This fall, Karen Thimmesch and I are working with a group of 6th graders at Museum Magnet School (St. Paul, MN) to make kinetic light art, using materials that make interesting shadows and reflections, lights, screens, and crickets and motors to make these lights and objects move. Days 1 and 2: Experimentation We spent about an hour each day playing with lights (mini Maglights, with the top taken off), screens (pieces of vellum, hung under the tables), and materials (netting, sparkly fabric, feathers, mylar...) to explore the images we could get.

We have scraps of mylar sitting out on our worktables and I started playing with them. They make amazing patterns as you coil them up on a tabletop. Scraps on my desk. Patterns in the loop. I spent time shaping the strips of mylar as well...