A river voyage: collaboration, cooperation, continuity.

An innovative artist-in-residence program called "The River: A Voyage Through Our Communities," incorporated the study of community history, industry, and natural resources through storytelling, bookmaking, and papermaking in elementary schools along Wisconsin's Fox River--Jefferson School in Menasha, Jefferson School in Appleton, Nicolet School in Kaukauna, Wrightstown School in Wrightstown, and Westwood School in West De Pere. The culminating work of art, which was first displayed at the Bergstrom-Mahler Museum in Neenah, Wisconsin before its permanent installation, is a larger-than-life, 10-paneled River Book that tells the story of this river journey.

Inspiration through Poetry

Each school's two-week program began with a one-day visit from writer and storyteller Ellen Kort. With eyes closed, children listened to the drumbeat sounds that Kort explained were like their own heartbeats. "The Native Americans believed that by playing the drum, they were playing the heartbeat of Mother Earth and the river," Kort told the students. The children identified the sounds of waves created by a water drum, and of the rushing, howling wind formed by a wind tube instrument. Exploration of river sounds, colors, and imagery continued as Kort read her poem, "I Am the River." With her encouragement, the younger students created an on-the-spot river alphabet poem. Older students were led in a word association exercise that created such fanciful river imagery as "sun water," "seaweed moon," and "wrinkled voice." Then Kort set the stage for the next phase of the residency. Demonstrating a handmade accordion-fold book, Kort explained to the children that "Tomorrow you will be working on your own river book. When it unfolds, it becomes the river. Think of the voice of your story. Will it be that of a duck, a fox, a deer? Use your crayons, paints, and words to tell your own river story."

Sharing Your World

With these words fresh in their minds, students met with bookmaker Caren Heft during the next two days. Showing a variety of books, from pop-up and tunnel books to one entitled 26 Gasoline Stations, Heft inspired the students by asking them to "Look carefully at your world--the buildings, the land, nature, animals--and share it with us." Heft explained to these young writers that "Beauty is the way the light and shadows play on those everyday, seemingly unattractive objects. Think of that while you are writing and drawing your story."

Putting the River into a Book

With Heft's careful instruction, students made books for their own river stories. She directed students, teachers, and parent volunteers in the accordion-fold technique using 26 x 5" (66 x 13 cm) pieces of construction paper: First fold the paper in half, then bring the ends of the paper to touch the middle fold, then fold again and again until each folded section measures 4 1/2 x 5" (11 x 13 cm). The artists glued on brightly colored front and back covers, and fastened it together with yarn ties.

Heft encouraged the children to "Draw the river onto your book--use the full length and both sides to tell your story." She then recalled the words of Ellen Kort as she told the children to describe the sounds, sights, and colors of the river, and to select the special voice for the story. Displaying a map of the Fox River, Heft pointed out all its twists and turns, and the irregular shapes of the river banks. "Where is your school located on the river? What animals and plants might you see?" she asked.

Making the Paper

Papermaking was the next step in this artistic journey. The room was filled with buckets, sponges, spray paints, and vats of a cottony white pulp mixture accented with small leaves, seeds, mica, and glitter. On these two days, each student made two 8 1/2 x 11" (22 x 28 cm) sheets of paper, one to keep and one to donate to the River Book. "By donating one piece of paper, every child is represented in the collaborative effort," Artist-in-residence Tom Grade explained.

In each 45-minute session there was a flurry of activity as students stirred the pulp, dipped screens into the vat, and carefully lifted and drained the dripping, pulp-filled mold. Turning this screen onto the felt-covered couching board was a tricky maneuver, and sponging and pressing the newly made paper took a lot of squeezing. Students layered smaller, brightly colored pieces of paper, onto these 8 1/2 x 11" (22 x 28 cm) sheets of paper, employing the same papermaking process used in making the larger sheets of paper.

The stamping table was the next step. Here, students used patterned blocks and stylus tools to make impressions on the flat, wet surface of the paper. Then it was on to the spraying table, where spray paint over various shapes of stencil resists created a multicolored image. Small, blue foil pieces placed in river and wave shapes added dimension, sponged-on wakakusa paper, a thin Japanese paper, formed the last, protective layer. The first week of the program was completed, but the River Book panels were yet to begin.

Designing the Panels

During the second week of the residency, each school created two 3 x 6' (1 x 2 m) panels for the River Book. Tom Grade, and paper artists, Gisela Moyer and Kirsten McClintock Christianson, guided each school's student design team in an elaborate decision-making process that resulted in the master designs for the panels. The team members designed the shape of the river, vegetation, and wildlife, as well as the school and community landmarks. Using templates created by this design team, subsequent student working groups began to create the panel's picture story, using layers of freshly made paper and the donated sheets from the previous week. "Essentially, the kids are `painting' with the pulp," Moyer said.

Forming the River

The first task was to draw the river outline, according to the students' master design, on two 3 x 6' (1 x 2 m) plywood panels. Then, using the papermaking process learned the week before, one group of students couched wet pulp directly onto the plywood--blue tones to identify the river shape, and off-white pulp mixed with seeds and leaves for the land. Small triangular pieces of earth-toned mauve, yellow, and rust colors accented the land shapes. Other students began to make two-dimensional paper houses, factories, boats, bridges, schools, vegetation, and wildlife with handmade paper. Wet pulp was cast in molds of birds, leaping fish, and trees.

As different student groups worked throughout the week, they continued to collage, paint, and highlight these architectural and natural forms. As the paper artists progressed from school to school, they brought the panel from the preceding school so that the path of the river would flow with continuity. Gradually, layer upon paper layer and school after school, the River Book story was told.

Like the rivers that connect our lives, this project joined student with student, artist with artist, and district with district. Everyone contributed, and all benefited. Intertwined with the lessons of design, writing, and paper-making were teamwork, cooperation, and unity. "This project inspired a sense of community in all of us," Tom Grade said, "and made us all aware of how connected we are to each other, no matter where we live."

Paula Stevenson Hoglund is a freelance writer in Appleton, Wisconsin. Photographs by Apple Photography Group, Ltd.