A good handful of (ES50 Crank) Clay will make a tile about the size of a post-card. Roughly A6. It must be 1.5cm thick.
It can be any shape and decorated with images about Pontardawe, past and present.
We need 50 of them. They will be set into cement on the Heritage Bench that will be built on the new Green for everyone to enjoy. These tiles and lots of smaller ones will go around the larger carved panels being made by other local people.
Using both hands smack the clay into a nice, round ball.
Gently press it down a bit, turn it over, press it down a little more.
Blend in any cracks that appear.
Using both hands gently press the clay in the rough shape you want. Use lots of small steps: clay likes to change shape gradually. Treat both sides equally so that your tile will be strong and wont warp.
Don’t make it thinner than 1.5 cm!!
You can tap it on the table, cut bits off, add bits on by rubbing the spot with a little water until it is sticky and then firmly adding more clay and blending it in.
Smooth both sides with your thumb. Do NOT use a rolling pin!! Rolling pins stretch and compact the clay unevenly causing tiles to warp in the firing.
Your tile must be a minimum of 1.5cm thick, maximum 2.5cm so that is sinks well into the cement, matches the others and leaves depth for carving your image.
IMPORTANT: On the back cut a random pattern like this using knife, a loop of wire or a loop tool. This will ensure your tile fires without cracking, doesn’t warp and is well bonded in the cement.
Now the fun bit!
You can draw straight onto the clay or use a photocopy of a photo or a sketch on paper. The image needs to be about Pontardawe history or the present day. It could be a place, event, activity or club you love, a person you admire, something about your community.
The fantastic Heritage Centre has an amazing collection of archive images you can use .
You can use all sorts of household items as tools. if you don’t like what you did just smooth it over! you can let it harden up a bit and carve away sharper edges.
Or moisten small bits of clay and add them on to build up your image. Play around and try things out. pressing textures always looks great. Take your time: these tiles will last for centuries and even if you have never done a drawing before I can genuinely promise that the care you put into your tile will shine out once it’s fired and set on the bench.
Wrap them in plastic to keep them damp while you work on them.
Here’s some examples made by all sorts of local people on projects I’ve run.
Primary School Pupils making models about memories in Carmarthenshire.
Clay is a fantastic resource for schools. Kids relate to it immediately and it usually engages their attention for surprisingly long periods. The majority of Pupils will learn best when their hands are busy. It is the 3D equivalent of Drawing; it’s not just for arts and crafts; it’s versatility and affordability means it can be used to enhance all sorts of subjects even maths or history. Many children will find expressing and accessing their ideas in 3D much more natural than using 2D and for some it will be much easier than using words.
Making a Zoo complete with 4 toilets, a car park and an over-looking military complex. We worked on this all day, took photos and then squashed it all up. Fantastic fun, lots of skill sharing and teamwork.
Bringing an experienced Ceramic Artist into school is a great idea and will be worth every penny for special projects. But for everyday use the most important skill needed is the one you have; knowing your kids and understanding how they learn best. The clay-skills required are very straight forward.
Plan to recycle the clay at the end of each session just like a superior version of Plasticine.
Apart from special Projects there is no good reason to fire clay-work in Primary School. Firing adds complications to the skills required, storage problems, big costs and lots of extra work for teachers.
If you want your Pupils to benefit from the science and art of firing ceramics bring in a Raku Potter for a day. It will be fantastic fun, massively educational and the ceramics will be gorgeous!
You don’t need all these things to start off. Quality hand-building clay is the most important thing. There are countless different clays designed for different tasks. The wrong clay can make people feel like failures.
CLAY
Until it is fired Clay can easily be recycled endlessly until the end of time.
Bath Potters Supplies are the most helpful, kind supplier I’ve come across and they will give you great advice. Just tell them you want a white (non-staining, easy to clean up) medium grogged (grog gives the clay much better handling qualities and the greater dry strength needed for self-hardening use.) hand-building clay.
Delivery will be about £10 for up to 25kg.
All the ‘Self-hardening’ clays I have ever tried are unpleasant and difficult to use, very expensive and not significantly stronger when dry than a lovely quality hand-building clay.
TOOLS
Tools make all the difference to what you are able to make. Using them develops fine motor and eye-to-hand skills
Wooden Modelling Tools and Ribbon Tools will be the most popular. Ebay always has affordable letter stamps that will be very useful and sometimes good tools.
-Re-usable plastic table-cloth cover if you are worried about scratches on your tables as this clay has small grit in it.
-a few micro-cloths. They are the quickest, easiest cloths for cleaning tables and hands.
-Boards are optional. B&Q will custom-cut a sheet of MDF for you. A board wide enough to fit across a wheel chair is great for some people.
Approx cost, incl. sheet MDF; £60. You don’t need all these items to start off.
Big Join-In Sculptures have a job for everyone and even the smallest contribution is part of something fantastic.
The quality clay is the important item. Clays are made with recipes and therefor there is an infinite number of types of clay, each with particular properties. ES70 is absolutely lovely to use; it feels very nice, it’s not sticky, it doesn’t stain, it’s easy to clean up (on carpet let it dry + brush out), it’s not irritating to sensitive skin and you can eat it! Most importantly it is very easy to use so people get good, rewarding results quickly. Beginners deserve a great material that will reward their bravery for trying something new and give them fab results that will spur them on.
ES70 works very well as a self hardening clay and can be decorated with poster paints once it’s dry.
Plan to recycle all the clay, even if it’s painted or has dried completely. Explain that the clay is expensive so you need to keep it for next time so that they don’t think it’s because you assume they will make rubbish! Pupils are usually perfectly happy to let it go. Often it takes the pressure off to make a ‘product’ and they can relax and enjoy the making part more.
Clayton The Rottweiler has a full set of internal organs including a working bladder! At the end of the session we recycled the clay.
Re-using the Clay
-At the end of a session drop all the clay back in the bag. (lots of pupils will love smashing the work up!)
-Put bag in Bucket
-slowly pour a cup or so of water over the clay in the bag to soften the clay.
-Close bag w/ twisty
-leave over night or longer.
-place bag on floor and step on it a few times to “knead” the clay, turning bag a few times.
-Voila! It is ready for use. You can re-cycle your clay endlessly.
!? Bag goes rock-hard; Allow to dry completely, drop lump on floor to break up, put pieces in bag and recycle
!? Bag goes quite hard; knock holes all over lump. (hammer + screw driver= surprisingly satisfying task!) Return to bag and add water.
!? Bag goes too squishy; Tip clay onto a board and allow to dry until usable. “Knead” a few times over the day (or two) so that it dries evenly.
For larger quantities of clay recycling click here.
Storage
-Always close bag tightly w/ twisty
-Ideally store in a handy frost free place but it doesn’t matter if the clay freezes.
-Ideally have the bucket on wheels as 12.5kg is quite heavy (plant pot wheels – Home-Bargains, £1.99.)
-Have all the kit together for quick access by everyone.
You can see more about the wonderful, 2 year long, Arts Care Gofal Celf Project shown in the pictures here; The Tumble Commission, parts 1-8
To get the best out of our modest budget we used some new techniques and on my 1 year maintenance visit to this the lovely site I was hugely pleased to see they have worked really well. Despite a very harsh winter the sculpture looks fresh and is weathering in a uniform, gentle way. The moss is slowly collecting in the deep textures as planned.
The lovely, thoughtful planting has re-grown beautifully, complimenting the form perfectly, softening the site and integrating it into the lovely woodland which is overflowing with flowers and birds.
The paths are still level, easy for patients to use and now look like they have been there forever.
While I was there working a lot of people strolled by. They said this had become their sanctuary, a moment of peace and escape from the pressures in the hospital, where they could revive. This is exactly what we wanted. A wonderful result.
Everyone is welcome to visit this stunning spot at Bronllys Hospital grounds in Powys, Wales.
You can read the whole story of this wonderful project, including how the sculpture was designed with local people and built at Osprey Studios, in the other Marking Time posts here on this site.
Fantastic image from Christopher-Michel_flickr_Web. Interesting article here: //goodnature.nathab.com/larsen-ice-shelf-breakoff-our-future-in-ice/
“If there was ever an example of humankind being unable to bear too much reality, it is the current debate on climate change.” John Gray
Antarctic Leviathan, 45cm L x 23cm H x 12cm D.
I have been following the fascinating progression of Climate Change for 35 years. At last it is a main-stream subject. It’s intriguing how a small number of people are still trying to avoid seeing it, the deniers but mostly the avoiders. It is terrifying, lethal. Our doing and responsibility. The prospect of shifting the habits and habitats of our gigantic population is exhausting.
And it is also thrilling: nature rejoicing in it’s power and spectacular magnificence, the wonder of transformation. A fabulous drama that will inspire our greatest creativity and resourcefulness.
Antarctic Guardian II, 62cm H x 29cm W x 37cm D.
A Myth is a sure-fired, time-honoured way to ease people into new ideas. A bit of good ol’ anthropomorphising helps people to relate. And anyway it’s how my mind works, ever the animist: Like a great many others, I see the characters in the natural world very clearly.
Antarctic Harbinger III, 26cm H x 37cm W x19cm D.
So a narrative has slowly emerged from the progression of sculptures (rather than the other way around), beginning during The Landscape Series. I wont interfere with that. I will record what I see, let the clay take the lead, research areas I need more information on, add music and follow the road. This is how I have always worked. But this time there is far more clarity.
Antarctic Harbinger I, 20cm H x 33cm L x 19cm D.
Throwdown at the Hoedown
A trichotomy of the Earth, the Guardians of the Aquasphere, the Lithosphere and the Atmosphere arose and they, and their Sentinels and Harbingers took on characteristics that the many life-forms of the Biosphere could relate to so that all would understand what was happening; They were going to let loose their forces. This was not to threaten or punish. They simply knew it was time.
Arctic Guardian and Harbinger, 70cm H x 37cm W x 24cm D.
The three spheres cover all that is water, stone or air. At first that seemed simple. But the three over-lap all over the place. And combining with sunlight, they build the whole of the Biosphere that they nurture and threaten.
Arctic Harbinger, 33cm L x 13cm H x 12cm D.
Steven Foote’s stunning photographs from The Landscape Series seem to contain the whole mysterious narrative, characters and all, I refer to them daily and they will continue to be the bed-rock of the Series.
The key there became the beautiful, evocative forms left by water as it passed over rock and the land, an echo of it’s own shapes. This, coupled with intense news from the Antarctic about accelerated melting and glacial movement has kept my focus particularly on the Aquasphere.
The Aquasphere
It is changes with water that cause the most upheaval to the Biosphere. Water holds centre stage in the atmosphere’s massive weather events. More often than not it is at the forefront of dramatic episodes in the lithosphere: mud-slides, sink-holes, erosion and sometimes the provocation of volcanos.
Water takes so many forms: flowing (fresh and salt), vapour, ice. Each has a range of characteristics. The primary character is the Leviathan but there are many others involved.
Antarctic Guardian I, 33cm H x 83cm W x 36cm D.
Antarctic Guardian I, 33cm H x 83cm W x 36cm D.
Antarctic Harbinger II, 13cm H x 26cm W x 14cm D + base.
Antarctic Harbinger II, 13cm H x 26cm W x 14cm D + base.
Mountain River Sentinel, 69cm H x 39cm W x 28cm D.
Coastal Harbinger II, 43cm L x 29cm H x 22cm W.
Mountain River Harbinger, 37cm L x 21cm H x 19cm W.
Mountain River Sentinel, 69cm H x 39cm W x 28cm D.
Coastal Harbinger, 35cm L x 23cm H x 16cm W.
Leviathan VIII, 56cm H x 97cm L x 28cm D.
Leviathan V, 45cm H x 65cm L x 23cm D.
Leviathan V, 45cm H x 65cm L x 23cm D.
Leviathan IV, 35cm H x 61cm L x 29cm D.
Mountain River Sentinel, 69cm H x 39cm W x 28cm D.
Mountain River Guardian, 36cm H x 67cm L x 42cm D. Landscape Series. Cupola Contemporary Art Gallery, Sheffield, UK
Mountain River Guardian I, 36 cm H x 67cm L x 42cm D.
Leviathan IX, 35cm H x 60cm L x 25cm D.
Leviathan II, 2015, 53cm H x 79cm L x 36cm D, ceramic.
Leviathan II, 2015, 53cm H x 79cm L x 36cm D, ceramic.
Leviathan II, 2015, 53cm H x 79cm L x 36cm D, ceramic.
Leviathan II, detail, 2015, 53cm H x 79cm L x 36cm D, ceramic.
The Atmosphere
At first I was seeing atmosphere simply as sky. Weather, especially the fabulous, awe-inspiring kind like hurricanes. But the atmosphere is every where, filling every gap, breathing life into the world, even under the ocean.
For this reason the Osprey is it’s main form.
Antarctic Osprey II, 39cm H x 50cm W x 50cm D.
Antarctic Osprey II, 39cm H x 50cm W x 50cm D.
Antarctic Osprey II, 39cm H x 50cm W x 50cm D.
Osprey IX, 13cm H x 18cm W x 11cm D +base.
Antarctic Osprey I, 12cm H x 46cm W x 13cm D +base.
Antarctic Osprey I, 12cm H x 46cm W x 13cm D +base.
Antarctic Osprey III, 17cm H x 57cm W x 32cm D.
The Lithosphere
The Lithosphere, the geologic, stony part of the world has The Wyvern, a shape-shifting dragon that has taken a number of forms so far.
Guardians of the Valley, 30cm H x 67cm W x 26cm D.
Guardians of the Valley, 30cm H x 67cm W x 26cm D.
Wyvern IX, 14cm H x 38cm L x 15cm D.
Antarctic Harbinger and Sentinel, 28cm H x 17cm W x 13cm D + base.
Wyvern XI, 13cm H x 20cm L x 16cm D.
Wyvern, 11cm H x 15cm L.
Wyvern, 11cm H x 15cm L.
Wyvern, 11cm H x 15cm L.
Wyvern X, 12cm H x 21cm L x 11cm D.
Wyvern X, 12cm H x 21cm L x 11cm D.
Wyvern X, 12cm H x 21cm L x 11cm D.
The Biosphere
I started looking at forms and ways to describe the Biosphere’s part of this story. ‘The Land’ sculptures started in The Landscape Series but this was different: it was no longer just the form and far more the theme of vulnerability. Change in the Natural world is wonderful, a miracle. Frequently spectacular. And terrifying, heartbreaking, sometimes to dreadful to countenance especially where the Biosphere is concerned. But there is also belonging, the perfect fit of life grown out of the combined trinity of spheres. Nurtured, protected, watched over.
Biosphere Sentinel II, 23cm H x 48cm L x 28cm D.
Biosphere Sentinel II, 23cm H x 48cm L x 28cm D.
Biosphere’s Guardian I, 22.5cm H x 22.5cm W.
As with all my posts I will add to them over time as things develop. Here’s some links to interesting, key parts of the research so far for the Throw-down at the Hoe-down:
26 years ago I left New Hampshire with my first son in my arms, new CD’s of Bela Fleck in my suitcase and returned to the UK. This extraordinary music sustained and developed my work for 15 years. Steve Vai and later a wider variety joined Bela. But this track, Bigfoot, is the key and the seed that has lead to this new Series:
Bela Fleck’s Throwdown at the Hoedown seems like the perfect title for this new Series and a fair way to honour all his music has given me, so I’m going to go with that for a while.
This fascinating article by Randall Morris about Masks describes the process that I am trying to work through here. I have learnt a great deal from Randall since joining Cavin Morris Gallery. His amazing collection and beautiful writing brings clarity to, and pin points the essence of, what is important in art. I am an animist by nature and it is my job to portray what I see but the distractions can be over-whelming.
There is a ‘modern’ resistance/confusion to animist ideas. The waters are muddied by spiritualist ideas, religions and fantasies. It can be difficult to avoid distractions when you are working on this kind of sculpture. The process is intuitive and free-flowing. Expertise with well organised techniques allow for that by managing the clay’s weight and ceramic requirements leaving the maker and material to associate with minimal restraint. I’m not taking a political, moral or religious stand. I’m just doing my thing, same as always, doing my bit to get the sculpture made. That feels very important to me and I don’t need to know why.
But none the less I keep informed on new science about consciousness in matter and enjoy the kinship and familiarity of Outsider art/ Art Brut. Having boundaries helps to weed out those irrelevant distractions.
Within animism there are many practices used to engage and interact with the spirit world, to put it over-simply. I’m not attempting that. My role is just to be part of it. A record keeper, perhaps, a chronicler to help my fellow 21st century folk maintain a link with the natural world.
This Series is a collaboration with Photographer and Documentary Cameraman Stephen Foote. Click on any picture to see it full size.
Stephen Foote and I met up after 30 years in 2014. We were good friends as teenagers, both rather disengaged with school, both making art in our own time. 30 years on we both still use art work as a major part of our interaction with this nutty world. Sharing our images was a key way we got to know each other again and harnessing that process in a joint project was simply a way of capturing what was occurring naturally. We set a straightforward ” Artists Respond to Landscape ” brief and kept a very open mind while we walked, talked, Steve took pictures and I just took it all in. We met every few months and sent each other pictures of the ensuing work in-between times.
Steve is also a Cameraman and was involved in filming for Panorama during the early, very heated phase in Kiev and the Crimea. I was coming to the end of the Up Is Down Series . Our first visit was Bracelet Bay, Mumbles, Swansea. Then we went into Porth Yr Ogof caves and had a mind-blowing day for me; we spent hours in the dark, natural cave while Steve took a fab series of photographs. I stood in the river in the darkness, held the lights and listened to the flow of water, felt the under-ground breezes. From there the project clarified for us as the travels of the water from the sky above the Brecon Beacons to the river, especially the Tawe, on down to the wide bay at Swansea, and out into the Ocean where much of it will return to the clouds and begin the circle again. As it flows it leaves it’s mark on the stone, the ground, the life it passes.
These pictures are roughly in sequence for the progression of work over time, with Steve’s photos next to the related sculptures in some cases.
Wyvern, 10cm H x 18cm L x 11cm D.
Wyvern, 10cm H x 18cm L x 11cm D.
Wyvern X, 21cm L x 12cm H x 11cm D.
Water and Stone, Bracelet Bay, 2014, 24cmH x 56cm L x 33cm W, Marbled architectural ceramic. Photo by Stephen Foote
Stephen Foote; Dunes
Bracelet Bay, Mumbles, Swansea by Steve Foote
Wyvern I in progress, July 2014. 68cm H x 64cm W.
Bracelet Bay, Mumbles, Swansea by Steve Foote
Bracelet Bay, Mumbles, Swansea by Steve Foote.
It was this fabulous picture of Bracelet Bay that shifted me abruptly into figures, much to my own surprise. The character of the Wyvern developed while making the public sculpture the Balarat Pit Marker in The Edge Series: the coal, a buried treasure to be used wisely or there would be consequences, watched over by a shape-shifting Welsh dragon.
Wyvern busts in progress, Aug 2014.
Here the Wyvern is a guardian of stone.
Wyvern V, 2015, 27cm H x 51cm L x 25cm D, black ceramic. Cavin Morris Gallery, New York.
Wyvern V, 2015, 27cm H x 51cm L x 25cm D, black ceramic. Cavin Morris Gallery New York.
Porth Yr Ogof Cave, Brecon Beacons, by Steve Foote, 2014. We spent hours down here and as I assisted the photography, standing in the river and pitch black, I felt the underground wind and heard all the sounds of water travelling through the rocks. Extraordinary. A living, breathing world of unparalleled beauty.
Bracelet Bay, Mumbles, Swansea by Steve Foote
Bracelet Bay, Mumbles, Swansea by Steve Foote
Bracelet Bay, Mumbles, Swansea by Steve Foote
The Wyvern III, 2014
Wyvern II, 2014, 69cm H x 54cm W, x 31cm D, ceramic. Photo Stephen Foote.
The Wyvern IV, Sept 2014
The Wyvern and The Leviathan. in progress, Sept 2014.
Wyvern VIII, 2015, 39cm H x 71cm L x 34cm D, ceramic. Cavin Morris Gallery New York.
Wyvern VIII, 2015, 39cm H x 71cm L x 34cm D, ceramic. Cavin Morris Gallery New York.
Water moves from one sphere to the next in all it’s forms, changing everything it passes. On heavy, stormy days here in the Brecon Beacons it careens in sheets 10cm deep across the grassy hills, colliding in the streams and rivers to tear down towards Swansea Bay. It drops through the gaps and cracks it has left in the stone to the fabulous caves it has been cutting for Millenia. Standing out in the middle of all this you can see the mountain ponies, uncompromising, resolute and beautiful. They became the Guardian of the water, the Leviathan, in it’s mountain form.
Leviathan V, 2015, 11.5cm H x 25cm L x 9.5cm W, ceramic. Photo Stephen Foote.
Leviathan VI, 2015, 12.5cm H x 21cm L x 8cm W, ceramic. Cavin Morris Gallery New York.
Leviathan V, 2015, 11.5cm H x 25cm L x 9.5cm W, ceramic. Photo Stephen Foote.
The Wyvern and the Osprey, 2014.
The Osprey followed as the guardian of the sky.
Stephen Foote Photography.
Osprey II, 65cm W x 50cm H. Photo Stephen Foote.
Osprey II, 65cm W x 50cm H. Photo Stephen Foote.
Osprey I, 40 cm W x 25cm H.Photo Stephen Foote.
Steve’s landscape photos unify everything exquisitely, portraying a vivid place with such clarity you can feel it around you. My sculptural response inevitably, and with some regret, separated the features which got me thinking more carefully about their connections.
The sphinx-like form and majesty of the Brecon Beacons also showed up first in the Balarat Pit Marker. A classic sculptural motif, the reclining figure, with it’s many options for themes. Like the complex internal aspect of the Beacons complete with breath, life (water) running through veins in the rock, hidden secrets, moods, supporting of forests, wildlife, and us since the dawn of time. The subtlety of age: the Beacons are especially ancient and have been many things in their past. ‘The Land’ sculptures are about this part of what we saw.
At this point the Series branches off into new territory lead by images and news about Climate Change rather than Steve’s photos and my local landscape. I have been following the fascinating progression of Climate Change for 35 years. At last it is a main-stream subject. It’s intriguing how people are still trying to avoid seeing it, the deniers but mostly the avoiders. My guilty secret is that I see it as thrilling: nature rejoicing in it’s power and spectacular magnificence, the wonder of transformation. Throwndown at Hoedown is an ongoing Series now.
This fascinating article by Randall Morris about Masks describes the process that I am trying to work through here. I have learnt a great deal from Randall since joining Cavin Morris Gallery. His amazing collection and beautiful writing brings clarity to, and pin points the essence of, what is important in art. I am an animist by nature and it is my job to portray what I see but the distractions can be over-whelming.
–The Up is Down Series proceeded The Landscape Series and was a transitionary point in how I put together forms, particularly in relation to their bases. The research involved clarified my thinking and ability to see.
Most of the sculptures in The Landscape Series are built with the technique explained in Heads and clay armatures.
I am proud to say we have poured our hearts into this marvellous project. The amazing pupils, their awesome teacher Miss Bygate, the extraordinary Head Ms Hanson and all the dedicated, kind, thoughtful and very patient support staff were willing to really go for it and gave us all the encouragement and back-up we could possibly need.
After Headmistress Ms Hanson’s really lovely introduction Daniel read out some of the story
The moment we have been working for! A nod from Ms Hanson and this sculptural playform is covered in excited kids at last!
The pupils wonderful art work about what their character was doing during the story is set well into the coloured cement to protect it from play activity. This has given it a mysterious, ancient quality, like revealed carvings of a disappeared civilisation.
During the design phase the pupils were clear that they wanted the sculpture to inspire other children to make their own stories. There are tunnels and hidden places.
The sculpture is set facing the rising sun in a circle of established young deciduous trees, across from a big ground-work playform castle in the far corner of the huge play-ground at Pennard Primary School. This area is often used as an outdoor classroom and is a wonderful, magical, sheltered spot for free imaginative play.
In the background, ever ready to step in and help is Hugh Blackwood, the school caretaker and artist who makes beautiful jewellery. He was invaluable during the installation, an out-standing assistant.
It was a joy to see this amazing group again, show them their book and talk about their new ideas.
The extraordinary Headmistress, Ms Hanson and some of her very proud pupils.
The Throne, Pennard Primary School, Pennard, Gower, Wales, UK. By Osprey Studios and Pennard Year 5 2017.
Year 5 had made us a fabulous card with drawings of each character.
Kind, beautiful, creative and very dedicated Miss Bygate with her fabulous class and Daniel on the sculpture they have made with Osprey Studios for every future generation at their school.
The upper part of Pennard Primary School’s sculpture is complete, cut into sections and drying. It has been a joy to build. The pupils panels and tiles for the lower half are drying beautifully. I’m putting together the Book now and it’s lovely to review the wonderful time we had with this fabulous group.
I was really lucky to be working with the wonderful, resourceful, ingenious Gareth Ellis from Green Valleys. He has the patients of a saint. The writer Mark Christmas gave a huge amount of time and hard labour in addition to his years-long dedication to this project and this poem which will be set at the entrance to the woodland walk:
Catching a Moment
Within these woods
there is a breath to be found
to ease new life into sight and sound
transforming our world and how we see
each branch, each twig, each living tree
so when the hurt inside we feel
creates distraction with no appeal
take a walk on this path to find this rhyme
you will no longer be ‘Marking Time.’
Mark Christmas, 2015.
Dedicated to those who understand.
Because vehicles could not pull up to the site, the budget was tight (having been well squeezed by this point as is my habit!) and we couldn’t be too sure who would be able to join us we used a slightly different installation method than in previous sculptures.
We fixed the triangle of heavy railway sleepers securely, dug down 20 cms and then packed in hollow breeze blocks.
The first sections were put in place using the paper template of the mosaic and corner tiles, steel rebars hammered down through the sections and well into the ground and then post-crete was poured into all available gaps and half way up inside the first 3 sculpture sections.
Gareth Ellis and Mark Christmas. Marking Time, Bronllys Hospital, Powys.
The second sections were braced in place using blocks/ wood/ prayers, rebars set, post-crete poured.
Mark Christmas working on the Marking Time Sculpture, Bronllys Hospital, Powys.
The mosaic was built in the studio in 3 sections to aid handling and set securely in place with concrete going right down into the breeze block hollows. The mosaic tiles and the triangle corner-tiles were beautifully made by pupils in Ross Bennett’s Art Department at Llandrindod High School.
Marking Time, Bronllys Hospital, Powys.
Me adding the finishing touches to the mosaic, Marking Time, Bronllys Hospital, Powys.
Mark Christmas brought in poet Emma nan Woerkom to take some lovely photos and create this beautiful poem that has been cut in brass for the site.
Marking Time, Bronllys Hospital, Powys.
All the visible cement (pointing etc) was done with a white cement/gold sand mix that matches the fired colour of the Scarva ES50 clay perfectly. On the floor we topped it with light brown flint chippings and extra, handmade blue mosaic tiles and glass to soften the edge of the mosaic.
Marking Time, Bronllys Hospital, Powys.
Finishing touches on the sculpture were done with Milliput and the golden cement.
Marking Time, Bronllys Hospital, Powys.
Mick Farell has been a key part of this project and he was wonderfully supportive during the installation. His enchanting poem, written especially for the sculpture completes the triangle.
We are the child of nevermind
Who, finding dreams lost, unfind
Who, wandering, walking paths unknown
to find a woodland overgrown
And seeing in that woodland Glen
The happy minds of nevermen
Who elfin laughter laughly speak
Of how we humans keenly seek
Some new haven overhewn
And child stars of the moon
Mick Farrell, 2016.
The poem tiles were made by the same fabulous pupils at Mount Street Junior School that developed the theme with me last year ( see Part 1)They are fixed to the sleepers with tile adhesive and screws.
We have spent a great deal of time on this one and it has been worth it. The Team have been a joy to work with and the whole woodland site looks really beautiful. Gareth Ellis and Mick Farrell will put in the benches and place and secure some tree-trunk logs. This is going to be such a calming, peaceful place for people involved with the Hospital to rest and revive.
The cut sections had a slow dry for a month and the last 6 weeks in a tent with the dehumidifier. Water is still collecting!! Soon I’m going to have to start the firing. But if the sections are still damp they will explode into a trillion smithereens….
The Lead Creative Schools Scheme aims to promote new ways of working in schools, providing the opportunity to develop an innovative and bespoke programme of learning designed to improve the quality of teaching and learning.
It’s about the school and the particular learning challenges that it is facing. A Lead Creative School will have access to creative people, skills and resources to support them and to address these challenges.
Osprey Studios won a placement in the excellent Pennard Primary School.
Three Cliffs Bay, Southgate, Gower.
The planning meeting was the best I’ve ever been to: very positive, practical and down to earth. Our Area Lead Artist, Photographer Lee Aspland, Headmistress Ms Hanson and her lovely, thoughtful teachers were flexible, supportive, very kind and clearly up for something exciting and challenging. They set the bar high and their dedication is inspiring.
Writer Daniel Archibald Buck has collaborated with Osprey Studios for years. Here he describes his 5 days of intense, immersive, and hugely enjoyable workshops:’On Thursday 2nd February year five set out on what many would consider a herculean task: To write and perform an epic tale, with no preparation or script, in just five days.
To put that in context, a two hour film can spend up to five years in production, and will likely focus on just a few characters at a time. This story would be much longer, and have as many as thirty three characters throughout – one for each member of the class.
On day one, the focus was clear, we were never going to all be on the same page unless we had a framework we could all share. So after some practice in the hall standing up and getting our brains in gear, we sat down to learn The Story Circle, based on Joseph Campbell’s text The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
This is a stripped-down version of a degree-level screenwriting technique.
Spoiler alert, that circle contains all the work we noted down at the end of the project.
Over the course of a day, we went from writing simple three line stories with just a beginning, middle and an end, toward struggles about heroes overcoming odds and clashing with difficult challenges.
On day two, it was time to decide who our heroes were, and why. We started to develop ideas about Character development in depth, both in performance and in writing. Creating a character on the fly on stage in front of a group is a very different challenge to writing out facts about a made up person on a piece of paper. The kids were challenged with portraying a character’s job and emotion with acting alone in front of the class, and then with putting those characters together into scenes in which invented problems forced them to question how a certain person may react in a strange situation.
I don’t know if you’ve ever stood up in front of a group of your peers and pretended to be in a crashing airplane with no script, but it can be daunting, not least because something funny is bound to happen, and it can be hard to delineate between those laughing with you, and those laughing at you. The enthusiasm on display was impressive.
From there, we sat down to create a character in depth. Each person got to invent their own person, with fears, and hopes and dreams and special powers if they wanted. these characters would go on to become the focus of our story in the next few days, so they had to rich and vibrant, and stand up to scrutiny. Here are a few (pulled at random):
Charlie, a Twelve Year-Old Orangutan from Vine Village, who wants to the King of the Jungle, but who is afraid of Tigers.
Flames Boy, a Thirty Year-old Businessman. He lives in an ordinary house and drives an ordinary Lamborghini. He’s a super hero in his spare time.
Dr. Pepper, who is from California and is afraid of children. His Nemesis is Pickled Onion (who is a Pickled Onion).
Next we set about making masks, to represent these characters, so it would be easier to tell when we were acting and when we weren’t. Of course, it can be hard to create a mask that accurately depicts a sentient pepper pot, so in most cases it was decided to settle on a colour or a theme for your character, and to make the mask represent that.These were then left to dry over the weekend.
When we got in on Monday morning, it was time to get down to business. We had three days left to create a satisfying narrative, to explore each of the characters we had made, and to make sure that everything was recorded and that all the ideas and themes we stumbled over on our journey were explored and understood.
After a warm up and some improv exercises in the hall, we ventured out into the grounds despite the cold and the wet, to stake a claim on this land for the characters who now lived there. It didn’t take long for our introductions to take a turn, and within the hour, spurred on by a vocal contingent of the group who advocated character-on-character violence, we had a succession of people standing up and delivering impassioned stump-speeches on the moral balance between violence and peace, good and evil.
But when there were no more words to utter, it became clear that there was only one recourse left by which this dispute may be settled. Those who advocated aggression saw that their counterparts for peace would not engage them on their terms unless a show of force was demonstrated. War was declared.
And so began the main chapter of our tale, which is now being chronicled and will be set into writing and told for seasons to come you can be sure. There was war, a bloody dictatorship, a desperate rebellion, economic prosperity in bleak times, devious subterfuge, assassination and resigned democracy. And in the end who can say whose side the historians will take?
Well, we can!
As the artists and historians of our own tale, it is now to the class to decide how the epic struggle will be remembered. Working with monument ceramicist Rebecca Buck, they are undertaking the construction of a great totem, to be erected as close as is practical, to the place where their characters first awoke.
It will take the form of an eternal throne, upon which you can depend many kings and orators and dictators and prophets will take their place, for it will stand for many centuries (indeed, it will likely outlive the school so long as it is not purposefully destroyed) and will we hope, not only affirm to generations as yet unborn that this school was lived in and played in before their time, but also that their struggles, their games, their questions are themselves eternal ones.
What is heroic? How can we be strong? What determines the right to lead? How do we shape our own lives, when there are always those who will try and shape them for us?
I, having had a chance to get to know them and work alongside them, am immensely proud of year five. They rose to the occasion admirably, and proved themselves capable of tackling ideas and problems above their regular curriculum. They created challenging and evocative ideas that broke the regular mold that is so often written off as ‘just kids stuff’.
If you as a parent want to get involved in the last stages of the project (particularly the Sculpture Installation), please get in touch with the school, and stay tuned for information on our grand unveiling over the next few months, where we will show off the monument to the world and were there will be a dramatic retelling of the tale we wrote.’
I sat in on these fantastic days to collect information for the sculpture and souvenir book for the school’s library. Occasionally a pupil would sit and draw with me if they needed a some perspective on the workshops but the vast majority of the time they were having far too much fun. They did give me lots of valuable feed-back on the ideas. It was wonderful to witness how deeply involved all the pupils were with the story they were creating. Miss Bygate, the very sensitive, gentle and inspiring form teacher, was there for her children giving encouragement and direction.
This process was, without doubt the best, most efficient and most productive form of ‘consultation’ I have ever had with a group.
We spent a lovely afternoon getting know the clay, Scarva ES50 Crank, and each other’s strengths in describing ideas with it.
All this work was photographed and recycled.
We had a well earned 4 day break which I used to make the scale model. I had a lot of great material. At the very outset we had agreed that the pupil’s ideas were to be at the centre of everything. Discussions with the kids during breaks developed the perfect vehicle for memorialising their story and sharing it with everyone else in play-ground: a magnificent throne incorporating scenes from the story in relief. There would be tunnels in a dynamic shape that will inspire creative narrative play. Pennard’s dramatic history and landscape would be featured to high-light the story’s context and link the future play there.
The top half of the sculpture would be ceramic and the lower half the same golden cement over blocks I used on the Marking Time sculpture in Bronllys Hospital grounds. The colour and texture match is really good. Some of the ceramic panels and tiles will be set into the cement as well.
Ms Hanson joined me and the pupils to walk the wonderfully large play ground that has a choice of landscaped areas that lead imaginative play. It is small wonder that these children are so bright, forth coming, creative and ingenious: Every member of the staff are committed and dedicated to empowering all of their pupils and enriching their potential. The school has a fabulous team of Volunteers that help them get maximum value from their very tight budgets. It was an honour to be part of it frankly.
We talked health and safety, budgets, prior and future uses of each area, took some measurements and chose the perfect spot in the centre of a circle of young but well established deciduous trees near a big mound with a tunnel and castle fortifications. A wooden play structure on the spot needed removing so we could accommodate that in our budget. I love to see money working hard.
The next Monday everyone accepted the scale-model and we went ahead to make the relief panels that would be set into the sculpture. This a fab, very cost effective method for getting the hands-on art-work of people onto a large form.
The pupils worked incredibly hard for 2 solid days. Their panels are wonderfully varied and beautifully made. They helped and supported each other and me. And we had a lot of fun. Once their panel was completed a team formed to make a small name tile for each person involved in the project. Another team made round mini-tiles with a stem to anchor it securely into cement. These will set off the panels nicely across the form. Miss Bygate was a star and kept everyone going and even helped load up the van. She is amazing. I drove home on cloud nine. Excellent art-work, a perfect sculpture site, a budget that would be thoroughly squeezed dry and a scale model I knew was right because the consultation was so immersive and genuine.
Daniel had run a Workshop for parents and pupils so that they could get a feel of what their children were working on. I did one for them in using clay for learning and play. I was very pleased and not surprised to find that these parents were already well into doing stuff like that at home. Miss Bygate set out a lovely display of really good photos that she had taken all through the workshops. Then she gave them to us for the Book. Similarly my short workshop for the staff mostly confirmed what they were all ready doing. The post How to use clay in Primary Schools affordably will be useful.
I’m on day two of the build at Osprey Studios.
The Pennard scale model in front of the build in progress of the upper, ceramic section, of the sculpture.
This is the first half of the framework. The final piece will be 130cm high, 2 metres wide and 1 metre deep. Once the framework is complete, with the section cuts and firings planned, I can add on the pupil’s and my own art-work. This will develop the thickness and strength of the walls. The clay is Scarva ES50 Crank, the same clay the pupils used. It will be fired to 1260 degrees C and turn a soft golden yellow that matches the white cement/golden kiln dried sand that will be used for the lower section and all joins.
Rebecca Buck 