How to choose materials for creative explorations, and where to look for them? In a shop, at home, or in the environment around you? I think the art studio – the atelier or the art classroom – is a metaphor for a meaningful, creative encounter with the world, which can happen anywhere. It is a potential approach to all matter.
For example, what about snow?
The very first approach I always suggest with any material is to encounter it as if seeing it for the first time, fresh and new, through the senses, the body and movement, without goals or thinking. We are matter, after all: no needed to always understand or create something meaningful from a cognitive point of view. Can we simply experience a respectful encounter? Like a curious, yet discreet and gentle guest, observing and “listening” instead of simply taking and using.
Snow, who are you?
How does it sound? How does your skin perceive it? How many ways can you handle it, and with how many tools in addition to your hands? How many kinds of snow exist — kinds of consistencies, textures, and whites?
I was so surprised and amazed when my friend Suzanne Axelsson (as she defines herself, a “playerista”) told me there are about 50 Swedish words to define snow! Some of them are used by most people all over Sweden, while others are used only in certain areas or just for work, to recognize when there is a risk of avalanches.
- Drivsnö – drifting snow
- Djupsnö – when it is very deep
- Fimmern eller fimmeln – very fine/small snowflakes at very low temperature, like glitter in the air
- Firn – small, grainy snow
- Fjunsnö – very light fluffy snow
- Flaksnö – there is a layer of ice on top like a lid
- Flister – fine grained snow that you barely notice but somehow gets stuck in your face
- Knarrsnö – makes a squeaky sound when you walk on it
- Nysnö -new snow
- Slask – slush (melting)
- Snöhagel – mix of hail and snow
- Tö – snow piles that are left as its all melting
- Upplega – snow that collects on the branches of trees
- Yrsnö – snow blowing in all directions at once
- Kramsnö – the kind you can make snowballs with (it means hug-snow or squeeze-snow)
Snow hides, plays hide and seek, but can also be terrifying in a storm and make getting lost. It can be both soft and hard, silent and noisy. Everything becomes softer, silent and blunt, or hard and creacky if frozen. It makes us wonder and wonder again… often connected to some special childhood memories. Can you recall one?
My experience as a child is from the distance of very thick clothes, hat, scarf and gloves, like a little astronaut. So it was something irresistibly attractive but in the meantime difficult to reach and play with.
Maybe this first encounters are connected to the contemplative approach I developed later. What is yours? Can you recognize and support different ways of experiencing?
Snow is also part of the wider environment. Let’s keep this connection.
How can we create a dialogue between snow and the natural elements around us? In how many ways can snow encounter a tree, considering its specific shape, size, “personality” and the place where it stands?
With snowballs, for example, as we can see here below: each composition is different, depending on the context and in relation to that specific tree or bush.
Or you could use some natural materials of the environment for making a composition. Snow as a white, welcoming support, a huge uncontaminated sheet of paper where signs, paths and maps may appear.
Snow can become a material for drawing with, by adding it like a drawing-matter (see photo below on the left), or by removing it (photo below on the right).
How many kind of tools, signs and prints can you explore?
Snow can also be modeled to create three-dimensional shapes, not just snowmen: imaginary creatures, a rhinoceros, a mouse, white dining rooms with tables and sofas, the hand of a frozen giant emerging from the ground, or simply a form inspired by the material and its surroundings.
Who leads, who follows? Where does the inspiration come from?
Each transformation affects all the environment: it is like a dialogue though matter, shapes and colors; through nature and the creator.
Now let’s shift from the big picture – the whole landscape – to a single snowflake.
It is a so fascinating mistery, a world within a world. Each one is unique, there are not two identical snowflakes in the world. How is it possible and how does a snowflake form?
As Ian Stewart explains in his book What Shape is a Snowflake?, it is a tiny ice crystal that develops its first nucleus according to its molecular, inner rules. But then, while it is travelling from up to earth, through the atmosphere, it encounters specific conditions (of pressure, umidity, temperature, wind) so that every journey will be a little different and will provoke a different final shape.
What interesting explorations, research, and learning occur within these micro-universes! How can we preserve this sense of wonder in an educational context, without ending up with a stereotypical craft for children? How can we support children in pursuing their own investigations, without providing ready-made answers?
As educators and parents, these are important questions to keep in mind.
If you are interested in continuing the exploration of the grammar of snow, I invite you to visit the amazing work of the land artists Ceca Georgieva and Lucia Pec, of the playerista and author Suzanne Axelsson and the photographer Alexey Kljatov – to whom I am deeply grateful for allowing me to share their inspiring works.
But above all, if you are lucky enough to live in a snowy place, I suggest you to just welcome the snow as a friendly guest and to enjoy your encounter, without knowing where it will take you.
Contributions by: Ceca Georgieva, Alexey Kljatov, Lucia Pec, Suzanne Axelsson
Cover image: Lucia Pec