Mini-Room Design, a key component of Rare Hare F.A.I.R (Fostering Artistic Ingenuity w/Recycling) allows kids the opportunity to create with a wide variety of recycled and reclaimed items to make their own room, house, and in some cases multi-level mansions!  Sky is the limit with mini-rooms, as students spend hours making furniture and designing their interiors with fabric, wood, tile, and plastic scraps.  It is amazing to watch the project in action; with endless possibilities, the kids are intensely focused on putting their vision into concrete forms.  There is someting innate in us all about nesting and making one’s own space reflect personality and to have it function effectively.  This 3rd grade student’s ingenuity with the scrap materials was highly creative and imaginative.  His idea of making stairs from tile scraps sent other students into a stair making frenzy! 

During the Art and Social Commentary summer camp, middle school students discussed the work of Jasper Johns, specifically looking at his work Map from 1961.  Added to the discussion were themes of how the U.S is a “melting pot” with both “red and blue” states on the electoral map.  Students created their own interpretations of this symbolic and geographic form, using water color, collage and other mixed media to convey their ideas.

Inspired by Native American totem poles, students mixed influences of animals and social commentary, as well as allowing recycled cardboard forms to “shape” their own version of totem poles.