Young Artists at Centrum

Join us at Water World

Program Manager Martha Worthley describes Water World, our program in art and marine science for elementary school students in grades 5-6, presented in partnership with the Port Townsend Marine Science Center.

News Report on Orcas Passing by Fort Worden

Anchor Dennis Bounds of Seattle's KING 5 television said, "This most recent visit was first reported by a volunteer at the Port Townsend Marine [Science] Center who was letting a visiting class of third graders listen to some hydrophones when they suddenly heard dozens of approaching
orcas." Click image to go to KING 5 video.

Centrum and the Port Townsend Marine Science Center are presenting Water World  - a workshop in art and marine science for 5th and 6th graders from throughout Washington state in April.

...and if you are fascinated by orcas and are a student age 10-12, there is no better place to learn about them than here at Fort Worden. We'll be presenting WHALE CAMP in August, with special emphasis on orcas and gray whales.

Space is still available in both workshops. For more information, contact Martha Worthley at 360-385-3102 or email her at martha@centrum.org.

Starting with the Natural World

The artist Darwin Nordin has spent virtually his entire life at the edge of water. From the Great Lakes to the ocean, Dawin has found inspiration and work fishing, bird-watching, practicing biology, and doing laboratory work, Darwin brings his love of the natural world and scientific inquiry to his work as a visual artist.

Darwin's embodiment of both art and science is why we asked him to be one of the artist faculty for our Water World workshop for 5th and 6th graders in April.

"Darwin is incredibly versatile as a visual artist," says program manager Martha Worthley. "He starts with the natural world in all of his work. From there, he layers imagery in very interesting ways. Maybe it's the echo of bug casings, or perhaps the shape of a leaf--it's all very interesting and incredibly beautiful."

Darwin has worked collaboratively with poets, writers, actors, dancers, filmmakers and set designers. He has facilitated the creation of large, mixed-media artwork for organizations like The Children’s Museum, Port of Seattle, Pacific Northwest Ballet and the Museum of Glass. His integrated approach to art and learning has led to work as an arts integration consultant, and he provides professional development to teachers and teaching artists. He has taught for Washington State Arts Commission, Powerful Schools, Gage Academy of Art, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and is an adjunct instructor for Lesley University in Cambridge, MA.

Space is still available in our Water World workshop. For more information, contact Martha Worthley at 360-385-3102 x 120, or email her at martha@centrum.org

What If?

The writer Nisi Shawl is one of the artist faculty for our Water World workshop for 5th and 6th graders in April. One can really get a sense of the common creative spirit that links science and artmaking by looking at Nisi's work and how she encourages young learners.

"Nisi is fascinated by science and relishes taking ordinary phenomena and asking the simplest of questions 'What if?' , says program manager Martha Worthley.

Indeed, that simple question helps students take the world they know, and encourages them to reframe it--to play with the observations and connections that surround them. That small shift in perception is a hallmark of great scientific inquiry as well as bold artmaking.

Nisi's most recent short story collection Filter House (Aqueduct Press) was chosen one the Best Books of 2008 by Publishers Weekly magazine. It contains three previously unpublished stories and eleven reprints, plus an introduction by Nebula Award-winner Eileen Gunn. In an interview with Jesse Vernon, Nisi describes how she came up with the title for the collection, a process that illustrates her own "What if" journey:

I like ocean things, I like marine biology [and] I enjoy anything oceanic. I found this article about appendicularia and was reading about them and then looked at other articles on the web and found out about filter houses. They are so, so gorgeous. They are so beautiful. And I was just really attracted to the idea of something that was so ephemeral and beautiful.

So [a filter house] is sort of like an underwater, 3-D spiderweb that [appendicularia] use to trap food. They are filter feeders but they build these filters outside their body that last for about two or three hours, until the appendicularia outgrows it or they become clogged, useless. Then they release them and they drift down to the lower levels of the ocean. If you’ve read about anything in marine ecology, you’ve heard about “marine snow” – all the lower levels of life subsist on [it]; that’s the basic element of their ecology. So [discarded filter houses are] a large component of marine snow. [I liked] the idea that it was something so basic, too.

I wanted to have the title of the collection not be a story and I wanted it to be the sort of combination of words that would make people think, “Well, what is that?” I also was drawn by this idea that the structure of the short story collection is ephemeral, that it’s made up of other elements that are brought together in this moment – because they are so short, short stories are sort of ephemeral too.

Announcing Whale Camp at Fort Worden

This summer, spend an exciting week on Puget Sound with marine scientists and artists, who will take you into the world of these grand creatures. And not a moment too soon.

Located at Fort Worden State Park in Port Townsend, WA, Centrum and the Port Townsend Marine Science Center merge the worlds of art and science in the body of the whale.

WHALE CAMP will run August 16-21, 2009 and is for youth age 12-14.

With education and conservation as the guiding forces, at WHALE CAMP you will:

• Examine our new orca skeleton.
• Take to the water on an orca whale-watching cruise and research mission in the San Juan Islands.
• Conduct hydrophone research to learn about Orca communication in Puget Sound.
• Assemble a gray whale skeleton and compare its bones to your own bones.
• Create your own sounds and movement based on your observations.
• Compare the sounds of the sea: whales, dolphins, shrimp, grunt sculpins and creatures not yet identified.
• Visit The Whale Museum in Friday Harbor.
• Create enormous marine sculptures.

Visit our WHALE CAMP page for complete information, and to register. Space is limited!

This summer, spend an exciting week on Puget Sound with marine scientists and artists, who will take you into the world of these grand creatures. And not a moment too soon.

Located at Fort Worden State Park in Port Townsend, WA, Centrum and the Port Townsend Marine Science Center merge the worlds of art and science in the body of the whale.

WHALE CAMP will run August 16-21, 2009 and is for youth age 12-14.

With education and conservation as the guiding forces, at WHALE CAMP you will:

• Examine our new orca skeleton.
• Take to the water on an orca whale-watching cruise and research mission in the San Juan Islands.
• Conduct hydrophone research to learn about Orca communication in Puget Sound.
• Assemble a gray whale skeleton and compare its bones to your own bones.
• Create your own sounds and movement based on your observations.
• Compare the sounds of the sea: whales, dolphins, shrimp, grunt sculpins and creatures not yet identified.
• Visit The Whale Museum in Friday Harbor.
• Create enormous marine sculptures.

Visit our WHALE CAMP page for complete information, and to register. Space is limited!

Updates on Youth Programs

As the summer draws to a close, we are just about ready to begin taking registrations for our 2008 workshops. A quick glance around the site will tell you that things are changing. Here's a recap:

1. We've deepened our commitment to young artists, and the faculty that serves them.
2. We've renamed this new focus "The Young Artists Project."
3. On the top right-hand side of the site, you'll find links to the key information about the Project.
4. We've renamed our middle school offering. It was called "Whatever." It's now called "Arts Exploration." We feel that's a more descriptive name for what actually happens here during those weeks.

Final details are being worked out for our 2008 workshops. Subscribe to this website; we'll post full details and begin registration by mid-September. Plus, we'll have frequently updated information on our Core Faculty as well as students!

Lyrics to "Why, Mrs. Sea?"

Reprinted below for your viewing and singing pleasure, are the lyrics to one of the two group songs written by workshop participants at Centrum's 2007 Waterworld program (here's a link to the other song).
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Why, Mrs. Sea?
by 2007 Waterworld participants with Gina Salá 

Why are you salty, Mrs. Sea

Are you Mrs. or a mystery

Nobody knows where you flow from you to me

Why are you salty, Mrs. Sea?

 

    Is it faulty plates, Mrs. Sea?

    Is there a volcano beneath thee?

    Or could it just be, part of your mystery?
    Why are you salty, Mrs. Sea?

 

I asked the crab, he did not know.

The whale slapped his tail and said it wasn’t so.

The jellyfish said its just – part of the flow

Why are you salty? We may never know…

 

(ooohhs)

 

When I asked the sea she turned to me

And the waves swelled taller than a redwood tree

She crashed upon the shore, but answered no more

So she remains a mystery.

 Yes she remains a mystery

 She remains a mystery.

Lyrics to "We Belong to the Sea"

Reprinted below for your viewing and singing pleasure, are the lyrics to one of the two group songs written by workshop participants at Centrum's 2007 Waterworld program.
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We Belong to the Sea: 

Waterworld 2007 participants with Gina Salá, choreography by participants with Christian Swenson

 

CHORUS:

We Belong to the Sea

Swimming in harmony

Friendship is the key

We belong to the sea

 

VERSES:

1) Hey little waves the ocean is big

And its so much fun under the sun

Don’t be scared cause I won’t eat you

I belong to the ocean too.

 

2) (sung by whales)

Hey little waves the ocean is big and its so much fun under the sun

don’t be scared cause I won’t eat you

we belong to the ocean too.

 

3) And the plankton who just floats along would also like to sing this song

though its very small it plays its part

and the whale loves it with all its heart

We belong to the sea….

 

4) Fishy’s dancing day and night

up and down til they start to fight

crabbies sitting down to tea

they ate a biscuit and said yippee!

 

5)Tentacles moving one by one

They wave hello till the day is done

Happiness is all around

Til a nudibranch starts turning brown.

 

6) A giant sea turtle swam by me

How old is she? 100 plus three!

She lays her eggs under the beach

Just beyond the raccoon’s reach

But she belongs to the sea!

 

7) There is a wave I’d like to ride

But on the bottom I like to hide

The sharks and fish they look for me

So I just sit here happily!

 

8) I dream one day I’ll get to ride

But til then I’ll sit and hide

I know one day I’ll get my chance

To ride a wave in my underpants

Cause we belong to the sea!

 

9) I am just a happy turtle

I love my home it is so fertile

The shrimp keep it O so clean

The cleanest home you’ve ever seen.

10) The octopus too have their home

here and their they like to roam

I like the clam and fish you see

My home’s the best in the deep blue sea!

 

11) (shakers…)

Greetings friends its only me

If you look out you’ll surely see

Mount Baker shakin’ shaker’s of snow

And Rainier’s in the band you know

Yes, we belong to the sea.

 

ENDING

Chorus 1

We Belong to the Sea
Swimming in harmony
Friendship is the key
We belong to the sea.

2nd Chorus Ending:

We belong to the sea
Like a big family floating free
Though we swim drift or float
The ocean is our home and we know it forever will be
We belong to the sea
Yes we belong to the sea
We belong to the sea!

Sharing photos

Sometimes it helps to read the manual!

It looks like Flickr--the website that we are using to share photos--has a 10-day review period when you set up a photo-sharing group. Therefore, it looks like anyone wanting to upload photos will have to wait until next week to do that. I'll make sure to let everyone know. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.

In the meantime, you can see a selection of the photos I took here.

The photos from Oasis school are here.

Upload your Waterworld photos and videos.

On the lower right of the site, you will see a random selection of photos from the 2007 Waterworld program. By clicking on one of them, you'll be able to see that photo, and all of the other photos that we've loaded onto www.flickr.com. Flickr is a popular photo sharing website that makes it easy to upload and share photos.

We created a special "photo pool" for Waterworld. To join the pool and upload your own photos from this year, go to http://www.flickr.com/groups/centrumwaterworld/ and start posting!

If you shot video during the week, we hope you'll share that too. We've created a similar sort of group on Youtube where you can upload your Waterworld videos. Go to http://www.youtube.com/group/centrumwaterworld, post your videos, and we'll be sure to let the other participants know!