Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Cedar Nelson, a Downtown Art Place volunteer, helps fourth graders at Luther L. Wright K-12 in Ironwood make copper bowls outside the school on Monday.
By ZACHARY MARANO
Ironwood - To help students from Luther L. Wright K-12 enjoy the warmer weather and learn about the western Upper Peninsula's history of mining communities, Downtown Art Place volunteers collaborated with Ironwood Area Schools staff and the Ironwood Carnegie Library for an outdoor art project during school hours Wednesday afternoon.
Daniel Negro, Judy Balchik and Rebecca Sim's fourth grade classes used a somewhat uncommon medium for this project: copper. Arlene Schneller, a DAP artist and coppersmith, said that this project offered an opportunity for the students to experiment in metalworking and use the same material that played such an important role in shaping their communities.
"That's why I got involved with copper in the first place – it's part of the U.P. and part of our heritage," Schneller said.
Schneller and six other DAP volunteers set up stations on the grass on the school's front lawn. At the first station, students painted boards black. Then, they made impressions on sheets of copper by hammering them with rocks, molding them into bowl shapes. Next, they painted the copper and waited for the bowls to dry before finally using adhesives to attach them to their boards.
"We were first going to do (copper) bookmarks, but I knew that I had 60 kids for two hours, so I thought I'd make a more meaningful project and they'd get a higher quality art piece that they would be proud of and have as a nice keepsake. It was fun to have them hammer it and they loved patinating the piece and attaching it," Schneller said.
Schneller said that after waiting three days for the glue to dry, the students' projects will be ready for display on the walls in their homes. She that she was impressed with how all the students made their bowls unique and were well behaved for her and the other volunteers.
This art project was the culmination of the DAP's collaboration with the library for the Great Michigan Read. Mary Doria Russell's historical fiction novel "The Women of the Copper Country" was selected for the 2021-2022 Great Michigan Read. It is set in Calumet during the 1913-1914 mining strike and its protagonist is inspired by Anna "Big Annie" Clemenc, a well-known participant in the strike.
Prior to the project on Wednesday, Ironwood Carnegie Library Director Lynne Wiercinski visited several classes in different grades at LLW. She discussed topics related to Russell's novel, including copper, the White Pine mine in Ontonagon, the unions that participated in the strike and Big Annie herself. She also recommended other age-appropriate books on the subject.
Schneller said that she collaborates with Wiercinski for art projects at the school at least once a year.
