Artist and animator Craig Sim Webb was at Sunshine Academy in Dollard-Des Ormeaux, visiting once a week over four weeks. He led students in a multimedia, multidisciplinary ArtistsInspire experience, encompassing a sensory voyage and explored cultures through folk and world music. The program for kindergarten and grade two students included light and sound in the musical and visual arts. A giant keyboard helped engage the students with movement, and students learned simple songs and rhythms while collaborating with each other.
For the visual art component, Craig taught students how to make art with light, using colours and movement. Students were directed to look to their dreams for creative inspiration, and to express their ideas through luminescent artworks and movement with coloured light sources.
Teacher Cara Potechin said that Craig encouraged “an atmosphere of acceptance and cooperation” and that his activities, “although simple in our world of flashy and overly mature content, captivated their imagination in a wholesome way which was refreshing to see”.
Craig Sim Webb has over two decades of experience teaching and animating events for youth, performing folk/world music, and developing skills as a multi-cultural storyteller, singer-songwriter, spoken word and multi-media artist, interactive education technology inventor, and teacher.
Sunshine Academy School’s ArtistsInspire Grant experience was made possible by an ELAN Quebec/LEARN partnership for students from Quebec’s English-speaking communities to participate in arts and culture experiences, thanks in part to funding from the Government of Canada.
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Craig and a Sunshine Academy student using the giant floor piano to create music. (Photo by Cara Potechin)
Creating an origami puppet to use in a light art photo. (Photo by Cara Potechin)
A demonstration of Craig Sim Webb’s light paintings.