AMACO-Lesson #34-Marbled Butterfly with Friendly Plastic
By Michelle Zimmerman
During World War II, more than 12,000 children under the age of 15 passed through the Terezin Concentration Camp between the years 1942-1944. More than 90 percent perished during the Holocaust. In these poems and pictures drawn by the young inmates of Terezin, we see the daily misery of these uprooted children, as well as their courage and optimism, their hopes and fears.
The Butterfly Project for Tolerance
1,500,000 innocent children perished in the Holocaust. In an effort to remember them, Holocaust Museum Houston is collecting 1.5 million handmade butterflies for an exhibition in 2012.
Butterflies are being used as symbols of hope all over the world. Educators are using them to teach that the price of intolerance, of any type, is too high and to help students learn from the past.
The Holocaust Museum Houston
http://www.hmh.org/minisite/butterfly/activity1.html offers a series of teaching activities based around the “I Never Saw Another Butterfly” book and butterflies. This butterfly stamping project can be used in conjunction with those activities or other Holocaust or tolerance related lessons.
Resources and Tolerance links
AMACO® Butterflies for the children
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=134594090458
Read Holocaust Survivor George Zimmerman’s account and writer Brian Brock’s speech here: http://www.amaco.com/amaco-special-events/friendly-plastic-design-challenge-reception-cha-2009-anaheim
Holocaust Museum Houston
http://www.hmh.org/minisite/butterfly/index.html
Museum of Tolerance
http://www.museumoftolerance.com
Teaching Tolerance
http://www.tolerance.org/index.jsp
PBS: America Responds
http://www.pbs.org/americaresponds/tolerance.html
“The Butterfly”
The last, the very last,
So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow.
Perhaps if the sun’s tears would sing
against a white stone….
Such, such a yellow
Is carried lightly ’way up high.
It went away I’m sure
because it wished
to kiss the world good-bye.
For seven weeks I’ve lived in here,
Penned up inside this ghetto.
But I have found what I love here.
The dandelions call to me
And the white chestnut branches in the court.
Only I never saw another butterfly.
That butterfly was the last one.
Butterflies don’t live in here, in the ghetto.
By Pavel Friedman, June 4, 1942.
Born in Prague on January 7, 1921.
Deported to the Terezin Concentration Camp
on April 26, 1942.
Died in Aushchwitz on September 29, 1944.
Excerpted from “I Never Saw Another Butterfly”,
Children’s Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration
Camp 1942–1944 by Hana Volavkova (Editor).
Lesson Goals and Objectives:
Make a sheet of marbled Friendly Plastic® and use it to make a butterfly shape.
Students will learn how to make a marbled design by dragging a comb through strips of Friendly Plastic®.
This project is suitable for grades 5-8.
National Visual Arts Standards Addressed:
1. Understanding the visual arts in relation to history and culture.
2. Understanding and applying media, techniques, and processes.
3. Using knowledge of structures and functions.
4. Choosing a range of subject matter, symbols and ideas.
5. Reflecting upon and assessing the characteristics of artwork.
6. Making connections between visual arts and other disciplines.
Materials and Tools
AMACO® Friendly Plastic® Designer Sticks (4) – in colors of your choice
AMACO® Craft Marbling Comb (Reorder No. 70038W)
Butterfly cookie cutter shape
Electric griddle
Ranger Reusable Non-stick craft Sheet
Scissors (Tim Holtz micro serrated scissors from Tonic are recommended)
Heavy duty hole punch
Small bowl of warm water with a few drops of cooking oil
Technique:
Prepare the Friendly Plastic
1. Cut three sticks of the Friendly Plastic® lengthwise using scissors. Pieces approximately ¼ inch wide work well. Punch some small circles from a fourth stick of Friendly Plastic®.
Make the striped sheet
2. Place the craft sheet on your work surface. Place the first strip of Friendly Plastic® on the craft sheet and place the craft sheet on the griddle. The griddle temperature should be set to around 200°F (93°C).
Wait until the plastic begins to soften – its edges will soften as it is heated. Remove the craft sheet and the Friendly Plastic® from the heat source – leave the Friendly Plastic® on the craft sheet. Slide the second stick into the softened side of the first stick so the two sticks are joined along their longest sides.
Place the pieces on the craft sheet back on the griddle and heat them until they are joined together. Continue adding sticks in this way until you have a sheet large enough from which to cut a butterfly. The pieces should fit together so there are no spaces between the strips.
Marble the Friendly Plastic
3. To create the marbleized effect, remove the craft sheet with the Friendly Plastic® on it from the griddle and place it on your work surface. Take the marbling comb and starting beyond the edge of the softened plastic, drag through the plastic across the stripes, all the way from one side to the other making sure to drag through all the layers of plastic.
4. Ensure that the plastic is still warm and very soft before continuing. If not, return it to the griddle to soften it. Start at the opposite side and place the marbling comb in between the drag lines you made and this time drag back the other way. Make sure to start the movement with the comb well before you touch the Friendly Plastic® and drag through the entire plastic layer, not just its surface.
Add the dots
5. Place small punched circles of Friendly Plastic® on the marbled piece and place the craft sheet back on the griddle to soften the pieces together.
Punch the butterfly shape
6. Remove the craft sheet from the griddle. To make the butterfly, take a butterfly shape cookie cutter and dip it into the bowl of warm water that has some cooking oil in it. Press the cookie cutter into the soft Friendly Plastic® to cut out a butterfly shape – the oil will prevent the plastic from sticking to the cutter. Leave the cutter in the Friendly Plastic® until it cools.
