14/12/2009 by James.

A beautiful cold day yesterday up in the Pewsey Downs NNR. Lovely to get back up above everything and breathe in the wide open spaces.

Taken into the low bright sun, I like the way that the phone photos distort, blur and change the colour slightly, taking on a more painterly, dreamlike feel, with the tonal quality of an old faded postcard.

There’s more info on Adams Grave longbarrow on Walkers Hill and the surrounding area on the Natural England website - http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/ourwork/conservation/designatedareas/nnr/1006120.aspx

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14/12/2009 by James.

An opportunity for artists to join the new 5×5x5 cluster in Kingston… 

London Paid (£40k-50k pro rata) Part time Artform: combined arts, dance, music, theatre, visual arts   Contact: Penny Hay penny@5×5x5creativity.org.uk

Description

5×5x5=creativity in Kingston: call for artists (12 days work Feb - June 2010)

5×5x5=creativity is an action research organisation dedicated to supporting children and young people in their exploration and expression of creative ideas. Starting in February 2010, we are looking for five artists to work with five educational settings in Kingston in collaboration with five cultural centres. The project aims to demonstrate ways in which creativity can be fostered in all children and fire their interest in learning, will explore ways in which boys can be involved in, motivated by and succeed in their learning environments, influence educational practice by establishing creativity as an essential foundation of learning, produce research to demonstrate the value of creative enquiry, relationships and environments in helping children develop as confident, creative thinkers, and share the research findings as widely as possible, creating a legacy for the future and to provide integrated training and mentoring for participating teachers, artists and schools, including opportunities to collaborate.

Artists will be invited to apply for the project through Arts Council England and London Schools Arts Service. Artists will be paid for the equivalent of 12 days @ £200 per day. Artists will be responsible for their own national insurance and tax. All artists will need to be police checked.

Schedule
Selected applicants will be interviewed on Thursday 28 January 2010 at King Athelstan Primary School
First meeting with settings will be on 5 February 2010 at King Athelstan Primary School
Placements will run from February – June 2010.  Artists will work in settings for the equivalent of 10 days and will be involved in professional development and reflection for the equivalent of 2 days.  All participants will have access to and the support of a mentor.

Applications
Send a CV, images of work and a statement of your interest in this project to:

Penny Hay, Director of Research
5×5x5=creativity
PO Box 3236
Chippenham  SN15 9DE
penny@5×5x5creativity.org

Closing date: 31 December 2009

For a full description please download from our website: www.5×5x5creativity.org.uk

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09/12/2009 by James.

I went in to the studio today to have a bit of a blitz… to clear out old images on the walls and generally de-clutter. I wanted to clear the space and clear my mind and to focus on what’s really important in my work.

But that’s just the point, when I start to think about it I know what’s important to me in terms of my focus and my values, but its not all that easy to work out if/how that comes across to others.

I can know that my participatory work supports people to explore themselves and their environment creatively, because I’m there with them, I get the feedback and I can get involved in the evaluation. And I know that this work feeds me, that I learn about how people can use art to learn in creative and ‘joined-up’ ways.

BUT… when I make more individual work, how do I or any other artist for that matter, know what effect it has on anyone else, unless you are actually there with them?

I had an interesting conversation with one of my 5×5x5=creativity colleagues yesterday, about the relationship of participatory and individual practice. In some ways it worries me that my work on projects such as 5×5x5 is focused on the importance of the creative process, and yet the next day I might be in my studio making a wall-based piece for exhibition, that I will leave and walk away and never really know if it is having any positive impact.

And yet, I reassured myself today that its okay, because, as I wrote in my sketchbook…

the artwork acts as an indicator of the level of personal/environmental awareness, whilst the process of exploring that leads to and informs the creation of the artwork supports the development of such an integrated awareness of self & environment.

The artefact is the evidence of the process and of its effects on the perception of the individual (me).

The creation of the artwork also further supports a sensory exploration of the world in a more focused way, and (if made in the right way) can act as a conduit for the flow of life energy, through the senses, through the individual and into the artwork.

So, as I came to realise after clearing the clutter, and (s)crawling across a rolled out sheet of paper to get my ideas ‘out-there’, how the different areas of my practice link up and relate to each other…

I am researching culturally influenced perception  (its impact on our learning, our behaviour and the ecosystems on which we depend), and its relationship to more direct, individual, sensory engagement. My resulting work supports the development of greater understanding of the relationship between the two, and the gap between them.

I am breaking down the perceptual barriers to direct engagement with ‘the one’ and ‘the now’… my research and my explorations inform my own understanding, which in turn supports my work’s ability to engage with its audience.

In other words I don’t need to make someone feel anything or think anything specific. I just need to provide the audience of my work, whether object based or participatory, access to a place where they can engage with the stuff of the world, and the issues that I am interested in, and allow them to gain from that experience in whatever way they need to at that point in time, as part of their own learning journey.

…Phew!

(by the way, the scruffy dog at the top is Moshi, who often accompanies me on my adventures, and was patient enough to wait in my studio, so I thought I’d include her too.)

Since writing this post I came across the following article on twitter (via @dryearth) which looks at the experience of the artwork by the artist/ audience, and the context within which the work is created/experienced -

Situated Cognition, Dynamic Systems, and Art: On Artistic Creativity and Aesthetic Experience - Ingar Brinck

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03/12/2009 by James.

I was back in the studio yesterday and it felt great - I didn’t have my camera with me so not such great quality photos…

I want to do more map-based pieces on native wildlife and previously native species which may be re-introduced. I’m fascinated by the idea of re-wilding areas of our country, and the red kite, sea eagle, beaver and crane introductions that have been happening or are in the pipeline now.

I’m also itching to get back into some more 3-D pieces, maybe which combine found objects/materials and fragments of man-made clothing or other ‘detritus’, so watch this space….

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01/12/2009 by James.

I was in Kingston yesterday for 5×5x5=creativity, talking with a group of heads, teachers, and early years practitioners about creative learning and the inclusion of boys.

Its a tricky path to follow, providing for the needs of boys, without putting them into a box, and reinforcing any stereotypical ways of seeing and working with them. I know I didn’t enjoy my time at a traditional boys school and didn’t respond to the emphasis on outdoor sports and the controlling  almost dictatorial approach followed by some of the teachers. But there is research to suggest that a lot of boys do learn best through a more active full-bodied approach, and greater access to the outdoors.

My take on things is that if statistically more boys are seen to be ‘failing’ or not achieving what’s expected of them, then we’re doing something wrong, and that we’re probably doing something wrong for all children, not just the boys, but maybe (statistically speaking) the girls are more able to cope with a tradition of top-down, crowd-control, teaching methods.

Are we planning experiences for boys that build on their interests and value their strengths as active learners and problem solvers, or are we simply expecting them to be compliant, passive recipients of new skills and knowledge?

Confident, capable and creative: supporting boys achievements - DCSF

Now to me you could swap the ‘boys’ to ‘children’ and it would be even more pertinent - the reason children ‘fail’ is because our education system fails them.

I’m not a teacher, I am an artist and a creative learning consultant. I have loads of respect for teachers and learn from them each time I work with them. I am excited by the way in which I can work in partnership with educators and children, we can learn from each other, and by allowing the child to take the lead, they can show us how to work with them, where to work with them, and what they need to succeed.

But the difficulty is how to support teachers to put into practice this kind of creative, child-initiated approach when they are given so many hoops to jump through and class sizes that seriously inhibit opportunities for 1 to 1 contact with and observation of, individual children.

If each and every child was given the opportunity to learn in a way which is relevant to their needs and interests, through valuing and working with their own innate creativity, and if every child was encouraged to explore their local environment through their bodies and imaginations, then how can anyone fail - and why would we even need to teach or learn in specific ways according to gender?

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