class: small hand props

My decorative arts students have just finished their second round of projects, for a unit i call "Small Hand Props." This is a new project topic i added this year, in place of a former unit on jewelry for the stage. I was never happy with that project or topic in general, jewelrymaking being one of the areas in which you can often find plenty of documentation and local classes and such, and my philosophy of graduate coursework in crafts is that it needs to cover topics and artisanship study you cannot likely find elsewhere.

So, the Small Hand Props unit was born of the inspiration that, in my career i have often been asked to create items which were essentially props--fans, chatelaines, reticules and other period bags--simply because the costume designer oversaw the design of them in tandem with the clothes. I wanted to offer a project which would address those areas in an atmosphere of guided study, with emphasis in both the aesthetic of the final product and the functionality. Here are some images of the projects they did!
( Read more... )