Around this time last year I was headed off to Sequoia National Park in California to work at a summer camp as the Arts and Crafts Coordinator (sounds fancy, right?). I spent June through August making up arts and crafts projects for small children, raiding the Arts and Crafts supply closet, and providing endless boondoggles (or lanyards as they call them out West) to campers, co-workers and parents, like this:
You remember boondoggle!
I also did a lot of sleeping under the stars, hiking, blood sugar checking, and carb counting (it was a camp for kids and families affected by Type 1 Diabetes). It is a pretty incredible community and resource for Diabetics and their friends and family-- I met so many really cool people and I learned a ton about Diabetes! I still frequently wonder what my blood sugar is even though I am not Diabetic.
I thought a lot about going back to the summer camp this year and resuming my post of Arts and Crafts Coordinator, but I will not be returning after all and here is why: I was accepted as an apprentice at
Bread and Puppet Theater in Vermont!!! I am unbelievably excited!!!!
So instead of this:
...I will be doing THIS:
Bread and Puppet is a politically minded celebration of the arts. They put on shows both at their farm in Vermont (where I will be) and around the country on tours. They also have a museum, they make prints, they hold parades, and make delicious food. I am looking forward like you wouldn't believe to working with them, making art, and being a part of this community for the summer!!
"But who will teach the Diabetic kids how to make lanyards?!" you might be asking. Well, I will tell you! One of my co-workers from last summer is steppin' up. He is super funny and awesome at life so he's gonna rock the arts and crafts world!! He emailed me a while back asking if I had any advice for him from my vast experience of last summer. MAN did I have advice and I spent waaaay too long writing it all out not to post it on the internets.
In honor of the newest Arts and Crafts Coordinator on the block and staff training for summer 2011 which is going on RIGHT NOW, here was my advice to him:
First off, congrats on getting the A & C position!! You will rock it! In terms of running the Arts and Crafts program, there will definitely be a learning curve, and I do have TONS of tips and advice. I don’t know how much advice you were looking for, so I hope I don’t overload you. Also, feel free to discard some of my project ideas, I’m sure you have plenty of your own!
As for planning projects and figuring out what to do with your budget, there is SO MUCH STUFF in that arts and crafts closet that you could probably go the whole summer without spending money on anything but lanyard (about which I will go into more detail soon). Get to know the closet the moment you get there. If you don’t have any ideas, just put out a bunch of foam shapes, googley eyes, popsicle sticks, construction paper, etc. and have them go nuts. Also there is randomly a ton of old socks in that closet. I wanted to (wash them first and) make sock puppets but never got around to it.
OH MAN! Also, there is a TON of hemp for hemp jewelry making in a huge bin in the closet. USE IT LIKE IT’S YOUR JOB. DO NOT REST UNTIL EVERY SINGLE CAMPER HAS A HEMP NECKLACE. That was going to be my goal for this summer if I came back, so now you have to carry out my dream for me. Other project ideas: everyone loves painting, everyone loves paper maché, and everyone loves gluing stuff to other stuff. Also, little boys love to get messy, little girls do NOT love to get messy. Oh, and kids finish projects WAY faster than you think they will. Have like 5 backups. Seriously. Oh, and duct tape wallets went over really well last summer, so that might be fun to do again.
Don’t bother with tape if you can help it, you really don’t need anything but glue. Stock up on hot glue gun refills. On the subject of scissors, last summer I started out with 12 pairs and ended the summer with about three and a half pairs. I don’t know where the other scissors went, but it proved two things to me. #1 YOU MUST GUARD THE SCISSORS WITH YOUR LIFE. #2 It is entirely possible to make it through the summer with only two pairs of scissors. In fact… it is probably better when there are NOT a lot of scissors so that campers don’t go nuts with the scissors and you can keep track of them better. I kept one pair in my back pocket at all times. It is always handy to have scissors on you (the safety scissors anyway… don’t stab your butt through your pants!!!).
Are you going to be doing the fine arts teen camp also? If you are, my biggest tip for that is that teenagers hate being told what to do, so it is best to come up with really open-ended projects and let them choose which mediums to work in. I tried doing a day where we worked on traditional drawing skills and charcoal and they mostly hated it, so give them as much (structured) freedom as possible. They liked collage a LOT. OH and a project that I think would be good for the teens is tee shirt decorating. We have a TON of fabric paint in that closet. I recommend using your budget to get every teen camper a tee shirt and let them go crazy with fabric paint. HOWEVER, they WILL want to paint on their own clothes. Don’t let them. It gets super out of hand.
(As an aside, this is a detail of the mural I painted last summer with my teen campers.)
The last thing I want to address is boondoggle (henceforth to be known as lanyards because that's what they call them in California... Did you also know that in California they say "chonies" instead of "undies?" The things you learn!).
I can totally make lanyards like these. It is a necessary skill for working at summer camp.
Lanyards, as you know, are a staple of the summer camp arts and crafts experience. Lanyards are a trend for the ages. Lanyards are like crack to all kids. Here are some things you should know about lanyards:
1) Know how to start 2 color, 3 color, and 4 color lanyards. If you don’t know, make someone teach you immediately.
2) Make every single counselor show you that they can start a lanyard by the end of staff training. I’m dead serious. You will be followed by a parade of children asking you to start their lanyards all summer and it is more lanyard starting than any one human being can do, so you will be glad when other counselors can help you out with this. Sometimes counselors will also ask you to start their lanyards. I don’t even think people should be hired as summer camp counselors if they can’t start lanyards, but maybe that’s just me.
3) Stock up on key rings. Everyone loves making lanyards on key rings… and lets be honest, if lanyards are not attached to key rings, they are basically useless.
4) Set a “one lanyard per person at a time” rule and stick to it. Have each person show you their completed lanyard before you give them a second lanyard. This is important because kids will go lanyard crazy and start like 10 of them and then lose them and/or never finish them. EXCEPTION: It is always nice to send people off with lanyards for the bus/car on the last day so that they have something to do on the ride home.
5) Set a “counselors are the only ones who can cut the lanyard string” rule and stick to it. You do NOT want kids to cut their own lanyard. They will go nuts. This is another good reason to only have a couple pairs of scissors.
6) Popular colors: white, black, clear, sparkly, red, lime green, pink. Always have those colors in stock.
7) When kids ask you to trim the ends of their lanyards so that they are even, the answer is no, unless you want to be picking up tiny bits of lanyard off the floor forever. Even if you do it over a trashcan, the tiny bits get everywhere. They can trim them when they get home. Ok, maybe this is just a pet peeve of mine. You can make your own call on the trimming issue.
8) Your arm span is a good length for lanyard string, unless someone specifically asks you for longer or shorter string to start with. There is really no need to set restrictions on length of lanyards. If someone wants to make a lanyard belt or something, why not?
9) Everywhere you go, small children will approach you and ask if they can make a lanyard, as though you are made of lanyard, or you are the lanyard pied piper or something. What I started doing was carrying around pink and purple lanyards in my pockets so that when kids asked me for lanyards, say in the dining hall or at the campfire when I obviously didn’t have the box of lanyard string on me, I would hand them one from my pocket. It is hilarious to see a ten year old boy look at his pink lanyard in surprise and say, “um… but… um…” and then you say, “You wanted a lanyard! There it is!” and walk away.
10) Once you cut a lanyard color, the kid HAS to use it. Sometimes you will cut them a color and they will change their mind. Tell them just to finish it really fast so they can make a new one with the other color they liked. Otherwise, the lanyard box will be full of lanyard scraps. I hate lanyard scraps. Maybe they won’t annoy you as much as they did me… but… well, just make them use the string you already cut.
I think that’s all I have to say about lanyards…
Anyway, I HOPE YOU (All the counselors out there!!) HAVE AN AWESOME SUMMER!!! GOOD LUCK!
