Thankful for leftovers already

Teaching art is like always being on the fourth day after Thanksgiving, and trying to make something fresh and appetizing out of the same old leftovers. Today I'm grateful for donated leftover items, though it may take years for me to find the right combination to use them.

Thanks to the Woolly Mammoth for getting caught in the rain with a bunch of colored tissue paper in 2004. The colors bled in ways that look much like fall leaves.

Thanks for the bountiful okra harvest, no kidding! We used okra and tempera paints to make the prints.

Thanks to the school that quit using Tektronix Phaser 200 Series Printers Transparency Film sheets "with perforated tab". We are whittling away the stack making our school feast placemats.

Thanks to the woman who gave me three giant boxes of fancy scrapbooking papers in 2006. We photocopied an autumn leaf paper for the backgrounds of our placemat collages.

Thanks for the chance to use that brittle and faded construction paper to make crayon leaf rubbings. Now how else can we use that up? I'd be grateful for the storage space.

Thanks for folks who save old magazines and catalogs. Thanks especially for my former job that invites me back to work in a lovely library surrounded by beautiful fall foliage just ready to be pressed.

A song stuck in my head can be as unwelcome as the contents of that Tupperware way, way back on the refrigerator shelf for who knows how long. This time, the leftover song helped me realize the science potential for the preschool placemat project.

Cling-cling! Ding-ding! The Duettino from Act I of "The Marriage of Figaro" stayed in my head after the splendid Dallas Opera performance Sunday afternoon. Static cling is just the thing for science this week. The transparency film lets the kids experience static electricity. The film lifts, moves, and holds the tissue paper pieces as if by magic as we assemble our placemat collages. No glue is necessary, and neither is a technical explanation of the phenomenon.

FIGARO
Supposing my lady
Calls you at night:
Ding ding: in two steps
You can be there from here.
Or if it should happen
That his lordship should want me,
Dong dong: in three bounds
I'm there at his service.

SUSANNA
And supposing one morning
The dear Count should ring,
ding ding, and send you
Three miles away,
Dong dong, and the devil
Should lead him to my door?
Dong dong, in three bounds ...

Our creations are ready to be laminated. Somewhere out there Wolfgang and Leonard Weisgard are rubbing party balloons on their hair.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder