Images from My Workshop "Collaboration and Play: Using Play Power to Stoke the Fire and Build Relationships

NECAP's (New England Consortium of Artist-Educator Professionals) Fall Conference "The Serious Work of Play" September 23 in Brattleboro, VT.

Project Description: "Play and Collaboration: Using Play Power to Stoke the Fire and Build Relationships"

Collaborative art projects are a powerful tool to bond individuals to a group, where they work together to create a larger emergent whole. Fostering a sense of play in collaboration counters conformity and fear of self-expression, promoting rediscovery of one’s inherent capacity for play and for seeing the world once again with child-like wonder. In the process, participants learn something about themselves and each other.  In this mural-making workshop we’ll gain an understanding of the expansive potential of  playful collaboration for growth and learning across different age ranges.

We'll explore different materials and techniques for creating successful collaborations that surprise and delight.  We'll then create a collaborative mural using play to build relationships, moving from the individual gesture, through partnerships and on to the group and composition as a whole.

Each individual will select a wall space to create a rhythmic composition using a wide spectrum of brightly colored tapes and dots. We’ll view the emerging composition, looking for opportunities and synergies to connect with the work of others working, ending in a collaborative decision-making process that will yield  the final piece.