Stone Soup

 

It was a day unlike any other day at college… it was “Stone Soup” day.  I remember being read the book Stone Soup by Marcia Brown when I was in kindergarten. My 20 classmates and I gathered around our teacher, Ms. Fong, sitting on our little floor pillows and listening with eager ears.  I am sure most of you know the story, but in short, it is about three soldiers who are able to bring a community together and feed a large group of people through innovation and a little creativity.  I actually had not thought about this story until Housefield the week previous in Design said that we would be having a “Stone Soup” day where everyone would collaborate on building something out of “materials.”  The word material is pretty vague but my group ended up bringing all sorts of different items including glitter glue, cardboard boxes, metal wire, bottles, and much more.  At first, I was a bit skeptical that anything of interest would come out of these everyday, trash objects, but through thought, teamwork, and honestly, some spontaneity, our “soup” turned out pretty cool.  I really liked how everyone worked together, keeping the communication open, throughout the building process.  It was a good lesson on designing something, that alone, one may be at a loss of what to do, but once everyone starts talking and throwing out ideas, a great thing can be made.  My favorite part of our “soup” (which I should really call more of a sculpture) was the wrapped up cider bottle inside of the triangular box with the mesh, cut up, plastic fruit boxes as the background.  I have attached a picture of this above!