In every session, there’s always a few kids who avoid the art table and express disinterest in whatever we’re doing. At the end of our Week 1 session with the school age group at St. Lawrence, we were met with a pleasant surprise as one of the kids who previously had no interest in the art activity shyly approached our table and asked what we did that day. We were packing up the majority of our supplies at the time as the kids who were interested were all finished, but we were so happy to grab some supplies for him to do the activity.

We went through the steps of making a zine with him and demonstrated how to use the plasticine for collecting texture from surfaces around the room. Once he got his supplies he excitedly did the activity and ran from place to place around the classroom collecting patterns and textures for his texture zine. He even got one of his friends to make a zine as well. One was very intrigued by the textures found on some large interconnecting blocks that he was previously building with. The other tried to capture the subtle textures in the wood grain on a shelf nearby. It was great to see these two kids, who were previously uninterested in art, have the courage to follow their curiosity and try something new with us. Through this work, we inspired a few kids to try new avenues of creative expression and to pay more attention to their environment.