April was all about polka dots, patterns, and protecting our planet! To celebrate Earth month, our art project was made out of recycled materials like cardboard, packaging paper, and water bottles. Yayoi Kusama’s flower sculptures and mushroom paintings were the perfect inspiration pieces for this month!
Yayoi Kusama was born in Japan in 1929. When she was a child, Yayoi had a hallucination of being surrounded by many talking flowers that looked to her like polka dots. This inspired her to include polka dots and other repeating patterns in her work. Her art became very popular, and she earned the nickname “The Princess of Polka Dots”. She was one of the very first people to explore performance art, and became a very influential artist. Yayoi continues to work to this day, experimenting with fashion design and music as well. The whimsical polka dots and patterns of her work are very inviting for the children. There’s just something about the repetitiveness of Yayoi’s art that is very appealing. I think the children found a lot of joy in getting lost in a sea of dots!
The kindergarteners learned about patterns. We talked about how color, shapes, and lines can be used to make any kind of pattern. We made our own version of a Yayoi Kusama flower based on her installation piece Flowers That Bloom at Midnight. The students used cardboard from packages and paper plates to make the shape of our flower, then painted it in bright, vibrant colors. Once the paint was dry, they added polka dots to give their flowers the classic Yayoi Kusama look!
The lower elementary students drew inspiration from Yayoi’s series of mushroom paintings. They constructed their mushrooms using paper cups or water bottles, packaging paper and paper bowls. They covered everything in paper mache and painted their mushrooms in their favorite colors. We looked at all the different kinds of patterns that Yayoi created for her work, and the students used paint pens to recreate some of those patterns on their mushrooms. These bright, whimsical mushrooms are as unique as the child that made them!
