The school Trip.
My big school project, finds me on a school trip to visit one of my previous school garden projects, and then onto another location to see how public space is layed out, how the landscape designers have incorperated planting, paving and other features like sculpture or street furniture into a public setting. Seating and provision for eating may be particularly relevent to us on our school project.
This is the ‘transition group’ which have particular educational needs. I dont know how much free reign they will take, or how much they are allowed?
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Aspbergers, ADHD, other behaviour and language issues abound, a little short of mayhem in parts, but actually a great day out. When a pupil comes up and says ‘I want to ask my mum to bring me here at the weekend’, and another says ‘I would like to come on holiday here’. You feel like you made a good choice of venue for a school trip. Our long term task, to design and build a garden for a brand new school building not yet constructed. In fact our garden will be built and finished on the site before anything else. This is part of the building schools for the future programe. Our next school trip Kew Gardens. Our next task; Site survey.
Living in a world of my own.
I would like to show you how my mosaic for St, Helens Hospital is moving along, its going very nicely indeed. There is something amazing about making little micro worlds. I like doing the doors and windows as they almost take you inside the picture into a land like the one in ‘Night at the museum’ where everything becomes alive.
It’s an imaginary landscape which does become populated, a kind of make believe community (in my mind anyway) it helps pass the hours cracking rocks. I am actually looking forward to making the minning community which has the ‘Dream’ at the centre. Its not often I can remember looking forward to doing mosaics. Its those masive mothers they sap you, break you down mentally.
This one is a smallish medium sized one. It will also be broken up by other projects. I have three schools projects: a little one, a middle sized one and a big one.
110 v Hammer Action
The installation of the panels went very well. The pupils were very excited and the commonest remark during the whole day was ‘there’s mine’. Even the head teacher said it 3 times.
Its a very nice school and they are proud of what they did. Teachers and their assistants, dinner ladies, caretakers not to mention pupils have been loitering, looking, pointing and gigeling all day, (in a very polite way I have to say).
I would formally like to appolagise again to the class on the otherside of the wall who had to put up with over 60 holes made by:
110v
705w
Hammer action
for alot of their day.
and thanks to Jo as well for the whole thing. (My invoice will be in the post by Friday by the way).
I am working with a friend Jo on this. She runs this Community Arts outfit called Animate. I have worked with her on several occasions before, and her projects are very community focused.
I have to put this together. There are 400 tiles. Each one done by a primary school pupil and a few dinner ladies and teachers etc.
The whole thing will form a frieze and I will be installing it on Monday.
You know those old school photos of the whole school. The ones where there are five rows of students all pozing formally, the oldest year standing on benches at the back and the youngest ones kneeling down to form the front row. A record of the whole school community.
This kind of reminds me of that. It is actually a celebraion of the year 2008, as this was when their new school was built.
Here is the cartoon. Not a drawing with large ears and big nose, no thats Cosmo.
In the case of mosaic the cartoon is sacrificial. This means it gets destroyed in the making process, (cartoons for frescos survive the ordeal).
