A new friend of a friend had recently mentioned this cool process of printmaking on gelatine. I was intrigued and invited her over to my place to do whatever it is you do with gelatine.
Deanna brought over a cookie sheet of jello that we broke into pieces on trays. Then we got out paint and ink to brush and roll over the surface of squishy gelatine. We pressed different kinds of paper on top to make simple monoprints and marveled at our happy accidents.
My own Jazz Map from years ago
Then, I immediately put all of my mental energy into how I would take this process to my most difficult class: 6th period 7th grade art. There are 34 of them, 25 boys, 2 who require teacher's aides, and have boundless energy. Did I mention they are in 7th grade? I looked at "map projects" online and started scanning images of cool maps in fantasy novels from the school library. There just was something not quite "gelling" about this fantasy map idea...but my worrying weekend was running out of time and I had to come up with something that connected to my arbitrary constraint (jello) before our class met again...all project runway-style. I decided to just make the prints with them and see what they should turn into...CRINGE! I know, a lesson without a clear outcome. How risky and irresponsible.
To get jello production underway, I made friends with the the Food and Consumer Sciences teacher in the school (Read: Home Ec). She had lots of pans and trays and refrigerator space for the jello. So one dark and stormy Tuesday, I stayed late in the Home Ec kitchen boiling water and Knox Gelatin (found in the baking aisle for $10.) I poured 2 packets of gelatine into each 9x9 inch pan, with about an inch high of water. (There were 16 pans in total that I split into two trays later for two classes of over 30.) I sloppily stirred the jello mixture with boiling water, let it sit for a few minutes, and then I stacked them into a fridge next to the school custodian's dinner. I had no idea if my slapdash recipe would turn out. I was imagining sub-par jello the next morning and emergency plan B lessons for my already disengaged 7th grade class.
Student work
The next morning at 6:45am, as the sun rose, so did the trays of extra firm beautiful clear gelatine up to the art room on a squeaky cart. The tactile qualities of jello are amazing, everyone. Touch your jello. I did the project with two different 7th grade classes and I only had one student eat a piece of jello. Despite my clear rules not to put it in your mouth since it had been touched by several hands and would be covered in paint, one student still did it on a dare. Thankfully, he returned to my next class alive and well.
So just like my own experimenting, I asked the students to experiment with multiple prints off of their jello tray.
Student Work
At this point, I was in the eye of the lesson storm. So they made some weird abstract shapes on paper. Big whoop. I went home and literally saw the writing on the wall...thanks to my friend, Jasmine, who was over at my house brainstorming with me on what to do with these prints. The scribbles/writings on my walls were old "map-like" drawings I had done years ago that I called my jazz drawings. They were supposed to represent energies like I believe improvisational jazz does. Great, now I should teach this. But HOW? I realized they had already been doing warm up drawing exercises in the beginning of class --some teachers call them bellringers, I call them Vitamin A of the Day (A is for art)---The warm ups were tonal drawings in their sketchbooks using cross-hatching, stippling, shading, and tonal scribbling. I took this skill they had just learned and gave them the option to create tonal drawings between and among the continents/islands of their printed maps...whatever mood that had surfaced for them that day. To my relief, the results were beautiful. As often happens at the end of a lesson when I take a long look at the work made, I fear I fetishize the students' pieces and see beauty and value that they don't notice or appreciate. Were they just following instructions in order to fulfill my own dictated aesthetic pleasures? After they finished their tonal ranges using the various drawing techniques, I asked them to serve their artwork on an attractive platter, i.e., a frame made out of colored paper. Then they were asked to title their abstract pieces with a mood. I noticed my own insecurities with making these subjective connections as many of their own titles were tentative and perhaps a bit forced. Showing mood through ink lines and jello prints is no small feat though. If I plan on cooking heaps of jello and doing tonal drawings again, I will push this mood connection a bit more.
A lesson from this lesson might be that ideas and solutions do not come from locking yourself in a room
alone picking lint and crying. It came from processing out loud with other
creatives, namely my great artist and art teacher friends. This is what we do for a living:
problem-solve and create together--sometimes through j-e-l-l-o.
I moved myself and my objects
across town last month. Amidst new jobs, new spaces, and a new allergy
season, I have moved slowly to get this comic up. But with a little bit
of sweat and might, it will go up, it will go up... just like my huge
desk went to the third floor.
You can't tell this letter was addressed to me because my avatar (I didn't know what this word meant then) in junior high was Martha. I have no idea why. We also addressed letters to each other with our personal symbols so that if a teacher caught us they would have to figure out who was the "shooting yin yang star" and who was "martha a.k.a. squiggle line with dots." I also don't know who wrote me this letter. The symbol system worked!!! I must have lost my ability to decode our pseudonyms when I turned into an adult! I have narrowed it down to about 3 friends from middle school who I am all still in contact with regularly, or at least on Facebook. (Hi guys! Which one of you wrote this? Are boys still putting your belongings in inappropriate places?) If you went to grade school with me, you can probably figure out who is who in the body of this letter. I hope there is enough distance from junior high now to share this. Ha! I'll let you all interpret the rest of this gem of a letter. But I'm still left to wonder, what skills do middle schoolers need? Are you there, Lisa Frank? It's me, Martha.
With the help of my inspiring friends, Skyler and Kyle, I finally got a bicycle wheel spinning from my ceiling! Several years and 3 apartments ago, I was inspired by a ReadyMade magazine article on re-purposing
old bike wheels. I constructed a wheel into a pot rack and then never
figured out how to suspend it safely from the ceiling...until this past
weekend. I asked Skyler to video tape me turning the pot rack so I could show off its spinning capabilities. Within a few minutes, this simple video turned into a costumed affair with high heels, lipstick, and even a carefully arranged set of props with rehearsal. Pyrex Productions was born on a cool summer night over a bowl of cherries and under a spinning rack of pots. I dropped all other goals of preparing my classroom lessons for the start of school this week. Instead, I set to editing "Pyrex No. 1" until the wee hours. To priorities! And to my new film collaborator: Skyler Schrempp!
Deanna brought over a cookie sheet of jello that we broke into pieces on trays. Then we got out paint and ink to brush and roll over the surface of squishy gelatine. We pressed different kinds of paper on top to make simple monoprints and marveled at our happy accidents. 
To get jello production underway, I made friends with the the Food and Consumer Sciences teacher in the school (Read: Home Ec). She had lots of pans and trays and refrigerator space for the jello. So one dark and stormy Tuesday, I stayed late in the Home Ec kitchen boiling water and Knox Gelatin (found in the baking aisle for $10.) I poured 2 packets of gelatine into each 9x9 inch pan, with about an inch high of water. (There were 16 pans in total that I split into two trays later for two classes of over 30.) I sloppily stirred the jello mixture with boiling water, let it sit for a few minutes, and then I stacked them into a fridge next to the school custodian's dinner. I had no idea if my slapdash recipe would turn out. I was imagining sub-par jello the next morning and emergency plan B lessons for my already disengaged 7th grade class.
