 This beautiful piece was created as part of a larger installation at Selandra Community Centre, sponsored by Casey Shire Recycling and Waste Landfill Management Team. Super progressive shire supporting local makers and creators (their beautiful Gallery at Bunjil place is well worth a visit. The weaving was created over several sessions from single use plastics and various found materials with the Selanda Community in September 2018.
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 The world is an amazing place. Just when I thought Id better try looking for a 'proper job'*, though a friend of a friend of a friend, I heard about a fantastic opportunity at the wonderfully local St Josephs Catholic Primary school in Crib Point who had teamed up with the equally wonderful SongRoom to turn a plain looking cow into something special for the Picasso Cow project. A couple of weeks later and I was busily knitting away with a posse of suitably crafty individuals to create a a colourful coat for "Woolameana". I think shes rather gorgeous...  * That's an entirely different blog post and someday I'll endeavor to express my feelings on promotional work, sustainable art practice, hobbists and what its all about...
Monday is the last public workshop for the "I dream...." project. So far we're up to around 80 beautiful flags...it'd be great to make it to 100. What is your dream ? Come and share it, learn how to print on fabric and get making....  Way back in the early part of the year, I began putting together a proposal for a Community Art project to present as part of the Mornington Peninsula Shire's Placemaking Grants program. The concept built on a previous pop up Art experience presented as part of Balnarring Village Common's 2010 World Environment Day Celebrations, where participants expressed their hopes for their environment and displayed those thoughts on a tree. The new project continues the idea, using the form of Tibetan prayer flags to express the community's hopes and dreams. Fortunately - the grant application was successful, so in July planning began for community workshops to be held throughout winter and spring. From the beginning, the plan was to display the flags as part of the Balnarring Spring Garden Festival in October - but with the Balnarring Community Sustainability Fair scheduled for the previous week - wiser heads prevailed and we decided to combine the events... such a good way to reach a broader audience all the while staying sane with the amount of effort needed to put on this kind of thing. Phew. Test workshops began in July with the Presentation Family Centre Holiday Program and continued with the Balnarring Quilters and local brownies having fun with text, printmaking techniques and stitching. The next workshop happens at the Balnarring Hall on Friday August 21 4-5.30 pm... stay tuned. Along with the Wall collection we installed the final cubby construction from the grade 5-6 students. Being outside on the land, there was much finger crossing and forecast checking for the weather. Wind could be the project's downfall (literally), and with projected breezes from the south west i decided to play safe and put the installation in sheltered spot in the shade of a large acacia. It had a cubby kind of feel, and with the ground underneath relatively flat - we had a good base to lay boards for overall stability. In case of emergencies, I had a kit of ropes with tent pegs, tarps and posts, spay adhesive, and adhesive tape to make sure the whole thing didn't blow away. The plan was to bring along the boxes, and allow the kids to build their own cubby in an interactive art display. Here's what happened... Throughout the day, several different configurations emerged... with the students enjoying finding their own construction then placing it in the perfect spot. Kids who weren't involved in the workshops were also keen to be involved, which was great. I had hoped that more of the students would take their mini cubbies home once the garden festival had finished, but at the end of the day pretty much all of the boxes remained. So, with the help of a (mostly willing) team of volunteers we carried the boxes across the land and back to school for the students to pick up from there.  The above photos are thanks to the incredibly talented Jai Seales who captured the day beautifully here.
 So here it is...All wrapped up. The Wall, by the preps, grade 1's and 2's from Balnarring Primary School. Over 200 boxes, thoughtfully assembled with their own relief sculptures and an assortment of interesting objects. It looked amazing.... and the feedback was awesome.
The kids were keen to see their artwork on display, delighted to be a part of a community event and really proud of their achievements. Half the fun was finding their own assemblage amongst the mix, which prompted me to consider creating a "spot what" activity to go with the display. I was super lucky to have help from Pea and Sandy from Balnarring Primary to install the wall who, due to the limited exhibition time have offered to reinstall the boxes in the school gym so the families who were unable to see the finished product get a second chance. Unexpected bonus: We even won a prize....BEST IN CLASS (I'm fairly sure we were the 'only' in class) for the Balnarring Flower Show. Nice! So... here we are. The week leading up to the BIG REVEAL. The main thing on my mind at the moment is ... "Will the boxes all fall down and the installation be a complete failure?".
Wind will be my main problem... but my technical crew have a back up plan, with tarps as wind shields if necessary. The tarps will make photographing the installation problematic but I think we'll just have to deal with that on the day. So far the forecast is looking good with cloudy skies, mild temperatures and a slight breeze. We'll add stability with boards as a base and tomorrow (!), I'll resolve adhesives. The other unknown is the number of kids that will be there on the day to participate in the installation. Tomorrow a note goes home with the school newsletter, and promotional material has gone out in the local magazine publication...The Bridge, as well as BVC facebook and other social networking pages, so hopefully a few kids will come along to see their works all together. Perhaps, on refection it would have been better to have the installation closer to the end date of the project, given that some groups finished their works back at the beginning of August. I wonder if the gap between completing the works and display distances the kids too much from the process. Questions to be answered in evaluation... What did you enjoy about the project ? What did you find challenging ? What surprised you? How would you improve the workshops ? Would you choose to do a similar project again? Why? Why not? On sunday, as well as coordination the installation, I'm hoping to record some responses to those kind of questions for my project evaluation. Inspiration for the construction component for grade prep - 2's came from the artist Louise Nevelson. Not only was her story interesting; a woman artist working at a time when art was considered a masculine domain but her methodology was readily transferable to working with the younger grades. Each student would be able to achieve a finished sculptural piece, and together the works would combine to create a cohesive piece with (hopefully) plenty of visual impact. I introduced the classes to Nevelson, explaining that she grew up playing in her fathers' timber yard and making things (much like they had in previous art classes) with scraps of timber. We looked at images of her works and the way she combined interesting shapes to create her sculptures, then talked about her inspiration... nature, the city and space.  Our next step was to combine the layered relief sculptures we had created during the last session with salvaged commercial materials into shoe boxes. The students were asked to use each interior surface of the box as a base (sides as well as base). The results were really impressive, with everyone achieving an interesting result. While I'd initially planned on spay painting each box the same colour, to replicate the style of Nevelson's sculptures, an unsuccessful grant application meant that the funding wasnt available. On refection -I think the kids will prefer seeing their work as they completed it anyway. So I'm happy with that.
Some students did extend the assemblage beyond the initial single lesson, so we were lucky to have an optional additional session to complete the project. |
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