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Doll artists - Children's art diary - art project

Arts & Activities, Feb, 2003 by George Szekely

We all have interesting sculptural histories we fondly recall from childhood. Mine had to do with the plaster Soviet general and his troops, for which I designed parade formations. I selected each soldier with care, looking carefully at faces, inspecting uniforms, and adding to the kindly general my own painted decorations. My fragile soldiers stood in still Egyptian-like poses. Action had to be provided by a choreographer's imagination.

Sculptures were very important to me as a child. When I had to decide what to take with me for our frightening border escape from Hungary, the toy soldiers in my pocket protected me against the Soviet border guards. Now that I think of it, it is not surprising that my senior sculpture exhibit at Cooper Union was a display of plaster figurative works.

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DOLLS AND STUFFED ANIMALS Among the most amazing dolls that children have, there will always be a special love for the ones they make themselves. Very often a child's doll is their first major independent sculpture project. Children dress and feed their dolls. They tell them stories and take them for walks. Playing with and caring for a favorite doll becomes a memorable relationship with a figurative sculpture.

Everyone remembers the loving features of their first teddy bear. Soft stuffed figures are children's introduction to fantasy-figure sculptures. We hold stuffed-animal parties in our art class. The many soft figures that live in our class are frequently invited to pose, perform, and generally inspire our artworks. Some even take art lessons from the children.

FAST-FOOD AND ACTION FIGURES Tiny figures ride in children's pockets or dangle as key chains from backpacks. Just open the stage door of a lunch box to free fast-food figures ready to perform. From these tiny sculptures, children learn about scale, and develop a unique art of fast-figure sketches by grouping and performing small figures inside of, or on top of, unlikely stages.

Today's action figures have serious joints and bendable qualities allowing incredible posing to combine the figure with the active expressions of the owner. Children create Barbie aerobics classes or space battles as exciting sculpture sequences ready for videotaping in the art room.

Children explore the future of figurative sculpture today by handling figures in virtual reality, by voice activation, and with remote controls. Toy figures are now able to talk and walk with children, changing conceptions of sculptural relationships between a figure and its audience and advancing children's views of sculptural possibilities. In our art class, we view the history of toy robots and become a testing ground for figurative innovations. In these classes, basic components of figure studies include the following:

POSING AND GROUPING FIGURES Posing figures is children's art, explored over many canvases in their room. Under a domed stadium of a child's bed, the manager of a baseball team directs his club of GI Joe players. Dolls set up on the bed wait for tea to be served. For the tea party, California Raisin figure band members are displayed for a musical performance on top of a boom box. In play, dance and sports, children experience being sculptures, feeling sculptural balance, movement and forms. Children's growing movement experiences are lent to toys, moving toy bodies into creative poses. When figurative toys regularly reside in your art room, children naturally call upon them as models.

In a fish tank (emptied of water) on my art-room counter reside scores of stuffed figures. Sorted in old lunch boxes are bendables, windups, Transformers, and new fast-food figures. Our cast is large enough for a film studio's lot. We design adventures, fashion shows, races, TV shows, sports spectaculars, and talent shows that involve creating groupings of figures. Art-class casting directors set up events with figures of all sizes and combine set-ups of ready-made figures, which kids costume and make up.

PLACING FIGURES INTO SETTINGS I often come home to find my shoe rack missing, borrowed for a hotel, with dolls driving inside my best shoes. Children create rooms, furnishings, vehicles, and landscapes for their figures. In our art class, a variety of what kids call "setups," or "action scenes," are created with figures and found objects. Children set up over a choice of canvases such as carpet samples, pillows, shelves, hat boxes or instrument cases. They create scenes under tents and blankets, similar to props kids would use in home plays. These extensions to figurative plays used at home call upon young designers to cast figures into interesting interiors and landscapes.

RECOGNITION OF FIGURES IN OBJECTS AND TRANSFORMING OBJECTS INTO FIGURES Children have an incredible ability to spot human qualities in objects. Children will inspect the kitchen drawer to find play figures in measuring spoons, ice cream scoops and strainers. Supermarket trips are opportunities to animate shapely bottles or find play friends in the vegetable aisle. A hairbrush, a mop, or a kernel of popcorn is given a name and kids play with it as their doll. Art classes can build on children's ability to free the hidden figure from objects.

Doll artists - Children's art diary - art project

Arts & Activities, Feb, 2003 by George Szekely

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