Trudeau

Primary Students

with Artist Sholeh Mahlouji

Intermediate Students

with Artist Kelsie Grazier

This year, students explored the concept of craftsmanship through hands-on

engagement with the humble medium of newsprint paper. By setting aside conventional tools and working primarily with their hands, they were invited to experience the act of making as a thoughtful, embodied practice. Each week, students were introduced to a new way of working with the same letter-sized sheet of paper, developing their skills through observation, practice, repetition, and play. These transformed pieces were then gathered for the final week, coming together to form sculptural compositions — a collective expression of their learning.

Embracing Resilience and Openness

Craftsmanship calls for patience, care, and the ability to work through challenges. In this studio, students were invited to notice the agency of the material itself and learn to respond to its unpredictable nature. They discovered how each movement— no matter how small — contributed to the ongoing dialogue between hands and material. Folding, rolling, tearing, and crumpling became not just techniques, but moments of connection, revealing the subtle ways in which a material responds to touch, intention, and attention over time.

Reciprocity: Connecting Mind, Body, and Material

The studio became a space for reflective making, where students engaged deeply with their material. Paper became a partner in this process. The curve of a fold, the tension of a tear, and the memory of a crease revealed the connections between mind, body, and material, offering moments of insight that can only emerge through practice.

Perhaps this is what keeps a master craftsperson motivated over years of practice: it’s less about using a material and more about working ‘with’ it.

In our time together, intermediate students from Trudeau Elementary focused on how we can communicate through gesture and abstraction as a way of speaking without sound. We learned how to adjust what we are looking at, to notice in an intentional way. Using the themes of color, shadow and light with mirrors, the students were able to explore the idea of impermanent, abstract art.

Much of the time we spent together focused on the creative process, also known as the messy middle or being in between. As creativity is not linear, the process is the most fruitful part. But, the staying in process is a vulnerable and ambiguous place to be, it is uncomfortable for adults and children alike. Each week, the students gathered materials that appealed to them; mirrors, ribbon, coloured transparencies, water, leaves and rocks. Collaboratively deciding on placement on the old school projectors, adjusting as they went. And at the end of each time, the materials went back into the bin to start anew later. As time went on, the creative mind became innovative and their comfort for being in the in between creative space expanded. The students learned that abstract expression is a process in itself. This idea of being in between ideas, allowed them to experiment, leading them to discover something in one class and building desire to continue with the next, not knowing where their ideas would go or what inspiration would strike next. 

Communication is a central aspect of my life, being Deaf, and with conversations together we found how language and gesture is a thread through the student’s lives as well. The artworks the students created, in this sense, were like speech utterances, ephemeral and momentary; a spontaneous exchange turned into a visual language.