Drip, Swing, Squish Tour; Part Two

We played at a game at our next stop. First, we looked quietly at this sculpture for a full minute.

SCALE by Sterling Ruby

Then we turned around. Without looking back at the artwork, students wrote down everything they could remember from the sculpture in one minute. After they shared their lists, we turned back around to see what we noticed and what we didn't.

2nd grade

2nd grade

2nd grade

3rd grade

3rd grade

3rd grade

3rd grade

3rd grade

4th grade

5th grade

5th grade

Sterling Ruby made this sculpture with remnants from his studio: bits of cardboard he used to protect the floor when pouring urethane and painting, product packaging, a bucket, a baseball bat, circles cut from plywood, firearm handguards, metal, and yarn. These are items from Ruby's archives, things that the artist has collected and kept over many years. He often creates new works of art using these leftover items that are or have become meaningful to him over time.

This sculpture is titled SCALE. A scale uses balance to determine the weight of an object. How does this sculpture remind you of a scale? Does it look balanced? Why or why not?

We finished our stop with a couple of balancing activities. Some groups tried to balance a pencil on their finger. All groups transformed themselves into human scales, imagining what might happen if we added imaginary objects to one side (a boulder, a person, etc.) and what we would need to add to the opposite side to balance our scale.

2nd grade

3rd grade

4th grade

5th grade