Visit the South Carolina Department of Education for Visual & Performing Arts standards.
Find all the Visual & Performing Arts series.
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Jimmie Dinkins begins work on the side pieces. Wear sturdy work gloves when you are cleaning and flexing the branches. When using sharp tools such as pruning shears, exercise caution. Adult...
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The nature-based art form blends natural materials, manmade construction and landscape into mysterious expressions of our relationship to the earth. The Serpent Mound in Ohio attributed to the Adena...
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f you don’t have access to an old picnic table like Jimmie is using in the video, make sure that you protect the surface of your work area with a large piece of scrap lumber or an old cutting board...
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Nancy travels from her home in the Upstate to Sandhills State Park in Patrick to collect needles for her baskets. Dried needles are plentiful due to controlled burning of the park's long leaf pine...
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An old saying goes, "If you’re going to plant kudzu, drop it and run." The vine grows up to a foot a day during summer months and chokes the southeastern landscape with a dense, green mat of foliage...
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Kudzu's aggressive growth and status as an unwanted plant creates an abundance of materials for resourceful artists and crafters. Nancy uses the vine in baskets, paper, jams, jellies, teas, and most...
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Organic materials such as pine needles are considered "free for the taking" and have qualities that can not be reproduced by humans. But collecting natural materials comes at a price for the...
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Organic raffia and the kudzu shreds come in varying lengths. After three or four wraps of the coiled basket, one usually runs out of kudzu and/or raffia. In this step Nancy shows how to add new pieces...
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Sheets of paper are formed using a plastic needle point canvas, which distributes the pulp across an even, flat area. In this video Nancy shows how to do the "paper maker's shake" and other techniques...
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Like snowflakes, no two coiled kudzu baskets are alike. The basket is complete when the maker is pleased with its size and shape. In this optional step, Nancy shows how to add a handle to a finished...