Teaching artist Nicoletta Daríta de la Brown explains how to create wearable sculpture—a crown, or headdress—with materials found around the house.

Vocabulary You Will Learn:

• Adorn—To use objects, such as ornaments, to enhance the appearance of an object or person.
• Headdress—A type of head covering. Some headdresses may have a strong cultural significance for the wearer.

Materials You Will Need:

• Material for the base of your crown, such as a headband, hat, foil, or wire
• Objects to decorate your crown, such as flowers, tissue paper, feathers, and anything else you want to use
• Fasteners to attach your decorations to your base, such as tape or fabric that can be wrapped and tied

How to Create Your Own Crown with Materials Found in Your Own Home 

1. First, gather the materials you’ll need to make your headdress. 
1. For the base, you’ll need a headband or hat, or some material you can mold to fit your head, such as tin foil, wire, or cardboard. 
2. You’ll also need materials to decorate your base, such as flowers, feathers, tissue paper, and any other objects you want. You can look all over your home, as Nicoletta does, to collect materials that look interesting to you. Be creative!
3. Finally, you’ll need tape or fabric that can be wrapped and tied to attach the materials to your base.
2. Next, you’re going to make your crown! 
1. Start by shaping the base of your crown out of whatever materials you are using to create it. If you are using a base that doesn’t require shaping, such as a headband or hat, you can skip this step. 
2. Next, you’re going to decorate your crown with the materials you collected. Use the tape or other fastening material to cover the base with your collection of materials in any way that looks beautiful to you!

3. Finally, it’s time to activate your crown and bring it to life!
1. First, stand still with the crown on your head to get used to how it feels. You may also do some small, subtle movements if that helps you become acclimated to how the crown feels.
2. Now start to move your body while wearing the crown. You can walk, put on some music and dance, kick, crouch, or do whatever feels right to you! The idea is to try to embody a character, or a version of yourself, that feels at home in your crown.

In the video, Nicoletta challenges us to be creative and unconventional as we use found materials to create our own crown—and then to use our bodies to activate our crown. If you want to go even further, think about these questions: 

• What kind of character might wear the crown that you created? How can you use your body to become that character? How does the character walk, or sit, or dance?
• How would making changes to the crown change the character who wears it? Experiment with adding materials to, or taking them away from, the crown. What kind of character wears this crown, as opposed to the one you created initially?
• Nicoletta talks about using her headdress to show the world things about herself that are invisible. What do you want to show the world about yourself that can’t be seen from the outside? How can you choose materials and create a crown that shows these things?
• Now that you’ve created a crown with found objects in your home, could you find materials elsewhere to create a crown with? What about leaves or sticks from outside, or paper napkins and straws from a restaurant? Where else could you find materials to be creative with?

Accessibility

Don’t forget that you can turn on “Closed Captioning” to view the YouTube video with English captions.

More about the Teaching Artist

Nicoletta Daríta de la Brown (she/they) is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist and chamána (shaman) who comes from a long line of healers. She is Black Latinx, proud to be a first-generation Panamanian born in the United States. Her artworks reconceive the life of an artist as thriving, nourishing herself and others during and through her art practice. She teaches “Mindfulness in Art Practice” at the Baltimore School for the Arts; formerly, she was a sculpture professor at Towson University and adjunct faculty in the MFA Community Arts Program at Maryland Institute College of Art. For more information, visit: https://vidamagica.love.

Kennedy Center Education provides resources and experiences that inspire, excite, and empower students and young artists, plus the tools and connections to help educators incorporate the arts into classrooms and learning spaces of all types.

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Generous support for educational programs at the Kennedy Center is provided by the U.S. Department of Education.

Gifts and grants to educational programs at the Kennedy Center are provided by The Paul M. Angell Family Foundation; Bank of America; Capital One; The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation; Carnegie Corporation of New York; The Ednah Root Foundation; Genesis Inspiration Foundation; Harman Family Foundation; William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust; the Kimsey Endowment; The Kiplinger Foundation; Laird Norton Family Foundation; Lois and Richard England Family Foundation; Dr. Gary Mather and Ms. Christina Co Mather; The Markow Totevy Foundation; Dr. Gerald and Paula McNichols Foundation; The Morningstar Foundation; Myra and Leura Younker Endowment Fund; The Irene Pollin Audience Development and Community Engagement Initiatives;

Prince Charitable Trusts; Dr. Deborah Rose and Dr. Jan A. J. Stolwijk; Rosemary Kennedy Education Fund; The Embassy of the United Arab Emirates; The Victory Foundation; The Volgenau Foundation; Jackie Washington; GRoW @ Annenberg and Gregory Annenberg Weingarten and Family; and generous contributors to the Abe Fortas Memorial Fund and by a major gift to the fund from the late Carolyn E. Agger, widow of Abe Fortas. Additional support is provided by the National Committee for the Performing Arts..

The content of these programs may have been developed under a grant from the U.S. Department of Education but does not necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education. You should not assume endorsement by the federal government.