A Thousand Cranes
Sara Steele
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
A Thousand Cranes by Students & Faculty, 2007
Paper, ink
This piece was done with the entire population of the C.W. Henry Public K-8 School in Philadelphia. I wanted to work with children on this project, because we must begin teaching values of tolerance and compassion as early as possible. Intolerance is like a weed in an unattended garden: its roots will take over and choke out more nourishing and beautiful plants.
Daily we witness evidence of the early roots of violence and greed —bullying, gossip, name-calling, and exclusionary behaviors in schoolyards and playgrounds, as children imitate what goes on in the media, on the streets, and in their homes. For this project, each teacher read to their class the story of A Thousand Cranes by Sadako Sasaki. The hate books were unbound and cut into squares. The children decorated and trimmed the pages using Crayola markers called “Changeables.” Their designs incorporated words about behaviors they were willing to change and their wishes for the world. Then we folded thesquares into more than a thousand origami cranes. While the children were working, we did not shy away from their questions about text they read on the pages, and we engaged them in discussions about the troubling material.
Bio
Sara Steele was born in Illinois. She travels extensively, but her home base has been in Philadelphia since 1959. Her work is in nearly 200 collections and has been exhibited throughout the United States and in Europe. An activist as well as an artist,Steele works in the areas of ecology and climate change, women’s issues, peace and social justice, and domestic violence prevention. Her pieces are often used to promote and raise funds for organizations working on these causes.
