April 10, 2002
Mask workshop crafts creatures for Earth Day
Oak Park students create masks, puppets for parade
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Wolf, owl, flower, lemur and butterfly - the creatures were out in force at Oak Park Elementary School last Wednesday evening.
Led by artist Penny Krebiehl of Little Artschram, more than 20 students at the school began making puppets and masks for Earth Day. As they sketched, cut, stapled and shaped the foundation of their masks with rolled newspapers, the students immersed themselves in the character of they were creating.
"This is what I am going to make for my mask," said Jordan Aviso, a fifth-grade student at the school as he sketched a fierce wolf head. "I'm planning to march in the Earth Day parade, the first time I've done that."
Once the framework for their mask or puppet is complete, the students will paper mache and paint them in two future sessions.
Krebiehl, a Maple City resident, started the session last week with brainstorming to prompt students to discover the animal they would like to portray.
"It may not be an animal, it may be a plant or even a piece of the sky," said Krebiehl, who was thrilled to work at Oak Park, the neighborhood school for the march's route from the F&M Park to the Civic Center.
"What I see happen for the kids is when they are making the masks they really contemplate, as they are working and their hands are busy, what they want to transform into. That starts the storytelling process in their mind," she noted.
To bring out these stories, poet Holly Spaulding of Cedar is also participating in the Oak Park sessions. With her guidance, students will use songs, poetry and writing to capture the voice of the non-human species they are creating.
At the first session, Spaulding led small groups of students through short exercises to get them writing about their creature and exercising their imaginations.
"Use all your five senses to describe and be fantastical, you are not in science class," Spaulding told the students. "Find words to bring your creature to life."
After three weeks, these Oak Park students will have masks or puppets, plus songs, poems and music to convey that tell a story. Krebiehl hopes to present a program for the school as well as have her students march in the Earth Day parade.
"Holly will be taking the poems and combining pieces into some type of a telling, either poetry or a call and response, as the students march in the parade," she said.
Krebiehl has a deep commitment to using art to promote a deeper understand of and connection to the natural world. She is active on the Earth Day committee and has worked with kids on mask and puppet making for two previous Earth Days.
She has extensive training in this field and has mentored with a street theater and puppet group in Minneapolis for six years. Two years ago, Krebiehl founded Little Artschram to promote these arts of discovery.
This is the first year she has worked with Spaulding on Earth Day projects and it reflects Little Artschram's expanding mission to include other artists, poets and musicians who are interested in working with children.
In the weeks leading up to Earth Day, Krebiehl will also be leading mask and puppet-making seminars at a variety of settings, including the Leelanau School, Traverse Heights Elementary School, the Grand Traverse Academy and the Suttons Bay Montessori School. She is also spearheading a teen apprentice program in Grand Traverse and Benzie counties to train teens to make masks and puppets.
"At these sessions, we sit together and I share with them my interest as an artist and a person concerned about healing our environment," Krebiehl said. "And we talk about how we can connect those things."
To Krebiehl, masks and puppets naturally lend themselves to Earth Day, providing vivid images for sharing and understanding.
"The power of mask making is that you can lose your human identity and become something else," she said. "You can imagine what it would be like to call something else your home and give it a voice."