their choice of words and tone in their definitions matched their excited naughty. We exhibited the pages strung up like Buddhist prayer flags at a community arts fest. Irreverent public art is so fulfilling.
*Please note, we are currently digging, gathering, and playing with images to arrange an updated series of collections for the site. More peeks into more yummy visual fodder coming soon~