THE ART OF ODDS & ENDS

It's hard to imagine creating art from a tube sock, but trust Rita Johnson: It can be done.

In fact, socks of all shapes, sizes and colors were in use at the Jan. 6 session of the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri's Eco-Art program. Youngsters and their parents fashioned puppets from socks, plastic cups, wooden dowels, scraps of fabric and felt and other odds and ends.

"Any type of a child's sock or adult's sock will work," Johnson said. "Anything you have at home that's clean."

The puppet-making session was the third in a series of Eco-Art workshops aimed at teaching children to use whatever material is around the house or backyard to create art, Johnson said.

In addition to puppet-making, sessions on leaf-printing on fabric and making wreaths with nature items already have been held.

"I do a lot of this with my own kids," Johnson said. "It's a way to cut costs. It's also a way to show kids that materials can be used more than once, that it's not just a throwaway society."

Sonia Tikoo and Keely Lossing, both 9, were hard at work making puppets Jan. 6.

"You use a Styrofoam ball for the head and insert it in the sock," Sonia explained. "We're going to decorate them with little eyeballs. Just glue them on there, and maybe some glitter or felt or pompons."

Jordan Dickerson, 7, and his mother, Patricia, teamed up to make a puppet.

Jordan couldn't pick a favorite activity from the sessions he's attended so far, saying he likes "everything."

"I just like the fun," he said.

Patricia Dickerson said the leaf print Jordan made a few weeks ago is still on the wall. "It's so pretty we don't want to take it down," she said.

"We'll keep it forever," Jordan added.

Patricia Dickerson said the program is a good way for parents and children to spend time together.

"It's really fun," she said. "It's not expensive, and it teaches him to use his creativity. Nothing costs that much. Every time we come home, I can come up with something else for him to do."

Jordan made a wreath in one of the earlier sessions, she said, "and we ended up using it as a candle holder."