All Stitched Up and Ready To Go
Six stitched bodies ready to be stuffed/filled with the material of the artist’s choice and to interact with and record their local environment in some way… really excited about sending them out, letting go and seeing what happens!
Sending small bodies out into the world…
My work has always been about being situated as an embodied individual in the world. Sometimes its about exploring that directly whilst I’m ‘out and about’, other times its about reflecting on my developing awareness through making. I’ve constructed life-size body spaces from local materials, and I’ve made smaller bodies that I’ve placed and photographed in different environments.
I’m about to kick off a new collaborative piece of work, that sits somewhere between the two – making simple cloth figures for other artists to use to explore their own local environment – to rub on trees, bury in the ground, tie/stitch things on, write/draw on, whatever they feel they want to.
Three of us are starting this off and sharing documentation of our experiments – Myself, Chris Seeley and Kathy Skerrit – in Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, UK and in Cleveland, Ohio in the US. It could grow from there to include other people, or it could morph into something else between the three of us, we’ll see where it goes.
For now its just exciting to be taking a way of working and making it bigger, doing it ‘in community’ with artist friends and colleagues, and exploring further how making and environmental exploration can link, to support the development of different ways of seeing/being with the world around us.
Making Links and Building Relationships
My second session for 5x5x5=creativity at St Saviours Infants was really interesting. There were three adults facilitating and documenting the group this time, myself, Becky a Reception class teaching assistant, and Gillian. Gillian is also an artist and an art therapist, and is supporting the work this year after her son was part of last year’s project.
We offered the children the same materials as last week, except that the small objects (beads,corks etc) weren’t included but large rolls of paper were. I wanted to give the children an opportunity to explore their mark-making and their pathway/boundary defining together and on a large scale if they wanted to.
In the end, the main interest in the paper was tearing it up, in a very physical, high energy way.
A lot of this week, for me, was about how the children related to each other. They used the string to create web-like structures that wound around each others bodies, or directly tied themselves to each other.
Children that were shy or hesitant to verbalise what they wanted to do last week were more confident this week, and ideas rippled through the group as children played together and copied each other.
One key interest continues to be the tree, not surprisingly as it is the dominant feature in the space, standing as it does at the centre. Again this week the children created a rope swing/ladder, and children that were stronger or more agile were able to help other children with encouragement and advice, taking turns and taking on new roles of responsibility and support.
I’m really interested in how the materials offered can enable/support the formation/strengthening of relationships amongst the children, as well as with their environment. The language says it all really – making links, building relationships.
As different children become more confident within the group, and offer up their own ideas and strengths to this new ‘community’, it will be fascinating to see the impact on the direction of our work together, as well as on each individual’s learning and behaviour.
New Year, New Space, New Children
Yesterday was the first session of a new period of action research for 5x5x5=creativity at St Saviours Infant School in Bath.
In a similar way to last year’s residency I am going to be spending half a day a week at the school working with Reception children.
What’s slightly different is that this year children have been chosen from across the three Reception classes who it is felt would most benefit from this focused, small group opportunity, to see what effect such a creative approach to outdoor, site responsive learning will have on them.
Last year we were exploring the general benefits and practicalities of creative outdoor learning (online exhibition here) – how such child-led work could work within each of the school’s outdoor spaces and its timetable, and what resources were needed. This year we have chosen one space and group and will be tracking their progress across 12 to 15 weeks.
I’m not going to be able to go into detail on individual children here, but thought it might be interesting to share the approach and the thinking behind the work, as it evolves and develops, and we respond to their needs and interests.
The space we’re working in is a courtyard area, surrounded on all sides by walls/windows and with a tree in the centre. Around the courtyard on two sides are covered walkways supported by wooden posts.
For this first session, with children I’d not met before and in a new working space, I decided to bring materials which could give them opportunities to explore the space and structures, connecting them, hanging from and tying to them – exploring width, height, weight, and generally mapping out our new working environment.
I wanted to offer those children that find it challenging to settle and focus in a more traditional classroom setting, the opportunity to use their whole body in their exploration and learning. At the start of a project like this I also find that such connective materials (rope, ribbon, string) offer opportunities for children to connect and work together, as well as connecting physical features.
In addition the teaching staff were keen that we include small objects for ‘small world play’, encouraging fine motor skills and offering an alternative scale.
To begin the session I briefly introduced myself and the resources, and encouraged the children to explore the space and to change it if they wanted to, telling them that I and Anna, the teaching assistant that I was working with, were interested in their ideas and would write and take photos to help us remember.
So that’s the beginning. I’ve included a selection of images to show the different things that the children did together, manipulating materials to try out ideas and to make sense of their environment; from making a rope swing in the tree, to creating a ‘party’ from coloured ribbon stretched between posts, with added invitations to their friends. There was a lot of running, of laying trails and of making obstacle courses, but also more delicate and methodical arranging, making and thinking.
I’ll be in school again next Monday, building on what we’ve observed of the children’s emerging interests and behaviours, and the staff group will be continuing to offer access to the space and resources for all Reception children in between during their free-flow ‘Discovery Time’.
That’s another key part to this year’s project, although the time I’m there will be focused on a smaller group of 10 to 12 children, the themes, resources and documentation from each session will be shared with all Reception year children, staff and parents each week, enabling everyone to benefit and the ripples to spread more widely.
I wrote a guest post for an advent blog ‘The Telling’ last week, using thoughts and photographs to explore what we can learn from seasonal changes, and the importance of taking some slower, more reflective time to allow our thoughts and feelings to find a balance. I talked about how we can ‘compost’ them, and receive the enriching benefits for the coming year.
I’ve also been maintaining an ongoing dialogue with Artists Chris Seeley and Kathy Skerrit, on the role of art in this time of environmental degradation, social change, transition and action – described as ‘The Great Turning’ by Joanna Macy. There is going to be an opportunity for artists to respond to the theme of ‘The Great Turning’ and submit work for inclusion in a book next year. I’ll add more information here when we put that call-out together.
I’ve been asking myself questions as I compost the past year, and make plans for the next. Pretty big questions in fact. What is the point of what I do? What am I really interested in? What do I value?
I went for another walk on Saturday, it’s the way that thoughts and peace come to me. One thought that popped back up, as I moved through the woods and paused to take in sounds, shapes and patterns, was ‘God is in the Detail’. Its not meant as a religious proclaimation, but a way of summing up what I’m doing and why I’m doing it, of focusing me and my practice.
As I walk and photograph, it’s like a moving meditation, noticing and paying attention to the rich detail of the world around me. Its like a metaphor for the path of my life too, and how I want to live it.
As I see an amazing pattern in a puddle or watch the movement of a falling feather, or am taken by surprise at the sound of a bird, I feel love for that world, I feel connected to it and a part of it. As I experience it I also experience me, my eyes seeing, my skin feeling.
What differences could be made in the world if we all had a chance to experience our own selves as integral, ‘natural’, creative parts of the world – as a part of ‘God’ ? (or of ‘Oneness’ or ‘Nature’).
Next year I’m really pleased to be working with Reception children again at St Saviours School in Bath with 5x5x5=creativity, exploring the value of creative outdoor learning for a specific group of children, and on a second project with Year 1 children and Forest School practitioners. An online exhibition sharing some of our research from this year, and that of a few of the other settings involved in 5×5 during 2010/11, can be seen here on the exhibitions page of the 5x5x5=creativity website.
I’m also going to be working with the Hampshire Museums Service and the Forest Arts Centre on an art and heritage project, supporting local children to find their own connection with their local heritage and to explore that through art. I am also developing more cpd sessions for educators and artists, on using photography as a tool for learning amongst other things. More to come as things develop.
In the meantime, thank you for reading, I hope that you have a very happy, restful and fun Christmas, with a little time to compost…
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been working with staff and volunteers at The Bishops Palace in Wells, Somerset, running a project called Amazing Animals with children from a local school.
The children were a group of ten Year 5′s, a deliberately small group working with a fairly high ratio of adults, in order to give them the time and support that they might benefit from.
We wanted to provide the children with the support and tools necessary to make their own decisions about what they were to create and how, as they drew their inspiration from the natural and historic environment of The Bishops Palace and gardens.
Their finished artwork is now mounted on the walls of the learning room, built as part of the Palace’s HLF funded programme of development, which includes a programme of activities such as community gardening, as well as the creation of new facilities for visitors.
The children are going to be inviting friends and family back in the New Year to a celebration day – celebrating what they’ve achieved during the project, and sharing their new-found knowledge.
Thanks to the school staff and children for the use of some of the images included here…
Noticing Leaves
I went for a jog this morning, running over the leaves that are now turning to a mulch, to compost; ready to play a new role as earth, as worm food.
I like to draw from my everyday experiences, and one thing you can’t get away from at the moment is leaves. At this time of the year they float down from their merged together greenery up in the trees, and show themselves as beautifully bright, delicate, veined shapes.
While they are still here I wanted to try and hang onto a few and feed them into my artwork – to press some, stitch, glue and combine them with other finds.
I think sometimes we get used to art being about shock, about the big spectacle or about technological innovation, and sometimes we just need to reach down and pick up a leaf and notice it as a beautiful thing.
I was part of an event on Creativity and Emotional Well Being on Friday at The American Museum in Bath, organized by 5x5x5=creativity. I thought some of you might find it interesting to share some of the ideas and subjects discussed on the day.
The afternoon of the seminar was divided roughly into four parts, with three presentations/conversations, and then time for the wider group to divide up and discuss some of the issues raised in smaller groups.
The first slot was a dialogue between Karen John, Psychologist and Robyn Pound Health Visitor. Karen and Robyn talked about a democratic environment as a healthy state of being, and of the ‘Crucial C’s’ – ‘the beliefs that one is connected to others, a part of family and community, capable of taking care of oneself; and is valued by others, has the knowledge that one counts and makes a difference, and had the courage needed to meet life’s challenges.’
Next came Catherine Lamont Robinson artist and researcher, and Helen Jury, artist and art psychotherapist. Catherine and Helen shared examples from their own practice within and outside of 5x5x5=creativity, looking at the role of creative practice in health, education and psychotherapy, focusing on the impact of such work on individuals. Video footage of this discussion, filmed by Jack Whitehead is available to view on YouTube
The third session was where I came in, alongside Ed Harker, Head teacher at St Saviours Infant School in Bath, and Gillian MacFarland, parent of a child that I worked with at St Saviours and an artist and art therapist. We began our session with an introduction to the work that we have carried out together with teacher Tracy Fournier over the last year, and which we plan to continue over this coming academic year. We built on the two sessions before us, taking the theory and ethos of the first session, and the way that the second session made the case for the benefit of creative practice for individual mental health, and applied these to the hands-on reality of a creative learning project in a school setting.
My own priority was to look at Creative Outdoor Learning, and what happens when each member of a group is supported to lead their own learning within a specific place, using their senses and imaginations to generate a dialogue with their physical, ecological and social environment. In terms of mental health, it’s my belief that we need to experience the reality of our continuity with the world around us to feel that we belong. We need to experience the fact that we are innately creative, and equally important parts of the whole. I also believe that if we experience ourselves as important parts of the whole, then we are more likely to act in positive, affirmative ways towards others and to develop greater empathy for difference.
There has been a lot of talk recently about why people aren’t acting to halt the loss of biodiversity, to slow global warming etc, why people in general seem unable to change their behaviour. The Common Cause Report from the WWF and others looked at why, with all the information available to us as a society, we aren’t acting fast enough, aren’t seeming to care enough to do what needs to be done. For me it’s something to do with the way that we perceive and relate to the world around us, the way that we learn about our environment and ourselves. As a society, we tend to see the world as ‘out there’, we split the world into the ‘natural’ and the ‘man-made’, we apply inherited ways of seeing the world onto our sensory experiences, and filter our experiences accordingly.
So what is the alternative? What other models are there of learning about and being with the world? Does the way that we are currently taught deny us a more direct connection with the world around us and a sense of agency? It’s a huge subject but to me it’s such an important one.
I think we can earn a lot from other more traditional, aboriginal societies, but we can also learn from the research done by organisations such as 5x5x5=creativity. Through my work within and outside of 5x5x5, I can explore what happens when we allow each individual to go out into the world, and develop knowledge and understanding through direct interaction and experience; what happens when we support each person to experience themselves as innately creative and valuable, and encourage the to share their experiences with others in dialogue.
I believe that if we change the way that children are taught, and enable them to learn about themselves through relationship with the real world around them, through their bodies, imaginations, needs and strengths, then we boost their self esteem, their confidence, their social skills and their ability to empathise not only with each other, but with the non-human world. When we experience ourselves as embedded within the fabric of the world, as an integral part of it, we cannot so readily divorce ourselves from the damage that we are doing to it.
It’s a subject that is continually unfolding in terms of my own understanding, and which is a central theme to my practice as an artist, so please share your own thoughts or research as comments if you’re able to.
But for now, I’ll end with a quote that I read at the conference.
‘As part of the growing movement to shift the paradigm of a bounded, isolated self toward a vision of a self that is permeable, interconnected not only with other human selves but with all living beings and processes, a new theory of child development must be evolved. Such a theory must take into consideration that the infant is born into not only a social but an ecological context. It must acknowledge that, from the earliest moments of life, the infant has an awareness not only of human touch, but of the touch of the breeze on her skin, variations in light and temperature, texture, sound.’
Anita Barrows – The Ecopsychology of Child Development
Taking Pictures to the Plain
Continuing on from my experiments with printed photographs in Savernake Forest, I took some images of Salisbury Plain back up to the Plain with me today. The last time I was there it was warm and sunny with wide blue skies, this time was grey, wet and blowy.
Taking an image each of a path across the Plain near Upavon, a tractor track in the grass, and a lichen encrusted fencepost, I used the printed images to document my walk and respond to the plants, animals and weather.
Again the images out in the landscape were taken on my phone, but this time I’ve included some images taken on my camera afterwards of the detail of each one too.
Printing, Writing, Stitching, Rubbing
I had an unexpectedly free afternoon today, so as I wanted to play with my new printer, and have been desperate to start making some new work, I killed two birds with one stone.
These are ink-jet prints of some photographs that I took not long ago in Savernake Forest near Marlborough. I printed them off and then took them back to the Forest to try and record some of the sounds, smells, colours that I experienced there today.
I like the idea of taking a more removed way of viewing a place such as a photograph, and layering it with thoughts, feelings and the actual ‘stuff’ of that place. It’s like combining or merging different ways of knowing and being with the world.
Being in the Forest waiting to be ‘given’ a sound or smell to record is a completely different experience to walking through and taking a photograph, just as kneeling in the leaves to stitch one of them on is too. It’s slower, it makes me quieter, and I see and hear things that I might not have otherwise, like the wave of droplets smacking against the leaves and floor as wind pushes the air though the trees, or the sparrowhawk that swerved around a tree trunk and passed with a few feet of my body.
I’m sorry that the images aren’t great (my phone didn’t like the low light), but it’s the overall feeling of them that’s key to me, the way that the different kinds of information mix and blend.
