Sadie-3/4/09-Mterials for the Arts
Wedneday, was our first actual working day at Materials for the Arts. We were strictly told to leave at 2:45 at our last visit, so we left school at 2:45 sharp. We had a new person join onto our group, lucy, on the way to the subway we quickly gave her a overview of what Materials for the Arts does. Once we got onto the train we were trying to guess what cool activity we would be doing to help. We were told before that mostly all of the jobs would be folding or sorting (for example folding fabric). We were worried that we didnt think of many ideas for the surveys (I talked about in the other post). but we quickly got over it remembering that Ahmed Tigani said that we didnt have to worry about it right now it would be a project for later.
Once we got out of the subway it felt like i was already a natural. We still had a couple minutes to spare (but we wanted to make a good impression by being early), so we each grabbed a bag of chips and hurried up to the third floor: our destination. We prepared lucy by telling her she might want to have her camera ready at hand because there were so many things to take photos of. we rushed down to the offices area and we told to wait in the conference room, prepared to hear rule and regulations, or be introduced to what we would be doing for the afternoon. but Johnese took us right out to a area right across from the offices. There was a rolly table and a huge canvas bin holding more bright yellow plastic bins. To our suprise we were not folding fabric we would be sorting jewelry of some sort.
The only thing to watch out for was that it a working day so thre would be people working and rolling things aroung and the fraight elevator going up and down and retrieveing new shipments, and to watch out.
Prosess:
1. Try to disect a huge mound of jewelry, we would usually have to use pliers (not easy).
2. Put a generous handful in a smallish plastic bag.
3. And repeat this over and over again untill you finish the bin.
We were told that the jewelry was usually sent from stores that didnt need them anymore or were jewelry that was returned, unwanted. Todays jewelry was sent from American Eagle and Urban Outfitters. As we started working Jonhese helped us and gave us some ideas for projects we could do with the jewelry. we were looking at all the different designs and patterns of the jewelry and charms attached, we though we could do something with all the different designs, like some sort of print making. we also found many hearts and thought it would be cool to make somethings with all of those. Johnese had this great idea to make a plastic bag of a few materials and then we could have a class at random each close their eye and take a bag and try and do something with it and have tight limits, and see what they come up with.
When we got to work we were introduced to a woman named Aaron she got out of Collage a year ago. She was really nice and interesting and was doing the same thing we were acept she had been there since 1:00 and we got there at 3:30 and she had been doing the same thing the WHOLE time! And she left when we did at 5:00! this was her second week volunteering at Materials for the Arts.
It was soooooo much fun and i can’t wait to do the next thing at Materials for the Arts on Wednesday.
Thank you,
Sadie