Family Activities: Corrugated

By Courtney Klemens, Manager of Family Programs

Create

Powerful portraits

Simone Leigh has said that she is most interested in highlighting Black women’s traditions, and specifically those who “have been left out of the archive or left out of history.” Create a dynamic layered portrait that celebrates some of these women, whom you may or may not know! Download and print images of some of these important figures in the history of American sciences, arts, and politics. Then, using patterned papers or magazine cutouts, glue colorful images to create a background for your portrait. Lay transparent contact paper or mylar over the image and add more colorful details or words that tell the story of how these women shaped our world.

• Artist Edmonia Lewis
• Mathematician Katherine Johnson
• Musician Nina Simone
• Writer Zora Neale Hurston
• Politician Shirley Chisholm

Imaginative ceramics

The female form in Corrugated emerges from a heavy metal base that might resemble a roof or metal pipe, or perhaps even a skirt. Explore how Leigh blends ceramics with other forms of sculpture by creating your own hybrid figure. Find objects from around your home that you can transform into a human form by adding sculpted body parts. Shape and mold a piece of air-dry clay into a head, arms, or legs, then stick them onto an object you’d like to see differently. Can a lampshade become an elaborate dress? A water bottle into a torso? What else can you imagine?

Stacked cardboard sculptures

Explore the rhythm and texture of corrugation—the pattern of shaped ridges and grooves—in a simple material: cardboard! Create a tall and sturdy sculpture by stacking shapes cut from cardboard. For stability, start with larger pieces on the bottom and use hot glue to layer increasingly small pieces on top. You can also separate the layers of cardboard scraps to reveal the corrugated paper underneath. Bend and curve these strips of cardboard to add additional texture and movement to your sculpture.