hooks

Work at the center on Wednesday involved a lot of sanding. We got there late, so the artists had already begun their snack break, and those of us from Bryn Mawr and Haverford gathered in the woodshop to talk to the teacher about the next steps of the project. When the artists returned, we got in our pairs, selected the wood that would serve as the sides of our boxes, and began our sanding rotation. We used a number of tools, including hand sanders (attached to gloves that we put on), the sander powered by the stationary bike, and a tool that smoothed the corners of the wood pieces. When we were done with all of these processes, we sat with our partners and worked on drawing bodies and body parts on the outside sides of the wood pieces.

Three years in the education program and I’m still not really sure how to do field notes. I’m not a big fan of the column format, either. Anyway, February 26 was my first day of my placement at the Center for Creative Works. Very easy to get to, but the places where the sidewalks disappear into car dealership parking lots were slightly terrifying to deal with. But I found the place all right. I signed in, gave my papers to the placement coordinator, and conveniently at that moment the sculpture instructor came upstairs to pick up a box of paints. I introduced myself and followed him downstairs. Immediately, I was surrounded by a lot of people introducing themselves and wanting to shake my hand. I had remembered this from my orientation last week as well.

This week was the first one I spent at the center with the participants, having spent the past three weeks in the labs at Haverford making art with bacteria. We began by checking out the wood shop again, and participants guided us around the space to—with the help of the woodshop teacher, Sarah*—demonstrate all of the different tools available to us. Many of these were basic saws or sanders that she had adapted to make them more generally accessible (for instance, a sander that would have originally required a lot of dexterous finger movements was now attached to a stationary bike. Participants could work together to sand a piece of wood, with one pedaling the bike, and another holding the wood still against the moving sander).