Solstice Tree

The North Dakota Museum of Art has offered an opportunity to all school groups or classes to participate in a community-driven art exhibition set to open December 21, 2018. Collaborating with Bradford Hansen-Smith, a working artist and teacher who lives in Grand Forks, the students are in the process of making a magnificent Solstice tree from thousands of paper plates.

Brad’s own recent paper-plate sculpture exhibition at the Museum was a “WOW” for everyone who saw it. Brad has developed a process of learning - simple to utterly complex geometric relationships - through folding paper circles; he calls this process Wholemovement™.

His folding techniques offer a fun, hands-on approach to exploring geometry and art. Children and adults enjoy folding, taping, and coloring paper plates, all the while being led into deeper discussion of mathematical principles and several other STEAM aspects. (Science, Engineering, Technology, Art, and Math)

Bradford is teaching his Wholemovement™ process to classrooms of students all across Grand Forks. The process is rooted in touching points on the surface of the paper plate to create folds which, when repeated in a consistent manner, allow beautiful geometric forms to be created. With each fold more information is generated and explored — plants, DNA strands, benzene ring matrices, torus rings, Mobius strips, vector equilibrium, prism, anti-prism, hexagons, octahedral, fractals, patterns, and the ever present tetrahedron are just a few of the options. The classrooms of students are being guided by Bradford to create basic geometric forms that will function as building blocks. The hundreds of resulting building block sculptures will then be assembled in the Museum into the form of a gigantic Solstice tree surrounded by geometric icicle forms suspended from the ceiling.

Schools visited include:
Century Elementary School
Winship Elementary School
Phoenix Elementary School
Ben Franklin Elementary School 
Discovery Elementary School 
Valley Middle School
Central High School
J Nelson Kelly Elementary School
Lewis & Clark Elementary School
Red River High School
Lake Agassiz Elementary School
Elroy Schroeder Middle School
Nathan Twining Elementary and Middle School

Over a thousand students are involved in this project. We need your help to fund the material costs, installation of the Solstice Tree, and Brad's time.

Any amount helps. 

We've used over 10,000 paper plates and 50,000 twist ties for starters. Students have been excitedly working together in their classrooms to create the building blocks for the tree. Brad has been driving all around Grand Forks keeping up with invitations from teachers as the news about the project has spread. What started off as a simple idea has grown into a huge celebration of community spirit and we need your help to see it through.

$1 helps fund a box of twist ties
$2 helps fund a package of paper plates
$5 helps fund one block of the tree
$25 helps fund the materials for one classroom of students
$50 helps fund the materials for two classrooms
$100 reserves a bus for a field trip to see the Solstice Tree in the Museum
$250 helps fund the installation of the Solstice Tree
$500 helps fund Brad's time inspiring our community through the Solstice Tree project and upcoming celebration

If you donate we will put your name on our sponsor panel in the gallery with the Solstice Tree and will list your name on our website. 

The Museum is grateful to the wonderful response we continue to receive from our local community and beyond. Thank you.