A project with Arts in Education of the Gorge: https://www.gorgeartsined.org
In 2016 I worked with Arts in Education of the Gorge and the 7th and 8th grade AVID students at the Wy’east Middle School building six Pollinators habitat for native bees as sculpture. AVID is a program that prepares middle school students who hope to continue their education through college. It focuses on students that may otherwise end their education at the end of high school. The emphasis of the Pollinator Project is looking at the world in new ways by combining function with sustainability and art.
Bees, especially Mason bees, are native to the Pacific Northwest and are prolific pollinators. One Mason bee can pollinate as many plants as 50 honey bees. Honey bees, although very important, are not native to this region. Mason bees live in our climate and are active when local flowering plants need them. They are docile opportunists and don’t make a hive, but look for an appropriate sized space near their food source to lay their eggs. By putting the Pollinators near a garden we can provide habitat for the bees. Since it’s a sculpture, we can generate interest and form a discussion around the importance of the native bee.
I recycled the excess pieces of metal from my shop and brought them to the 8th graders so they could design their Pollinators. They arranged panels on pieces of plywood and traced their outline, that I later welded to steel sheets. In the next class we assembled the panels to create Steel Flowers, so the sculpture would take a three dimensional shape. The last day of our camp was dedicated to painting the pollinators.
I brought a pair of Track Hoe chains for the 7th grade students to create their sculptures. I split the team in half and they designed a form that they liked. The 7th graders followed the same process as the 8th graders, where they would trace the outline of the sculpture they liked most on ply wood and later I would weld their design in my shop.
Originally we tried to use 100 year old pipe as the interior spaces of the piece. Unfortunately, the pipe would not weld, so we had to come up with a new idea. All the kids brainstormed, each producing unique drawings, and came up with solutions that I adapted into the final sculptures.
In 2017, with a generous grant from the Mills Davis Fund and Arts in Education of the Gorge, the Pollinator project continued. I developed a Pollinator Kit. Each kit was made up of the same metal parts and pieces. It was up to the kids to create an individual sculpture. This year I worked with kids groups from Wasco, Sherman, and Hood River Counties. I taught short day workshops as well as 2 week long camps with kids aged 6 to 18.
Three Pollinators were built during a sculpture/video camp that produced a short documentary called Bring Back the Pollinators, which you can watch here: https://vimeo.com/226518410
Working with Sean O’Conner we combined sculpture and film to emphasize the importance of art, documentation (history), and the purpose of our project. The kids did everything from building sculpture, filming the building, and filming each other filming.
Other workshops included a one day build session at the Hood River Library, the Music Festival Of the Gorge, and The Dalles Library.
In total, I built 15 Pollinators with over 100 people/ kids of all ages designing and participating in the process. They are currently installed in gardens throughout Hood River, Sherman, and Wasco counties. They are in both public gardens and private residences.
I would like to thank the Wy’East Middle School for inviting me into their AVID Program, the Mills Davis Fund for generously helping us bring this project to many different people, and to Arts in Education of the Gorge for supporting me throughout this and other projects.
