Three-Dimensional

Halloween Tunnel Bookmaking at the Canoga Park Branch Library

November 2, 2023 By Debra Disman

Book arts are alive and well at the Canoga Park Branch Library!

I am thrilled to continue my artist residency there, working with the community, teaching all manner of how-to bookmaking workshops, or “programs” in library parlance!

The series, entitled “We Write the Book”, supported by the wonderful Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, will offer 11 hands-on bookmaking workshops and a culmination event to the community free of charge, with all materials included!

Participants from children to teens to families to seniors learned how to create the three-dimensional Tunnel Book structure, creating their own Halloween scenes and more, combining theater, books, stories and celebration into their movable dramas!

“Building A World” together

August 7, 2019 By Debra Disman

Working in cardboard, wood, re-purposed materials and both found and decorative objects, my 2nd and grade “Building a World” students this summer created places and spaces of fantasy, invention and wonder. Worlds indeed! Here the “high” and “low” of materiality and culture collide, mix, match, dialogue, integrate and buttress up against each other in energized ways that only the imaginations of children could conjure up. A visual feast!

Collaboration, consideration, connection and creativity…we had it all this summer and more.

An inCREDIBLE experience.

The Work of Our Hands: Hand Building with Clay 4

March 11, 2019 By Debra Disman

Hand Building with Clay class at Will Rogers School with the CREST Enrichment program has been a joy to teach.

Students learned pinch, coil and slab techniques, creating functional and fanciful items, and enjoying plenty of time to create their own personal visions after completing each class project.

After learning slab (flattening) technique, students created masks from slabs shaped over newspaper armatures/supports.

Both the Kindergarten and grades 1-5 classes let their inventiveness loose!

Employing the heart shape in different ways when class fell on February 14th!

Combining use of coils with use of slab technique.

Cutting out and incising (etching lines and texture into the clay) yields expressive results.

This young maker used a pencil to twist these star shapes into his mask. Big smile!

Cut out eyes, added teeth incising texture and puncturing the clay’s surface to create small round shapes enhance this piece.

This very talented young artist wanted to create Harry Potter in clay…

She succeeded. Her use of acrylic paint pulled the whole piece together into a stunner.

BRAVO to All Our Students!

The Work of Our Hands: Hand Building with Clay 3

March 7, 2019 By Debra Disman

Hand Building with Clay class at Will Rogers Elementary School with the CREST Enrichment program has been a joy to teach.

Here behold first – fifth grade students get their hands in the “earth”…

The Work of Our Hands: Hand Building with Clay 2

February 27, 2019 By Debra Disman

Hand Building with Clay class at Will Rogers Elementary School with the CREST Enrichment program has been a joy to teach.

Below behold students aged 5-6 get their hands in the “earth”.

We had class on Valentine’s Day, which proved to be an inspiration.

From the heart.

The Work of Our Hands: Hand Building with Clay 1

February 24, 2019 By Debra Disman

Creating masks in our Hand Building with Clay class at McKinley Elementary after school with the CREST Enrichment program has been a joy. With majority boys in the class, the tempo had to be high energy.

Students learned how to “pound out” slabs (flat) pieces of clay the week before, then created “armatures” (support structures) of newspaper, over which they stretched their slabs, so that their masks would be three dimensional.

It was exciting to watch the students develop their mask characters, inevitably thinking in terms of story…inspired by characters from film, television, and books, but always their own. Students used coil, scoring, incising and even pinch pot techniques to create their mask characters.

Creating detail.