Arts Explorer # 2- My Instant "Sculptures"

Art Word of the Week: MUSIC.


The reason I have chosen this art word of the week is because it basically inspired me to create my instant sculpture for this blog. Just like the word creativity discussed in my last two blogs, there is no one way to define the word music. What may be music to one individual might be noise to another. For the sake of this blog I will define music in my own way and say it is "a pleasing sound to one's hearing ear, or a  pleasant vibration or beat one can feel". In other words, if the sound that you hear is pleasing to you, you can define it as music. There can be many debates about this definition. For example, someone may say that birds chirping in the morning is pleasing to their ear, but they may not want to define bird-chirping as music. Well, I DO define bird chirping as music. It is the music that nature makes. Also, in my definition I made sure that I added the word "hearing". This is because I feel that it is important to recognize that their are individuals who are unable to hear.


This leads us into the second part of my definition which states that music can be a vibration or beat one can feel. This is mainly for the individuals with special needs who can not hear, and as a creative educator I know there will definitely be children I will work with who will have special needs for hearing. They may not be able to experience music the same way typically developing people do, which is mainly through their ears and sound. However, I have learned in one of my classes that another way a child who is deaf or hard of hearing can enjoy music is by feeling the music through their body. This can simply be done through allowing the child to touch the musical device which is playing, or an object in the room while the music is playing. The child will then be able to feel the vibrations of the sounds/music (if there is any at the time) with their hands, and allow it to travel through their body. I did not want to think that music is non-existential to people who can not hear, because this is not true. Regardless if someone can not hear, music still exists to others around them. I also did not want to think of a world where certain people could not enjoy the beauty of music in any way. Thankfully there is a way, and I was very glad and fortunate to learn of this.  I will now move on forward to introduce the instant sculpture I have made this week....


Introducing, Elmirah and her Coloring DRUMS!

I understand that some of you may not agree that "coloring drums" are sculptures, but I could easily take the fun out of them and call them my "colorful rectangular masterpieces". Instead, I decided to use the "junk" laying around in my house and turn them into a "sculpture" which my daughter could use. Also, because I am temporarily staying with my mother who is a neat freak, it was very hard to find anything I could turn into a sculpture. I was left to search her in the basement where she keeps her recycling bin, and could only find the boxes from the snacks Elmirah and I have eaten since we've gotten there :p! Anyways, what I decided to do was take these boxes and try to think of something I could sculpt them into. It was very hard, so instead I thought of what I could use these boxes and turn them into altogether.


 Of course, Elmirah was right over my shoulder as I was trying to find a way to convert these lousy boxes into something new. Thats when I decided to use her once again, to think of something creative to do. Right away I thought of musical instruments, because of her profound love of music. At first I was going to think of making a guitar, but I could not find any   elastics to wrap around these boxes. So then I decided to make drums instead :). The decorations of the snack boxes were not appealing at all to use, so I decided to wrap paper around them. As soon as I got out the construction paper to use, Elmirah had yelled out "cuh-yur", (which is her way of saying color, because she does not yet know how to pronounce L's in the middle of some words). At first I was going to try and explain to her that we will not be coloring at the moment, but then that's when my fabulous idea came to mind! Why don't I let Elmirah decorate her drums once she is done, and why not use the markers as drum sticks as well?! (also because I could not find anything else to use in my mother's house to use). I was pretty sure she would not be able to decide which activity she wanted to do once I showed her the boxes I just finished covering with paper are her new cool drums, and also coloring pads. And I was right, so I decided to call these drums her coloring drums! I was very proud of these new FUN structures I just built, and Elmirah seemed to enjoy them very much as well.

Elmirah is enjoying our newly bulity structures by playing them as drums in the picture way above. In the picture to the left, Elmirah is having fun coloring her "coloring drums". For the purpose of this "art word of the week", I want to focus on the musical aspect of this sculpture. Fox & Schirrmacher (2009) , "music is a natural and important part of young children's growth and development" (p. 53). They also mention how early interaction with music brings a positive effect into the quality children's lives (p. 53). With these two facts, I am very glad that my daughter enjoys music so much. I also feel that it is very important that all children, including children with special needs get to experience the benefits of music. My sculpture could be used by children with special needs for hearing as well. While they use the boxes as drums they can feel the beats and vibrations of the markers hitting the boxes, through their hands. They can also enjoy the coloring part of the sculpture as well :).


Schirrmacher, R. , & Englebright Fox, J. . (2009). Art & creative development for young children. Belmont, California : Delmar Cengage Learning