Taan's Moons - drawings

The children's drawings for the Taan's Moons poem, created during our introductory visit to the elementary schools of Haida Gwaii, play a very important part in the design of the thirteen felt moons. Together with Alison's poem, they informed me how to design the sketches for each Moon/month. The children had unique stories and drawings, with new ideas to incorporate. 

In 'Noisy Geese Moon' (see below), one of the children drew three noisy geese in front of the bear's den. He said "The geese are waking up the bear." Another child had drawn bright sunshine in the bear's den. He said "Sleeping bear, he is dreaming of race cars. The sun is coming in the den, waking bear up."

 

For 'Food gathering Moon', a student had drawn two baby bear and one mama bear, she said "Bear eating berries. Two bear cups love their mama. They're just outside the Kindergarten room." For that moon, I made sure to have two cup bears following their mama bear.

Fish Moon:

For Snow Moon, one student described: "Bear is in the tunnel, his eyes are closed. Then he goes out of the tunnel, he feels the snow with his paws. It feels just like the inside of his tunnel. There are his foot prints in the snow..." Another student descibes "Bear jumping in snow because he needs exercise". And the following says "Bear going for a walk in the snow, he doesn't recognize his cave in the snow." The illustration obviously needed to have bear foot prints in the snow:

The 13 circular sketches will be used as guidelines for the creation of the felted moons. They also inform me about the kinds of felting activities we need to do to create elements that will be inserted in the large moons. For example, we will create small felted squares with some honking geese with the school that creates 'Noisy Geese Moon', and we'll create felt seaweed and small squares with crabs and fish for 'Food Gathering Moon' and 'Fish Moon', and bear foot prints in snow for 'Snow Moon'. We will prepare all these ingredients in our next session at the schools. 

Taan's Moons project - Session two

During the month of October, Alison Gear and I spent one full day at each of the six elementary schools of Haida Gwaii for the Taan's Moons project. We brought lots of different activities to the classrooms to make the children familiar with different elements of the Taan's Moons story. It is a story of the traditional Haida way of telling time, told through the eyes of a bear. 

The students also created many different felted elements, such as berries, roots, seaweed, branches and felted squares to be used in the large felted moons we will create during our next sessions at the schools in November (stay tuned for another post). 

Following is a largely visual overview of our days, photography by Jason Shafto.

Alison created flash cards and a memory game to introduce the Haida names of the moons (months): 

'Cedar Bark Weaving Moon' - September

Goose Moon (February), Raw Berry Moon (June), Bear Moon (January), etc.

We 'warm up our imagination' by literally moving through the months and the story:

Flying like a hummingbird for Raw Berry Moon

Autumn winds shaking Cedar trees for Cedar Bark Weaving Moon

Introduction to different types of sheep and samples of the different kinds of wool:

 Felting berries:

 

A felt board story of Taan's Moons created by Alison: 

 

Tyler Crosby and four students from the Haida youth dance group taught bear, eagle and raven songs, dances and let the children drum:

Outdoor games:

Noisy Goose Moon

Taan

Making felted roots, branches and seaweed:

 

rich harvest of felt seagrass and seaweed

Making felt squares with designs of bear prints in the snow, blossoms, crab and salmon: 

 

"And then I saw this bear, and he stood up on his back legs like this"

End of the day 'Show and Tell' of a intertidal felt piece that I created for Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve (thank you for letting us use it with the children!):

A special thanks to all the students, teachers and volunteers who made these days a success!

This artist residency is partially funded by an Artists in the Classroom grant, disbursed by ArtStarts in Schools. It is supported by School District 50 and Literacy Haida Gwaii

Photography by Jason Shafto. Please do not use photos without permission of the artist.

Taan's Moons project - Session one

September has been an exciting month. Alison and I learned we received the large grant from ArtStarts in Schools for the Taan's Moons project! Yay! So preparations went full swing.

We held curriculum meetings to fine-tune our activities. We visited the six elementary schools on Haida Gwaii to meet the children, their teachers and to introduce the project. We shared part of the story and warmed up our imagination with some dramatic movement exercises:

We are Hibernating Taan

We invited the children to make a drawing of the story and we made sure to jot down notes on what the children verbally expressed about their drawings.

Sol explaining his drawing to me 

The visit to the classrooms and meeting with the teachers was very helpful in many ways. It gave us a sense of the dynamics of the class and the interest and attention levels of the children. The teachers gave us insight in their daily schedules so we can work around their usual program. As we work mostly with Kindergarten children who have been in school for just a month, it's important to follow their basic routines, like morning circle, story time, Haida class and of course snack and recess.

Based on the children's drawings and our notes, I created 13 illustrations for the 13 verses of the Taan's Moons story. These will be used as a guideline for when we embark on creating large felted moons:

During our visit to the classrooms, one of the teachers (Ms. Sheila Karrow) mentioned that it would be nice for the children who are finished their projects early, to be able to play with some felt objects. This stuck with me and I was wondering how we could engage the children in some felt play. I came up with creating a felt play mat that incorporates the months of the year as told in Taan's Moons story, as well as the seasons of the year. As each class will only work with two moons/months of the story, they won't learn about the full dimension of the project until after all the work is finished. But with this play mat they will be introduced to the circular rhythm of the moon, the evolution of the months, the seasons and the year.

Laying out wool for the felt play mat

The coming three weeks we will have our first full days working with the children at the six schools! These days will be filled with fun felting, literacy and drama exercises. To be continued...

This artist residency is partially funded by an Artists in the Classroom grant, disbursed by ArtStarts in SchoolsArtStarts in Schools

Taan's Moons project - Inspiration

This week I'm embarking on a new Artist in the Classroom project called Taan's Moons. Taan means bear in Haida language. 

Inspiration for the project

In the book ‘Tluuwaay ‘Waadluxan’, Joanne Yovanovich describes the traditional Haida names and descriptions of each month of the year. The months were marked by seasons and food gathering times and carry names like Taa Halxa Kuu.ngaay - food gathering month, May, Ts’uu K’al WiiGuuxaay Kuu.ngaay - cedar bark weaving month, September and Taan ChaaGan K’aadii Kuu.ngaay - bear hibernate month, November.

Alison Gear, a local writer and early learning coordinator, was inspired by these descriptions and wrote a poem called Taan's Moons, describing twelve full moons through the eyes of a bear. The poem brings to life the activities that happen each month on Haida Gwaii, traditionally and currently.

Support for the project

Alison invited me to embark on a creative journey with her to find a way to illustrate her poem through felt creations with the help of the children of Haida Gwaii. We brainstormed and came up with a plan to work with the Kindergarten classes of the six elementary schools on Haida Gwaii this Fall. We received support from Literacy Haida Gwaii and School District 50 and applied for a grant from ArtStarts in Schools. 

Sharing Circle

Earlier this month Joanne Yovanovich, Principal of Aboriginal Education, Beng Favreau, Executive Director of Literacy Haida Gwaii, Tawni Davidson, Early Learning Coordinator and myself joined Alison for a Sharing Circle. This meeting was held to acknowledge that we're working with traditional knowledge and to become grounded in an understanding of what we're doing and why. We shared our hopes, goals and visions for the project, we talked about the role of elders and traditional knowledge holders within the project, and brainstormed about activities in the classrooms.

This week Alison, Tawni and I will be visiting each school for a brief introduction of the project, to meet the teachers and children and to engage them in their first creative explorations of the Taan's Moons story. 

Film of The Giving Trees of Haida Gwaii project

ArtStarts in Schools is a BC based organization that brings artists into the classrooms through their Artists in the Classroom Grant program. Teacher and fellow artist Sheila Karrow, brought this wonderful organization to my attention when we were brainstorming about a project that turned into the  The Giving Trees of Haida Gwaii. 

In 2012, thanks to being awarded an Artist in the Classroom grant, I was able to work at Sk'aadgaa Naay Elementary School on The Giving Trees of Haida Gwaii project and be paid as an artist in residence! 

The project and final results were received with so much enthusiasm by ArtStarts, that they wanted to feature the work as part of the 'Sense of Place' exhibit in their gallery on Richards Street in Vancouver. The work was displayed from October 2012 to April 2013, and when it came time to return the work, a team from ArtStarts in Schools decided to hand deliver the work personally back to Haida Gwaii. 

They also decided to make a documentary of the project while visiting Haida Gwaii. That documentary has now been released:

The Giving Trees of Haida Gwaii from ArtStarts in Schools on Vimeo.

And now, with the help of a large grant from ArtStarts in Schools, I'll be involved in a new felting project, called "Ta'ans Moons" at all six elementary schools of Haida Gwaii this Fall. I'm so grateful!