White, white – with all its shades

These days everything seems white around me. Cold and white. When there is no wind the glazed trees are still as frozen, the time also stops and I can use all the time I need to absorb the silence and harmony, and pay attention to details.

Then I then see is that White is not the only child ms. cold and mr. winter, but has many brothers an sisters. Some of them are dressed up in fluffy textures. Others have tiny shades of blue, pink or violet – dependent on the temporary mood of the sun or the moon.

It is the apparent absence of contrasts that makes me curious. When some things seem the same at first sight, I get surprised when I discover the diversity of qualities between them. Differences are often so small that I can not match them with such small words, but have to describe them with long sentences – IF I had to describe them to someone I would probably have to sharpen both my language and attention.

This is why I love playing with harmony and contrasts when I choose visual art materials (or inspiration material) for my students, whichever age they are (3 or 43). Here is the collection of 11 balls in approximately same size, made of yarn in different qualities and origin. How different where they actually? Two 5-year-old boys found out that some of the balls ripped off the floor when they let them fall – others didn’t. Some of yarn would make a nice ice bear - others wouldn’t. The yarn balls were not so same after all.

How the boys made meaning of the yarn balls, and what they chose to knit of the yarn, is still to be analysed form the empirical material form my Sculpturing Words study. Wait and see which meaning I will make out of the boys meaning making…