A side-note on using glue


When I started teaching in 1980, it was common to use rubber cement in the classroom, until we faced up to its toxic and fire- hazard properties. I have seen teachers make very good use of common white wood glue and its classroom versions. This works best if the teacher keeps the individual squeeze bottles continually topped up so that there is little air space in the bottle. Otherwise, the drying glue causes frustrating blockages with bottles that are difficult to open and thus end up going to a landfill. Teachers have also used wallpaper paste, but great caution should be taken to avoid pastes with fungicide that can cause allergic skin reactions. If using dry powder versions, care should be taken to wear a mask when mixing the paste. Children should not be left to do the mixing. There are wheat-based varieties available; some teachers use wheat flour, as we did when I was a child. Such an approach could pose difficulty with mould or storage issues, especially, in the case of the latter, if your school has a problem with mice.


Offshoots, collages, and sculptures I have continued to collect abandoned materials, and have recently completed my 75th


visit to the Bowmanville conser-


vation area. I look for ways to improve the artistic impact of my work, and sometimes this involves looking back in time. While an art student at Queen’s University in the early 1970s, I was greatly enthused about the collage work of German artist Kurt Schwitters, who rebuilt his homes as out-sized collages both before and after World War II. While Cezanne has been a strong influence on my painting over time, the underlying structure of a collage has also endured in the way


I compose paintings and drawings. I also think of student sculptures starting with a structure that is like a three-dimen- sional collage. Everywhere I look, there are these discarded materials


that come to mind as parts of collage. The challenge with modern paper cups is that they are not so easily recycled, in part because they are a mix of paper and plastic. Our local recycling authority has managed to combine them with ship- ments of recyclable “Tetra”-style juice boxes. In Toronto, however, the major reason (as I understand it) for the cups not being recycled is the sheer quantity of the cups that are out there! It is distressing to see so many of them simply tossed aside along roads and in parks and conservation areas. For me, however, they are a plentiful source of collage material. I wash and dry them to experiment with how they can be inte- grated into student projects. Collages of any discarded material can become works


unto themselves or could be utilized as painting panels. Materials could also be cut, bent, or folded into three-dimen- sional forms as part of sculpture projects. I have incorporated such composite materials in mask-based sculpture projects. Art Club members and I have sometimes used clay over base structures made of recycled materials. The clay is held in place with used tissue paper and glue to control shrinkage and cracking. Together, the glue and tissue paper can create an evocative, antiqued surface. I typically use Elmer’s Brand Washable Clear Glue. For some pieces, I add a small amount of carpenter’s glue for greater strength, but this is a material that I could eliminate altogether so as to make projects even more bio-degradable. The use of clay, especially if it can be sourced locally


from the earth, is the preferred binding medium from an environmental point of view. We have also cooked up quan- tities of “playdough” as a substitute for clay, using a rec- ipe found online. I should note that playdough, while quite bio-degradable, does contain a considerable amount of salt. I made the mistake of storing one of the mask projects in my wood shed, where it was eaten away by mice which likely


Page 10 Green Teacher 119


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52