The second leg of my bursary trip meant moving on to Hampshire and the workshop of Roger Russell. Roger has come at sculpture- making via a long career in prototype military avionics electrical/mechanical engineer. But even at work, he was (he wouldn’t mind me saying) the eccentric one in the corner with a desk full of models he’d been making when they weren’t busy, and the one everyone came to when nobody else could figure out how to make something.
After being made redundant when systemisation of the processes took over, he turned full time to sculpture making and spreading the in-depth knowledge he has built up over 30 years. He is a true teacher in that he really wants to pass on knowledge and get students able to make on their own. I spent 3 days with Roger learning and exchanging information (Roger is really interested in developing Community Arts networks and practises, and I was able to share some of my knowledge of that area with him)
It has been a long time since I’ve spent so long learning in one go. Many years ago I was lucky to be part of a group of women in Edinburgh funded in a 2 year Women into Non-Traditional Skills artistic metalwork course. We then went on to found the women’s welding collective ArcAngels where we exhibited and supported each other for 10 years.
The unlucky part was that this was the early 90s and we were among the first, (certainly the first group) of women to enter the engineering department where the course took place. Some of the men in the department embraced the change, but others made it very clear we were an intrusion, and we were often not given tools from the store, even if we could see and point to them if we didn’t know the exact name. Or we could have men standing over us at machines and refusing to show us how they worked…
Nowadays, of course, our reaction would be very different, but at the time we were young, and expected to just accept the behaviour-because, we were told, that’s just how they were…
So my relation to learning has been coloured by that experience, and also the quality of learning we had. For the last ten years, I have been teaching others. For 6 years in South America teaching and running recycled design skill projects to women’s groups so they could gain an income, and most recently in Community Arts in North Wales. I love getting people to be creative, also letting go of the perfectionism of professional art making and working with the process as much as the outcome. But a recent serious illness meaning I could no longer work at the heavy-duty metal I used to make, and a wish to also return to my own practice, has started me on a journey to learn lighter metal-making techniques that, as well as an interest in making things move, landed me at the door of Roger.
With Roger supporting but also making sure, there was plenty of hands-on experience, I looked at brazing, soldering, wire stretching and doming as well as properties of different wires and means of joining them. He really is a font of knowledge and happy to work with the needs and wishes of his students. I need to explore, practise and perfect in order to be able to start making again, but feel Roger has set me on that path to be able to start building my own work once more.
http://www.rogerrussell1960.co.uk/
