This week was such fun and absolutely flew by! Our theme was Fairy Tales and the projects were incredibly fun and creative. With the help of the teen volunteers and guidance from the artists/teachers, the campers completed diverse projects including fairy doors, good luck charms, and their very own wearable fairy wings!

On Monday, the campers began with the creation of magical fairy doors. They made little doors out of popsicle sticks, and then shaped stones out of polymer clay, which were then glued to the doors. Their individuality showed in the added details, such as moss, paint, or vines. The creating of wearable fairy wings was a more elaborate endeavor, involving sketching out how their wings would look and then creating templates for the wire boning of their wings. Teen volunteers stepped in to shape rubber coated wire to serve as the structure of the wings and cut plastic sheeting in to the desired shapes. The campers then used a great variety of materials to decorate their wings like puffy paint, Sharpies, and beads.

My personal favorite craft this week was done on Wednesday. The campers used polymer clay to create little lucky charms that would be placed on keychains. The item that each of the campers chose to sculpt for their good luck token really illustrated their individual personalities. Some older campers chose to sculpt items that were traditional good luck charms, such as four-leaf clovers, while the younger kids sculpted miniature versions of their favorite things, like food or imaginary creatures like dragons! I was able to participate in this project and made a few little wormlike creatures that were reminiscent of the worm-on-a-string toys that I used to play with as a kid. The campers, in turn, started to make their own little wormlike clay creations, and it was really fun to teach them how to make them and see how their versions turned out.

A tradition of the Young Masters Camp is the Friday art show, when invited family and friends come and look at the entire week’s worth of hard work. During the previous Young Masters session, I did not quite know what to expect, so I felt a bit overwhelmed by the whole process. This time around, I reorganized a few parts of the set-up process to make it a bit easier for myself and the other facilitators. The campers broke up into two groups of twelve and took a bit of time to set up all their work in front of them. I absolutely love seeing all the campers get so excited to show off their work and tell their visitors the inspiration behind their art. 

Now that I’m closing the book on week 3 of the fellowship, I feel that I’m able to contribute to our campers in a more concrete way and I feel more confident in myself in my role.