Columbine Elementary School students
and staff are about to put their Best Faces Forward!
During four weeks in April and May, a garden of bright colorful faces
and flowers is springing up to grace an area that will be seen by students
and visitors every day for some time to come.
In the project local artisan-author Sarajane Helm has created
for the Artist In Residence Program, everyone at the school is involved
in decorating hundreds of miniature masks made of polymer clay and creating
a fabulous new installation in the atrium area to the right of the main
entrance of the building.
Here's how the atrium looked before the installation.
A fresh coat of paint in a shade of dusky purple will set the stage
nicely for this installation. Masks and flowers will line the triangle
area above, and bloom as two-sided "flowers" in the planter area
below.
"This is a BIG little project!"
says Sarajane.
Together with the assistance of her husband Bryan, art teachers Gabrielle
Minger-Wright and Anna Harber will work to supervise the creative explosion
that happens when hundreds of students in Kindergarten through Fifth Grade
meet up with an inviting medium of expression like polymer clay! Non-toxic
and amazingly versatile, easy to work with and available in local craft
stores, this has been a primary working medium for Sarajane for over twenty
years, and she delights in sharing it with others.
She creates a wide line of wearable art and with Bryan often
collaborates on mosaic sculptures and school
projects that can be seen in her books and on the website at www.polyclay.com.
Some supplies for the Best Faces Forward project were donated by Polyform
(the manufacturers of Premo and SculpeyIII polymer clays) and other vendors,
while the major funding for the Artist In Residence program comes from
a generous grant from the Target Corporation.
In this undertaking, students in all grades will learn how
to mix colors and manipulate clay to form millefiore "canes"
that provide patterns, as well as the ins and outs of model formation and
mold making, rubber stamping
on clay, and many ways of decorating an expressive and individual miniature
mask. 
Some of the students help to knead and condition the clay and to mix
the colors. With more than twenty-four pounds of clay, there's a LOT to
do.
"Each one will be a different little work of art" says Sarajane
"and when put all together, we'll have a colorful and creative garden
where personal expression blooms! It's vital to keep art available to children,
and I'm very glad to have this opportunity to help the wonderful young
people at this school generate access to their creativity with the assistance
of the Longmont Council for the Arts and St.Vrain Valley Schools."
