Video transcript
The Arts Unit @home Art Bites – Trash totems – 1. Let's go collecting

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KATE STEHR: Hello, everyone. My name is Kate. Welcome to Art Bites. I'm a head teacher in a high school. I'm also an artist, and I am super, super, super excited to have you guys with me today. Over the next five videos, you and I are going to be making a trash totem.

So trash totems, who is this unit of work based for? We're looking at years 8 and 9, but if you are a gung-ho year 7 student and you feel like you would be confident having a go, please give it a whirl. New skills always a good thing to learn.

Or is it you're probably a little bit of a legend if you join this talk. Why? Because you know like I do that making art makes you feel better. And if you're in isolation or slowly coming out of isolation, this is a great way for you to keep on doing that.

I'm a bit of a fast talker. You may have noticed. So if at any point in time you want to slow it down, pause it, the wander video allows you to do that. Press that button down the bottom, take a break-- look you can even put me in slow motion if you like.

What I want to go through in this lesson is the history of totems because I think even though we've only got a short period of time together in this first lesson, it's super important that we look at the background of totems, what materials are you going to need, and what other equipment you might need.

So what is a totem? Let's have a little bit of a look. I think it's really important to have a look at the history of these amazing sculptures. We are obviously going to be taking them and making them out of trash thus the title. But traditionally they were made from carved timber. They could be many different heights, and they were made by the Indigenous people of Alaska, Canada, and America.

So totem poles had lots of purposes, but predominantly they were used to tell stories. They were a little bit like a book I suppose but done in physical form. The animals and the creatures that were carved out of the timber could be read upwards and downwards a little bit like you would read comics in a comic book. They were prized possessions, and families would often sell everything they could to get a hold of one. Having one meant that you were honouring your ancestors and the stories of your ancestors.

Hopefully, you're excited by some of the images that you're seeing on the screen at the moment, and if you will have a look at more, I really encourage you to go into a Google search and have a look at some of the amazing totem poles that been made both historically and by contemporary Indigenous artists.

What is it that we're going to need to make this bad boy? Well, trash totems, I know you guys are pretty smart out there. We're going to need some trash. I'm going to need you guys to imitate a bin chicken and go into your recycling bin, have a bit of a dig around, and pull out any cardboard that you might have in there.

There are things that you're going to need we'll go through in a moment, but I want to talk about why cardboard's good because a lot of people think of cardboard sculptures as maybe second rate to some of the other materials we might be able to use. The reason I love working with cardboard is that if you make a mistake, doesn't matter. It's just cardboard. You can either fix it and try again or chuck in the bin. You save the environment by reusing a little bit of the stuff in your bin, and you've done the world a good favour.

So cardboard, it can be your old cereal boxes. It can be tissue boxes. If you want to, you can go down to that hardware store whose name rhymes with gunnings and go into the front door, and you find heaps and heaps of boxes there. Once you've collected all your boxes, which should look a little bit like this-- the wonder of television, hey.

I know you probably got a few of these bad boys around. Keep on saving them. Really helpful, you've got any big ones from paper towel, also really helpful later on. Doesn't matter what the colour of the box is because we're going to talk about in some of our future lessons ways that you can either use the colours as part of your design or alternatively mask the colours and unify them for future decoration.

You've done your best bin chicken. You've had a bit of a rummage. You've collected all of your cardboard. What else are you going to need?

Well, I'm hoping you're going to have all of this stuff in your house. Some of this stuff like this cutting mat here that probably been admiring throughout the lesson so far is not a necessity. I'm a bit of a grub. It helps me keep clean. We can find ways and means around that.

But what other stuff are we going to need? Well, let's have a look.

This is what we're going to need. As I said, don't freak out. You don't have everything here, we've got ways and means around everything.

Look, it's not essential, but it is going to make your life a lot easier. Again, you're going to go to that hardware store that rhymes with gunnings, maybe get some cardboard boxes. Whilst you there you might be able to pick up one of these bad boys, a hot glue gun. They have their advantages, which is that they're going to join your cardboard together really quickly. The disadvantages are that they hurt a lot when you get them on your finger, so we'll talk about safety a little bit later on.

Get a few spare glue gun sticks, a ruler. I've got a metal one. Doesn't have to be a metal one and it doesn't have to be a metre. Just any plastic ruler that you've got home. Pair of scissors, sticky tape if you don't have a glue gun, but it's also useful for other parts during the exercise. I've got masking tape as well because it's a little bit easier to work with when you're painting later on.

We're going to need some PVA glue if later on you decide to decorate your totem by using papier mache. So there are other ways to decorate your totem, but this might be useful. If you aren't going to use it, we will be diluting it half and half with water. But as I said, we'll get to that later on in the episodes.

Later on in the episode, again, you might want to use some spray paint. It could be something that you might want to pick up. I'm just going to be using white if I do use it, but it's up to you guys. A stapler, a box cutter, sometimes called a Stanley knife, pencil always useful, a rubber although mistakes, not that big of a deal, and a glue stick again in replacement of using a hot glue gun if you aren't going to go and buy a hot glue gun.

The stuff I've got over here is some paint pens, some paints. Look, as I said, we're going to look at a lot of different options for decorating. I use these on mine, and I'll show you my finished product at the end of this lesson. They're really great fun. They're not the cheapest products in the whole world, but they are useful. So have a bit of think about that.

Finally, I've got some paint brushes. You don't need a fancy kit like this. Just any old paint brush will do. I've got some bowls here. They're basically just going to be circular templates. Anything circular that you can get out of the kitchen and trace around is fine.

And-- I know it looks like I won the lotto-- the biggest roll of toilet paper in the world. I'm going to be using this if I'm doing some papier mache later on. Yours does not need to be this industrial quantity. And, look, I know it's like gold at the moment, but see what you can do.

So what's it going to look like this thing that we've been making? I know you have been waiting with bated breath. What is it we're going to do? Is it going to be achievable? When I show you mine, I don't want you to start with that thought in your head thinking I'm never going to be able to do this. We are going to do this from simple to complex, and you guys probably going to make ones that are even better than mine.

So I'm going to show you two versions. The first one, I've only done one side on so that we can continue to work on it over the coming lessons. But here's a good example of the ways that you can use the colours of the boxes that you find as part of the pattern in your making.

I've also got one here where I've used the inside of the cardboard boxes, and some plain cardboard boxes that I had are actually old packing boxes. So you might have some of those hanging around to create my totem. What I really like about this is it looks a little bit like timber, and it gives us an opportunity to work back in with lots of different ways.

Well, other things I want you to notice is how three dimensional this guy is. So he's actually coming out into space. I'm going to teach you how to do that. All sides have been worked, and, added bonus, the back doesn't have to be a back. It can be another front.

So we've got an old man kind of creature on this side here. And I don't know, what you reckon? Bit of an owl kind of creature on this side. And you can see on this slide that I'm celebrating cardboard. I'm using the cardboard as my background colour, and then I've going back in with those paint pens just to finalise it. But again we're going to look at a few different methods for how you can jazz your totem up a little bit later on in the series.

So lots of information, I've talked a mile a minute. You probably had to go and have three coffee breaks just to get through this, but hopefully you've had a little bit of fun with me.

I'm really, really excited as I said at the start of this about doing this project with you. What I want you to do now is go and have a breather, collect some of that equipment that we talked about, go and have a little bit of rummage in the bin, and have a think about where your inspiration might come from for the totem that you're going to make with me starting next lesson. We're looking forward to seeing your projects, and there'll be a link at the bottom of this video where you can start uploading your works in progress or your finished pieces. I'll see you soon.

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