Songs of Many Colors: Making Rattles at Redwood High and College of Marin
Mentor Artist Sophie Cooper posted about her “Arts Unite Us” residencies at Redwood High School and College of Marin.
Merging visual art and music, the special day classes of Redwood High and College of Marin made gourd rattles. Each student decorated their own gourd, learned a series of simple songs and performed for the other classes. We had so much fun in this project and and the combining of music and visual art gave students a variety of ways of engaging with the creative process!
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We start out by discovering what the insides of the Peruvian gourds look like.
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Students decorate their gourds with tape, alcohol dyes, and finally puff paints.
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Each gourde rattle came out unique!
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Stella, a student from Redwood, plays her completed gourd for the first time, singing a song we used to open each class.
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College of Marin students show off their completed gourds.
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These guys really know how to rock out!
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As our final event, students from both Redwood High and College of Marin performed songs prepared with the rattles for the other classes
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Each student took their new instrument home, along with all the songs we sang together!
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We had a great 10 week session and I’ll miss all these amazing students!!
Big thanks to the wonderful folks at The Caning Shop in Berkeley, the most amazing resource for gourde art of all kinds!!
Arts Unite Us is Youth in Arts program tailored for students in school with special needs. Youth in Arts is the only consistent provider of arts for special education programs in Marin.
Thank you to Kennedy Center VSA and Buck Family Fund of the Marin Community Foundation for supporting this program.
