Stone Soup

Last Tuesday, my Design 1 group brought various materials to class in order to make our own version of “Stone Soup.”

Stone Soup, as we were reminded in class, is about three soldiers who, after their inability to find a home to eat at, decided to make their own meal - a soup. However, they did not have any ingredients to make this soup, so they asked each villager or family of villagers to make a small contribution in order for them to eat. Eventually, the villagers became eager to contribute to the soup in order to make it taste good. Each villager collaborated and worked together to create a delicious soup for the soldiers and everybody to eat. Applying this story to our class, Professor Housefield wanted us to make our own version of Stone Soup through working together and collaborating our ideas to create something “aesthetically appealing.”

Our supplies included construction paper, raffia, paint, rubber gloves, markers, a dictionary, water bottles cut into shapes, and other “ingredients” that could be added to our“soup.” At first, we were puzzled as to what to create, since we did not see an obvious way to bring all of our ingredients together. After brainstorming some ideas, we finally drew inspiration from one of our Christine’s shirt, which from KDVS with a green octopus on it.

Thus the creation process began! We decided the best way to construct our octopus was to make a head first and then the tentacles. We chose to use the raffia for the shape of a head and then each one of our members would contribute their own tentacle. Each member expressed their views of how we thought we could best construct the head. After much trial and error, we all decided that our octopus was less than aesthetically pleasing.

On to Plan B. We chose, instead, to make baby octopus from the rubber gloves and put in on the existing octopus. While some of us made the babies, the rest worked to compile a better octopus. Someone even threw in the idea of using the words “create” and “design” from the dictionary for others to interpret

what these words meant.

In the end, we created a something that everybody contributed to and were pleased with. Though it may not win the award for “Best Design,” we were successful in creating something that expressed everybody’s ideas and creativity towards a common goal. We learned to work together and because of this experience, we have become closer as a group and are not afraid to express our own thoughts and opinions with each other.