Making Art With Other People.

The Garden of Dreams

The New Boy.

As I have explained the Transition Group can not join in the mainstream classroom lessons and we have a new boy from Eastern Europe with us, he has no English whatsoever.

My memory of this project is like a Hieronymus Bosch painting with pupils totally out of control, running randomly over the remotest parts of the school grounds sticking forks into orifices and poking dead birds with sticks. But I look back over the photos and review it all very fondly now.

I have really enjoyed working with the new boy who I can’t speak with. We are able to work together with some gesturing. This includes a pulling motion for ‘start the generator up’ and a little thumb + fore finger twisting motion for ‘turn it off’. Obvious ones like pointing at a bit of wood with a sawing or hammering action. A little trigger motion means cordless screw driver. I could see him getting a little frustrated at getting screws in tight without skidding all over the head and rounding the screw head off, thus not being able to quite screw it home firm enough. We got a new drill bit out of the packet and a smile said everything as he smashed a screw right in first go.

The Garden of Dreams

This project is the most difficult for many years, and I am lucky to have a Peter working with me on it, mutual support is essential. The deputy head today mentioned that he had half expected a blog thing, I think he was talking about a video diary really but we spoke about the possibilities of a blog on the school website? I asked him how many degrees of a ‘warts an all’ depiction of our progress was acceptable. He smiled and said that A level students now submitted what they rejected as part of their course.

This raises the question of how your commissioner/patron/stakeholders are depicted in ones blog. A proffesional dilema as there are things that I could say which are really detromental to that relationship. On the other hand real valuable information to people wishing to avoid simimilar situations or struggling with something like it.

I am not going to blog on the school website for two reasons!

A) Its too far in and a change of style would be required as the point of the blog is to get parents reading and the wider family members interested in whats happening at school. Great I should be jumping at that and helping the school by using art and creativity as a view finder through which to see what is going on. But I have decided to wait for another opportunity.

B) I have already gone to conciderable lengths to highlight this project within the school and my efforts are lost, forgotten and promises broken. I am weary from misplaced efforts. I am not convinced it would get on the school website no matter how positive it was, after going to all the trouble of creating it. I wont get extra money for it and valuable time is running out and progress painfully slow.

Let me show you two examples from this project which illustrate how extreme it is.

Even though me and Pete are running out of time to complete what we had hoped, a teacher has requested that the project returns the the class room for part of the morning session as they are unable to change their footware and this means walking on the field in smart well dressed shoes, something they are not prepared to do. We spent over one hour this morning trying to write an answer to the question: What have I learnt from this project. One answer was I learned how to measure a desk? Most were unable to answer this question and unable to write anything at all. The students are unable to separate what they did from what they had learnt. ‘But we are staying here untill you’ve answered the question’.

I believe inadvertantly we as artists have undermined the teachers authority. We treat the students as equals let them use power tools, trust them to work as independantly as possible and dont constantly tell them off, We break school rules slightly. They like us were are rebelious and dont get told off for driving a car on the school field, when they are not even allowed on it. We are friends the adult child thing is broken down. Teachers are in danger of loosing the control they have taken so long to establish and we have punctured their authority not on purpose or through design.

One student when we began this project was unable to understand the difference between nails and screws and would attempt to screw in a clout nail with a cordless screw driver. Now with patience and letting them learn through trial and error because hammering in 2 and a half inch screws was also tried out. This particular student is now able to measure wood to length cut it with a powered mitre saw and screw it in place. Though unable to explain that is something learnt.

The After School Club want a phase two to their building make over. I think it will have to become slightly environmental!

They have already got the money!

I watched Avitar the other day for the first time. Its marvelous, and uses the plight of the ‘red indian’ as a plot line. What I thought very interesting is that this is the second childrens film I can think of (Robots was the first) where technology and progress are the bad guys and get smashed up. The old ways are triumphant. Will the writers of Avitar 2 invent a new outcome for the indigenous race who won the battle of the Little Big Horn but lost the overall war.

Back to community arts then: and different people are asking me to be involved on a number of things, early days and nothing concrete. It is encouraging that people take an interest in what I have done and want to colaborate.

I have worked with Animate Arts http://www.animatecommunityarts.com/index.html on several projects over the years and I displayed snippets of my ‘Walking with Cosmo’ Blog as part of a group show with other members of this group in Whitstable. I got an email from a labradoodle called Tatty. As it turns out Tattys Mum is part of an organisation I would like to become part of www.workers-of-art.co.uk they wanted to include me in a stable of artists working on comminity projects. I also have a meeting next week with the Kent Wildlife Trust?….this is make it your own type of opportunity and Carol Ramseys Butterfly Park must serve as a model for this kind of thing.

I also entered for Art Cars? the type of opportunity I would not normally go for, but I shelled out less than £10 for a model car painted and assembled it and submitted it? I dont know who to or what exactly for but I had great fun making it and thought models (not kits) of any kind an interesting development for me. Something I need to find time to explore.