Intensive Learning @ MFS
The World At Your Fingertips
It was a packed week, each day bringing new adventures and connections with each other. One of the coolest representations of our group dynamic was that during the altered book project, each person made a page in everyone’s book to help us remember our time together. For our final day we explored those projects...
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As this was our last full day together, it was nice to learn some new folk art techniques while also returning to those we had most enjoyed. Having a week to explore our own individuality and creativity opened new doors for each of us, and we are excited to have artifacts from each of...
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Today’s program was focused on three things – Indigo Tie Dye, Time on the Playscape and a BBQ. Our first order of business was prepping our cloth for dyeing. This included cutting large pieces of fabric into squares, exploring different tying techniques, putting our designs into practice and soaking our fabric to prepare for...
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After lunch, we spent time with the second graders creating luminaries. We had a fun time working with the students, using their energy and creativity to create projects that reflected their personalities. These luminaries are a great way to understand the concept of the Inner Light – how even though we may look different...
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Over the course of the past two days we have already built a small community, one where we support and help each other. We are looking forward to the next few days together as we continue to explore different types of art. With the weather having taken a dreary turn, we had to pivot...
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As we journeyed out of Philadelphia to return to MFS, we were all struck by the unique types of art and creativity we had witnessed. We were left with a sense of inspiration and ready to start our own journeys into the world of Folk Art. On Friday, March 21, our group took our...
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Today was the culmination of a week of hard work, learning, and community building. In the morning, we worked on two new projects that highlighted our focus for the week, using reclaimed materials. The first project was paper making, where we pulped the shredded paper from the MFS Faculty/Staff Lounge and turned it into...
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On the fourth day of Folk Art and Living Simply IL students continued to craft with new mediums, to repurpose recycled materials, and to use a range of materials and methods to make tea light luminaries. By the end of the day, we had completed three separate projects. We kicked off the day by...
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We started the day with hot chocolate and pottery painting with chemical dyes (using copper and iron). With carefully wrapped pottery in tow, we moved outside for some good old-fashioned manual labor. Taking turns, we dug a hole (that was supposed to be a cubic meter) and prepped firewood. Once we got the fire...
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The Folk Art Intensive Learning group had a great second day. From learning new skills like macramé and exploring new combinations of mediums, the group had a day full of exploration and experimentation. We started the day off by unloading new materials for the week in preparation for the coming days, which included fire...
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The Folk Art IL group had an eventful first day: a wonderful nature walk, basket weaving, friendship bracelets, and everyone’s favorite, the mould and deckle. First, we started with a snack consisting of fruit, croissants, and muffins. After that, we took a nature walk around the back of the school and found animal bones,...
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Thursday was an explosion of color! As people arrived, they selected from a rainbow of embroidery flosses and revisited the childhood craft of making friendship bracelets. How appropriate for an IL centered around simplicity. Then we cleared our work areas and set out blank cotton sheets, because it was time to try out the...
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Folk art’s day, to put it simply: “We dug a hole.” More to the point, we dug out a large hole in the field by the Gaga Pit, which is not something you see every day! But let’s start at the beginning. After the success of the past two days of macrame and baskets,...
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Here’s what some of our group had to say about our third day of Folk Art & Living Simply … We used natural dyes to create imprints of flower petals and leaves. I used the red cabbage dye, hibiscus dye, and salt to create my patterns. I also used batteries to flatten some of...
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Our day started by taking a walk together to gather materials to use over the next few days. Tomorrow we are going to weave baskets from a bunch of materials, so we stripped leaves off English Ivy and cut back some long grass outside. Viv knew how to braid together the ivy stems, and...
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