Family Art Project 2010
This year we were able to run two family artworks, funded by Tesco Charity Trust and the Elmgrant Trust. The first of these was held at Hannahs at Seale Hayne near Newton Abbot. Isabel Coulton, sculptor member of Devon Artist Network, led the workshop and writes:
Aim: to provide safe family exploration in wood and allied materials to
produce a variety of bird sculptures to be grouped together on a tree structure
to form one sculpture.
Our day began setting up at Hannah’s at Seal Hayne at 9a.m. We set up a
group of tables for the charcoal/pastel drawing area designed to ease people
into thinking about birds, shapes and form by drawing with the charcoal and
moving it around with hands and rubbing out to make a more 3 dimensional
picture.
The next group of tables was set up with an area for wood off-cuts, and an
area for various decorative materials.
Against the wall we grouped the tables to form the woodworking section and
set the tables with bench stops clamps,a vice, saws, hacksaws, drills and a
hot glue gun.
I had some examples for people to look at and after the first hesitation,
once one person had started, families soon came and spent at least 45mins
creating their own designs. It was wonderful to see grandfathers and
grandmothers having a go alongside their grandchildren, even with Mum and Dad
there too. My youngest contributor was 3 years old and I held the drill while
she pushed the button and the delight on her face was great to see. A more
middle aged contributor asked if she could use the drill saying she’d never used
one before and she was soon off happily drilling holes to fit pegs to, to join
two pieces of wood together. A group of three girls also had a great time
making a piece together which turned out beautifully. One lad with his
co-worker spent a good while with us, a plan in his head which he executed very
well. His co-worker was amazed at how well he listened to instruction and said
‘it’s wonderful for him to do this as he’s never allowed to do anything with
tools. It’s right up his street’.
Other comments were:
‘ooh, look - tools!
‘I wish we’d found you sooner and we would have been here all day’
‘I thought I couldn’t do art, but this has been great!’
‘Thanks so much, I’ve really enjoyed it.’
Joe and I were kept very busy all day with a small lull at lunch time. We
started packing up at about 4.30 I think, although a few stalwarts could have
gone on longer.
Tidying up was a chore and we left at about 6pm. It was a long but happy
day.
When it came to putting the birds together on the tree, it soon became
apparent that, regardless of my pleas to people to keep them a certain size for
outdoor display, they were actually too large and some a little delicate for
outdoor exhibition. It would have been a shame to spoil them, so I took the
decision to keep them indoors. As a compensation I returned with Joe the
following Wednesday to make a large bird from the same spontaneous method, now
displayed outside Seale Hayne main building.
I think we must have had 25/30 families throughout the day, ages between 3
and 75. We have around 20 pieces displayed outside the gallery and many people
took their sculptures home (about 20) Some families made a piece each. I was
amazed at how much of the materials went…there was very little wood left.
Below: Isabel at work with participants at Seale Hayne
The second workshop was held at the Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World and was led by Bridget Arnold, also a Devon Artist Network member,who writes:
"The Family Workshop at Haldon Forest was very well attended having a prime position next to the CCANW centre with the stage , toilets and café all close by, which meant we did get a lot of participants. I would say roughly 130 people took part and it was supported fantastically by 5 volunteer helpers. A lot of other people looked in to see what was going on, but didn’t make a piece of bunting as it was so busy. A bit more space could have made a difference , although it was great fun running the project in a Yurt.
The Hand sewing machine was a real boost to the event as it performed brilliantly adding another dimension to the Bunting as we could sew on letters to advertise the Devon Open Studios.
Some children were very prolific, coming back on several occasions to make more, so were able to take a piece of bunting home with them. Many parents loved the idea so much that they were going to go home and make bunting with their children.
So, despite the great British Summer rain at times, it went very well. There was a lot of interest about where the bunting will go on to be displayed so it did manage to get the families involved in visiting the Open Studios.
Outside and Inside the Yurt
at Haldon, August 2010
Below: Isabel at work with participants at Seale Hayne
The second workshop was held at the Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World and was led by Bridget Arnold, also a Devon Artist Network member,who writes:
"The Family Workshop at Haldon Forest was very well attended having a prime position next to the CCANW centre with the stage , toilets and café all close by, which meant we did get a lot of participants. I would say roughly 130 people took part and it was supported fantastically by 5 volunteer helpers. A lot of other people looked in to see what was going on, but didn’t make a piece of bunting as it was so busy. A bit more space could have made a difference , although it was great fun running the project in a Yurt.
The Hand sewing machine was a real boost to the event as it performed brilliantly adding another dimension to the Bunting as we could sew on letters to advertise the Devon Open Studios.
Some children were very prolific, coming back on several occasions to make more, so were able to take a piece of bunting home with them. Many parents loved the idea so much that they were going to go home and make bunting with their children.
So, despite the great British Summer rain at times, it went very well. There was a lot of interest about where the bunting will go on to be displayed so it did manage to get the families involved in visiting the Open Studios.
at Haldon, August 2010
Family Art Project 2008
The Awards for All funded Family Art Project workshops
were held over consecutive weekends in July and August last year. We
worked in partnership with local organisations including North Devon
Arts, the Museum of Barnstaple and North Devon, Dartmoor National Park
Authority and the Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World, to
set up and publicise the workshops widely . The Barnstaple workshop run by Paul and Tanya Morel used natural and found materials such as pine cones, shells, seaweed, fleece, twigs, leaves, flowers and bits of plastic and metal to create animals and fantastical creatures. The finished objects were displayed in a perspex fronted Curiosity Box built specially to house them.
Yuli Somme and Tian Kalouli ran their workshop at the Postbridge visitor information centre on Dartmoor and taught participants how to make felt using local Dartmoor fleece in different colours.
The felt was shaped into leaves each with a unique design. The leaves were then tied to a specially built ‘tree’ created by basket maker Linda Lemieux using local birch and willow.
Exeter artists Lucy Rockcliffe, Jess Carvill and Lucy
Burch ran workshops in mosaic and ceramic tile making at CCANW. The
mosaic panels, ceramic tiles and footprints were used to decorate a
large door and door frame.The front showed the positive aspects of Devon open countryside, recycling, wildlife and the back showed the negative aspects such as waste and pollution.
Feedback from all the workshops was extremely positive and they were hugely enjoyed by all ages. The youngest participants were infants of 3 and the oldest was a gentleman in his 80’s.
The opportunity to work alongside professional artists and learn new, enjoyable skills was much appreciated and many people commented that they would like to attend similar workshops in future.
We are planning a further series of Family Art Workshops for summer 2009. Details will be available on the website later this year.
Family Art Project 2009
The
Family Art Project was held at Morwellham Quay near Tavistock as part
of the Devon Open Studios event in September and was led by artist and
maker Chrisy Wallis. The theme was 'Outside.' The project was to
decorate a table and pieces of crockery with a mosaic of 'dock dung
pottery.'
This comes from the manure-rich street sweeping of Devonport, Plymouth in the 19th century. Barges full of this street manure journeyed up the Tamar and were unloaded at Morwellham Quay where local farmers collected it to fertilise their fields. The street sweepings contained other waste such as broken and discarded household crockery which then lay in the soil for over a hundred years. Chrissy has been finding and collecting pieces, many of which were used in this project.
The
Morwellham archaeologist paid a visit to the workshops and was able to
identify some of the mosaic pieces. These included examples of pottery
from the Ming dynasty (1600- 1680); Bristol(Blue Scratchware1780-1810),
Staffordshire (imitation porcelain 1780- 1810), Spanish Majolica (1680
-1750), Porcelain, Delft (Earthenware 1700-1750) and Wan-Li Porcelain
(1700-1750).The finished piece, Afternoon Tea, was exhibited at the Tamar Valley Centre Trail Festival at the end of October.
The Big Draw workshops
The theme of the workshops was 'wildlife arts and crafts' and the artists interpreted this in a variety of fun and imaginative ways.
DAN was delighted to have this opportunity to work with Devon Libraries in this way and we look forward to working with them again in the future.
The images below are from a workshop held at Tiverton Library by Clare Schmidt-Norris.
