Judith Scott is a world renowned fiber artist with down syndrome. She spent most of her life in an institution, and her natural gifts may never have been discovered had her sister not fought for guardianship later in Judith’s life and enrolled her in an arts education program. It was here that they discovered she had a natural eye for form and color as she started combining and wrapping objects in yarn entirely on her own to make fantastical abstract sculptures. Being that my group I work with is primarily adults with disabilities, I love sharing stories like this. I also thought this project would be a nice break from a traditional art assignment because it’s completely open ended.

This project is intuitive, fun, and a little crazy. Repeatedly students throughout the process would laugh and say, “I have no idea what I’m trying to do…” but they were engaged and smiling! Sometimes you need to just let loose and allow creating to be about nothing more than the process, enjoying the act of assembling, the feel of the different textures of material, just let your senses take everything in.

We started with an armature, frankensteining together random objects to create the shape we would wrap with yarn. Then, we got to wrapping. It works best to use as little glue as possible to still have the wrapping stick so you don’t get a soggy mess. I used some at the beginning and end, and just wrapped tightly so the rest holds on its own.

Some became inspired by a real living thing they chose to abstract, and some just let the shape of their chosen object speak for itself. It was very interesting to see what each individual came up with!

This is a great boredom buster for kids as well, and doesn’t use a lot of materials… Just yarn and literally anything laying around the house you would usually toss or just don’t know what to do with. It is also a wonderful segway into discussing that individuals with disabilities have rich inner lives; interests, goals, and achievements just like we all do – and that we all reach our full potential best when we have someone who is willing to come by our side, be a friend, and believe in us!

If you end up trying this at home, please share I’d love to see pictures! Have fun :).