Treasure Village Montessori, Islamorada, Florida Keys, USA
September 2009
Treasure Village Montessori was established in 1998 & has grown considerably in the past decade into a well
established, tuition-free charter program. Treasure Village
Montessori, like most charter schools, was created by local educators,
parents and community leaders.
I was invited along to give a presentation of the Silk Road Community Art Project to 2 classes who were treated to a spontaneous hands on half hour where I was able to share my inspiration for the project and share a little of the history of the iconic Silk Road.
This was so successful that both classes opted to make silk flags for
their classrooms though we had a limited time available, 2 hours split between 2 classes. I am yet to
receive images of the finished works, I flew back to the UK the next day, but here's what happened with the
design & gutta sessions...Massive thank you to Nada Jones of FKDSET and everyone at T.V.M for making 'me' time in the Keys so special
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Miss Tanya's Class
One of the girls came up with a design and this was used as a starting point for their flag. Through discussion we were quickly able to get a layout onto the paper. To demonstrate using gutta I traced the design onto the silk and created sections for individual designs
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Miss Tanya's Class
Not everyone agreed on certain aspects of the design and so were encouraged to put their interpretation into their individual section.
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Miss Tanya's Class
Once the finished designs have dried, they will be ready to paint.
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As time was particularly short, I gave Miss Tanya a crash course in using silk paint, under the watchful eye of my niece who has taken part in several silk painting events with me and is more than capable of showing her classmates a few tips & tricks.
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Ooo, the intensity
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Miss Crissy's Class
We worked in a similar way though the design inspiration came from a mandala pattern book. Both clases had the PEACE symbol as their focal point.
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Having demonstrated how to use the gutta, the class set about putting their touches to the silk. They sketched a trial design onto a post it note before transferring it to the fabric.
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Thank you letters
The day after giving my initial 1/2 hour interactive presentation of the original Silk Road to 2 of TVM's classes, ages 9-11, I was presented with 20 hand written thank you letters which are 'so awesome'! I was moved to write 20 postcard replies, responding to each letter individually while catching the last rays of the day on the bow of a boat.
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Thank You View
This was the view as I sat and wrote my thank you's in the midst of mangroves
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