Making Art With Other People.

The After School Club.

Tables gone innit

sawn off at the point where the wood goes into the metal.

We’ve a BBQ with parents, school govenors and the agency I am working for is sending some more senior staff I believe.

The heat is on:

Staff off sick

moral is low

and I am not going to mention the gossip around the school!

D day is 2 July and a small…….ish part the budget has been used for unknown expenditure to me : venue hire sort of expenditure. Which is cool, as I went there for a meeting, that wasnt organised by me.

So living on the edge.

A preview at the After School Club.

I have 21 children (some double sided) cut outs made from 18mm plywood. I took a few into the after school club to see what they looked like and where we might put them. I have about 4 left to complete.

They caused a stir, which is the point really. I also have about a dozen flowers to go with them.

The North South Divide.

(St. Helens part one)

I have recently returned from installing the ‘Ward names Mosaic’ at St. Helens Hospital. As usuall the unexpected happens on these occasions. The weather was sunny and very breezey which meant the cement dried very quickly (I deliberatly didnt use quick drying cement either) the result is a lot of what I call ‘cutting back’, where you cant leave cement down very long before removing it, because it has formed a crust on the top of it already. Lay your mosaic on cement with a dry crust on top and regret it.

I put masking tape all round the edge of the mosaic to protect the stailess steel perimiter. This took 2 bottles nail varnish remover from Morrisons, and a container of evo stick glue and grease remover to get the poxy stuff off. It had cooked hard on there with the sun.

But the most apparent thing, was peoples attitude. I dont know if scousers are just happy, jolly, friendly folk anyway? But compared to the south easteners…say M25 and below, god we are such miserable batrasds

When ever I have worked in the SE people just moan that their taxes are paying for this shite, and that money would be much better spent on their drains which have been blocked for 18 months, which the council haven’t sorted out yet! But any other part of the country folk are interested, complimentary and can exchange views and chat away happily for ages. One converstation led to Woolwich and Canterbury where this old boy was stationed with the artillery. These are towns I know very well and have lived very close by them both.

Maybe S. Easterners have mellowed a little over the years with free museum and gallery entry, and folk are more used to seeing and being around art and stuff on the streets more. But I dont think I have distorted things too much.

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.