HSC Bensonhurst Senior Center HOME Project.16 12/09/2021

 

HSC Bensonhurst Senior Center

HOME Project

Blog 16 12/09/2021

As we will be constructing boxes as the basis for making “furniture” for each page of their Book of Home, we began with a warmup theater exercise that involved making shapes with your bodies. These shapes were informed by objects around us. Some students also added an action to their shape, for example, Pun opened the refrigerator door, Jing Wei drank a cup of tea, Ru Ping opened and closed a door, Stella made the shape of glasses and the swiping action for checking phone messages, while Hui Fen demonstrated putting on a mask. So Sim shared a cleansing exercise to help our kidneys and Sook Fong shared her exercise regime she has been doing for the last 20 years which involves 90 separate movements. 

Our students showed their amazing creativity and inventiveness with the base pages they designed for their House. They learned how to attach the house to the center of their page, so it popped up when the page was opened. Susanna’s page is 3D with the addition of a window box of flowers and an apple tree. Ru Ping patterned the roof of her House and when glued to the page collaged with Christmas images, it looked like a wrapped present. Her second page featured a collection of stamps suggesting connections to home. So Sim’s House memorialized her father who saved money so she could have her home. She added writing to the door, “fortune left from ancestors” to honor him. Stella’s orange roofed house sat atop a map of the USA which she created by tearing the shape from newsprint. She added images and words at specific locations to identify major American cities. Jing Wei’s collage of food on her base page celebrated her House, which has a central circular roof. This was inspired by a bar she visited which had grass growing on the roof on which sheep grazed.

Pun asked her son what home meant to him, and he said, “cozy”.  She designed this word in a large collage in the center of which she glued her green House. Sook Fong’s green House was glued onto a collaged base page celebrating Christmas cheer. Her second House was glued onto a collage of different complementary colors featuring images of food. Hui Fen continued the Christmas theme and created a 3D effect with cut out snowflakes, a cheerful snowman, and a tree. Lao Yu used felt to create a 3D stream running across her bucolic collage which also featured a little dog.

Spica and I modeled our living room and study pages from our Book of Home and then the seniors used their sketchbooks to draw furniture in their living room. Once that was completed and ideas shared, they made a mock-up of a couch using white cardstock. For homework, they can practice this skill and make a couch of their desired color.



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