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| directory of teaching artists: Tom Bennick |
| Paper is Tom’s artistic medium. His abstract wall hangings, vessels, with hops, copper and sage as substrate and the use of indigenous fiber are some of the ways of creating paper. He has taught the craft and art of paper to woman in prison, kindergarten, college, community organizations, museums, book arts and botanical gardens. He creates sample work to show in his classes. In the last few years, he has started to show and sell his work in galleries and is doing commission work.
Tom was born and raised in a very small town in northern Wyoming where the only art he was exposed to was the checkering on the stock of a gun. He realizes the quality of his life has been diminished because of the lack of art in his early life. His degree is in theatre, but through the different turns in life his interests turned to paper. He believes very strongly what the performance artist, Karen Finley, once stated, “We can live without art, but life wouldn’t be worth living without art.” Describe a transformative process that has occurred in your own practice as an artist or in a past residency as a teaching artist. A transformative process that has occurred in the past and will continue is the concept that paper is a legitimate art medium by itself. I stress the idea of what one can do with paper rather than on paper. I feel the affect upon students, teachers and audience members is the realization that paper has the potential for artistic purposes as well as utilitarian. What excites your imagination and in turn how does your work excite imagination for your audience? My imagination is excited by the myriad of possibilities that paper affords. Working with paper there is a constant spark of ideas that I want to try. Although some work and others don’t, that is part of what excites me as an artist. My work excited the imagination of my audience by the realization that my work, even though it may seem fragile, is actually very strong. Sometimes people are afraid to pick up pieces of my handmade paper because it’s perceived as fragile, when in fact it’s very strong. This inspires curiosity about the papermaking process. What characteristics mark a successful collaboration for you? A successful collaboration is achieved when both artist and teacher are fully aware of what will be taught and the mechanics of accomplishing the goals of the lesson. A successful collaboration is the result of a great deal of communication between the two parties before the residency takes place. How do you foster creativity, both in your own work and as a teaching artist? I’m reminded of a quotation by Picasso and this quotation is a guideline for creativity. “The artist is a receptacle for the emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.” When I teach I emphasize how important it is to see and experiment with the curiosity of a child. Three key understandings in this discipline are:
List three Idaho Humanities Content Standards
that correlate with the each of the core concepts you have identified above.:
Abaca, Hollander beater, couching, pulp, post, cellulose, hydraulics, mould, deckle, vat, felt, papyrus, tapa, amate, fiber, retting, sizing, laminating, embedding, collage, inclusions, watermark, casting. Subject areas outside of the fine arts that relate to potential residency work include: Language Arts – Writing about the sequence of papermaking. Also, the use of transitional words such as and, and then, then, next, first, etc. Essays could be written about the many uses of paper in one’s life. A brainstorming exercise might be used before the essay. Science – Looking at a piece of paper through a microscope to see the individual fibers which make up each sheet. Explain how fibers in water come together to make a piece of paper. The explanation of hydrogen bonding with the cellulose. Experimenting with the beating of fivers which includes cutting, swelling, decurling and fibrillation. Explain how all plants have cellulose and this cellulose can be made into fibrous paper. Mathematics – The use of the hydraulic press to teach the principles of pounds per square inch. Teach mathematical progression by cutting sheets of paper. History/Social Studies – The elementary book The Cloudmakers by James Rumford is a fictionalized story of how paper originated in China. Also, what was used before paper to communicate the written or pictographic messages. How paper picked up bits of language, customs and inventions by passing through difference countries and eventually coming to the United States. References:
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ICA Artists by Disciplines Music Ken Harris Dance Wendy de la Harpe Joy Esplin LiAnne Hunt Norma Pintar Rachel Swenson Theater/Storytelling Joy Steiner Teresa Clark Language Arts Malia Collins Judy Sobeloff Visual Arts Deana Attebery Tom Bennick Judith Brand Sue Rooke Lizette Fife Helen Grainger Wilson Terrie Kralik Jeanne Leffingwell Benjamin Love Linda Wolfe Video/Media Arts Peppershock Media |
 Phone: 208/334-2119 or 800/278-3863 Fax: 208/334-2488 Mailing address: P.O. Box 83720, Boise, ID 83720-0008 Street address: 2410 North Old Penitentiary Rd., Boise, ID 83712 |