Cutting paper – TOGETHER – at camp. Without getting injured.

Three weeks ago I posted about what I do every summer at URJ Camp Newman – teaching kids to cut paper. Two weeks ago I posted about the campers' first projects: mizrach plaques, and last week I posted about the camper's big projects: paper midrash. In this, my last post about my 2013 residency at Camp Newman, I'm sharing our final group project. Here's just one piece of it...

First, I want to mention that all of the campers' work is displayed at the end of their four-week session in the annual "Mark and Peachy Levy Hagigah Festival," alongside creations from the other campers: painting, tallitot, calligraphy, photography, dance and drama presentations, songleading and even some creative writing recitals; all of the arts activities they participated in as part of Hagigah.

At the end of the festival, campers take their work home – but I always like to have them make something as a gift for camp... and that's where the group project comes in. Here's another piece...

The overall theme for this summer was kehillah kedoshah – "a holy community," which is what we strive to be at camp. With that in mind, I planned for my papercutting campers to work together (as a community – see how it ties in?) to create a poster-size papercut that spelled out kehillah kedoshah. And not just one – TWO!

In the last few days of our workshops, each camper would take a break from their individual projects and spend some time on the group project. They got to pick whichever letter they wanted, and they had to design and cut and back it however they wished. Some created a design that pulled elements from their mizrach or midrash pieces, and others just came up with something totally different.

We even got some of the camp faculty to help out with a few letters, and the end results were wonderful.

I'm pleased to share with you photos of the final pieces (click them to see them bigger)...

Telling stories by cutting paper... at camp

Two weeks ago I posted about what I do every summer at URJ Camp Newman – teaching kids to cut paper. Last week I posted about the campers' first projects: mizrach plaques. This is the third of my four posts about cutting paper at Camp Newman, and this one is about the big project: paper midrash.

Bereshit

All of the campers in the two-hours-a-day yetzirah group (and many in the one-hour-a-day hizdamnut group) made "paper midrash" – they used their newly-developed papercutting skills to tell a story from the Tanakh (Torah, prophets, and writings) or midrash, picking a story or theme that was personally meaningful and interpreting it in this medium.

Eden

The Giants

The Rainbow

Parting the Sea

David and Goliath: Kavannah

Samson

Others had more esoteric sources for their work, pulling ideas from Sefer haAgaddah or other books that I brought for inspiration.

Claws

Dwarvish

Li

Mad Man

Pillar of Fire

Time

Sus

Next time – my last post about the camp workshops – will feature photos of the finished group projects which we made as a gift for camp.

Look to the east, young cutters of paper!

Last week I posted about what I do every summer at URJ Camp Newman – teaching kids to cut paper. This post concerns these fine young campers' first projects: mizrach plaques.

Mizrach (מזרח) means "east" — the direction that Jews outside of Israel traditionally face during prayer, and a mizrach is an ornamental wall plaque used to indicate the direction of prayer.

Each day at camp has a special theme, and the theme on the day we began our mizrachs was "chaverut" (friendship) — so in the spirit of friendship we started off with some group brainstorming, making a list of themes and ideas for a mizrach, such as the rising sun, Israel, a compass, Jerusalem, and so on.

Each camper was allowed to interpret the idea of a mizrach however they wanted, but they all started with the same pool of ideas. That's what made the project so fascinating: seeing how they all started with the same source material, and how their interpretations created so many variations.

The campers used cut-up colored papers and comic books to back their pieces, just as I do in my studio. Where did I get so many comics? So many that I could let the campers cut them all up and experiment?

 

From my friendly neighborhood comics shop, Brave New World Comics — so a big thank-you goes out to Portlyn and the rest of the crew there!

The campers made some incredible art – and art with a purpose. As with so much Jewish artistic expression, there is a second purpose (if we can call art for art's sake a purpose, which I guess is sort of oxymoronic): it serves a function.

 

In this case, the mizrach identifies a direction for prayer... but think about the beautiful menorahs we light at Hanukkah, and the care we take to select aromatic and attractive etrogs for Sukkot, or the fancy seder plates for Pesach...

Why do we go through all this work just to fancy up things we use so infrequently? Wouldn't a plain set of candles do the same job as fancy silver candlesticks? Yes... and no.

 

We do this because we are commanded to beautify our celebrations and rituals (and the objects we use in them). It's called "hiddur mitzvah" – the commandment to make our observance of mitzvot beautiful.

It was a pleasure to share with these campers not just the joy of making art, but to do so with a Jewish focus.

 

To share with them the pleasure of cutting paper and engaging with our culture and history — of being part of a tradition of Jewish artisans that extends back to Bezalel, in the desert, building the tabernacle.

My next post will feature photos of the campers' second project: paper midrash. In the meantime, enjoy their mizrachs.

And if you want any more information on these workshops, just ask!

Student papercutting workshops

Every summer I spend two weeks at URJ Camp Newman as an artist-in-residence, teaching papercutting to high school-age campers. Their program is called Hagigah, and it's focused on expressing Judaism through the arts – so they paint, they sculpt, they dance and sing and write... in addition to everything else you'd expect at Jewish sleepaway camp.

This has been my seventh summer at Camp Newman, and I had two great groups of campers to work with: two hours each day with the yetzirah group, and one hour each day with the hizdamnut group. It was a pleasure to share with them the joy of working in paper and creating art.

Each of the campers in both groups made a mizrach (מזרח means "east"). East is the direction that Jews outside of Israel traditionally face during prayer, and a mizrach is an ornamental wall plaque used to indicate the direction of prayer – and that's what the students made, after some group brainstorming about what imagery might work in such an artwork. They were allowed to interpret the idea of a mizrach however they wanted.

All of the campers in the yetzirah group (and many in the hizdamnut group, time permitting) also made "paper midrash" – they used their newly-developed papercutting skills to tell a story from the Tanakh (Torah, prophets, and writings) or midrash, picking a story or theme that was personally meaningful and interpreting it in this medium.

The final project we all worked on was a group effort... details to come.

Later this week I'll share photos of the art they produced, but for now please enjoy these photos of the campers at work.