My recent work at an infant school in Brighton:
As a visiting artist for Arts Week I ran workshops for four year 2 classes. Each class created a wire circus inspired by Alexander Calder’s circus.
These workshops included-
a short presentation of my own work to introduce myself
a discussion of Calder’s work looking at the inventive ways he had used materials
Continuous line drawing exercises to help transition into working with wire
Some practical demonstrations to show wire techniques
Ongoing support and feedback as pupils were making.
Collaborating with two other arts professionals; we designed two take-home projects relating to the theme ‘Circus’. Every child in the school received a circus pack with one of the two projects. The projects were voluntary and the children had just over a week to do it. The outcomes were then put together as part of the end of Arts week finale in the main hall.
Project A: Strong Man Columns; Children drew a strong person onto a template and then these drawings were amalgamated to create free standing columns.
Project B: Acrobat Mobile;
Children looked at Matisse’s cut outs and created their own acrobat figures onto card using shapes cut out of brightly coloured gum paper. We then connected the acrobats together and suspended them from the ceiling as a mobile.
