CD Scratch art at New Richland Library

An artistic opportunity presented itself at the New Richland Public Library on Tuesday, June 17: CD Scratch Art. Attendance at the event, geared toward children preschool through fifth grade, was so strong that three additional tables had to be brought in to accommodate the large and chatty bunch.

 

Many who grew up with CDs, or even old vinyl albums, know that at their respective heights, many people had gigantic collections of them. So anyone looking for old CDs can easily acquire quite a few now that the media format is mostly obsolete. But head librarian Kathy Kronebusch chose CDs to give the kids a taste of the past. She selected the day’s project from a large booklet the Waseca Le Sueur County Library System provides. Also provided are needed supplies and lots and lots of CDs. Kronebusch compared the activity to an old grade-school project. “You remember back in school when they had you color thick, multiple layers of crayon on a blank sheet of paper, then paint over that? The following day you would take a paperclip or something to scrape the top layer away to get an explosion of color in thin little lines. This is like that but with CDs.”

 

Kayla Wobbrock, who provides group family childcare, and who is also in charge of the energetic group of children in the School Age Care program, said, “We got a flyer telling us the dates for all these events at the library, and we really try to join every activity we can.” As she spoke, numerous children were comparing the “accidental touches” of paint on each other’s arms and fingers. The CDs were passed around the table, the tools were selected and passed out as all the children went to work.

 

Some of the designs looked like houses, or cars and a horse or two. There were two or three little ones whose pictures looked like squiggly lines. Some had names, others went unlabeled, but all of them were unique. Young artists were all given their CDs to take home at the end of the session.