29/10/2010 by James.

Here’s few photos of my artwork in progress for the College Lake bird-hide installation.

These photos show the display-case constructions that I’ve made from vintage luggage, using imagery of the reserve’s industrial past alongside illustrations and objects relating to the species that live there now.

I’m installing these four adapted suitcases and two large map-based ieces in a couple of weeks, so more pics to come of the complete installation - exciting!

The four artists installations are going to be launched on the 16th November, and will be open to the public from then on, so not long to wait to see everything up and running.

The other three artists, with links to their own websites are - Martin Prothero, Linda Cornwell and Stu McLellan.

Here’s a bit more information via Alistair from Outdoor Culture -

Our artists and two hundred children have transformed the interiors of four bird hides into works of art that reflect and enhance their setting and purpose.  This is functioning environmental art re-imagined for the 2010s..

James Aldridge brings together found objects, historical data, vintage luggage and manipulated maps to explore bird migration and industrial heritage.

Martin Prothero creates new work by enabling the plants and animals of the reserve to draw directly in the soil and represent themselves as art.

Lynda Cornwell illuminates the ultraviolet markings of local birds and insects with shifting rainbows of white light reflected from the sun.

Stu McLellan plays with the format of the graphic novel to portray his hide as a portal to a surreal and surprising universe.

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22/10/2010 by James.

Yesterday was my last day working on the College Lake inspired outdoor learning project with Ashmead Combined School in Aylesbury.

I’ve spent 3 days introducing 6 different groups to College Lake, exploring the site and supporting individual children to find and share their own discoveries, and then 3 days at school, each split into two half days with a group of nine children in each (so that’s two groups running in parallel over those last three days.)

The original project was set up by Alistair from Outdoor Culture, and the key aim was to support the children to experience a wildlife rich site like College Lake, an experience which a lot of them wouldn’t have had before, and for them to work with an artist (me) again, an experience which most of them won’t have had before.

“At the very moment that the bond is breaking between the young and the natural world, a growing body of research links our mental, physical and spiritual health directly to our own association with nature - in positive ways. Several of these studies suggest that thoughtful exposure of youngsters to nature can even be a powerful form of therapy for attention deficit disorder…As one scientist puts i, we can now assume that just as children need good nutrition and adequate sleep, they may very well need contact with nature.”

R Louv - Last Child in the Woods

The reception team at Ashmead are interested in Reggio inspired ways of working and so wanted to pick up on my experience in working in a child initiated way, so the 3 days at school focused on supporting the two groups of children to develop in confidence in following their own interests within the context of the schools own outdoor space.

So, how did that go, and what next? Hopefully you’ll have read through the previous posts and so I’ll sum up in a minute, and start thinking about where we can take things next, but first here’s a brief summary of what happened in yesterdays session.

One of the key parts of my work in such projects is supporting the children to reflect on what we/they have done previously, and to explore possibilities of what we/they could do next. So at the start of yesterdays’ sessions we talked with each group about what they could remember from the week before, what they had most enjoyed and what they would like to do this time (similarly at the end we looked at photographs of the session, gave the children a chance to share anything they wanted to tell us about them, and then wrote down any ideas they had for the future).

After I had read from my notebook some of their ideas and comments that I had noted down last week, we went outside to collect materials.We wanted the children to see that there is a wealth of materials that we can find and collect outside, so that they could draw from those as well as from those that I had brought along.

Its hard to capture everything that happened, but again there were children who were less confident in such an open brief and needed time to explore and to ‘find their feet’ before they focused on a particular way of making or investigating, or who needed a greater level of support in developing skills in sawing, tying, pushing stakes into the ground etc, and there were children who knew exactly what they wanted to do and what they needed.

The thing with a project such as this is that I’m not aiming to produce magical outcomes, or effect huge changes, more that I am looking to support the teaching staff in providing opportunities for the children to pursue their interests in ways which can help them to become more confident learners.

For me the beauty of creative, child initiated learning is that it can use for example, ‘intelligent’ materials (open-ended ones that encourage a variety of responses and interpretations) such as recycled or natural objects, to encourage children to take their existing ways of exploring the world to a new level, learning in ways that are relevant and enjoyable to them, and which can be ’scaffolded’ and supported by the adults working alongside them.

As the teachers pointed out, the children weren’t necessarily doing anything new as such, in that their behavious were recognisably ‘them’, but they were being given a chance to follow those interests across a series of sessions, within the context of the ‘real’ world of the outdoors, and on a larger scale that might normally be possible. The outdoor environment also tends to provide those children with a more active, full-bodied way of interacting with and learning about the world with a more positive outlet/role.

As another teacher pointed out, what this kind of project can also do is provide the children with opportunities to do all the learning that they need to in terms of literacy, numeracy etc, but through ways that are relevant and enjoyable to them. So, ideally, the adult is there to document, talk to and advise the children in ways that support the child to learn, rather than planning and leading a session in the more traditional sense.

So for instance, one girl yesterday created a measuring stick and invited every other child and adult to be measured and then recorded their various heights in different colours, whilst another explored weight, balance, tying etc through creating a see-saw and a swing out of sticks, string and rope.

As well as enabling us to track this learning, the continuing cycle of documentation, reflection and dialogue with the children and adults supports the children to gain an awareness of where they have come from and where they are going, as well as encouraging language development as they share and explain their ideas.

“Our role in this context is to draw out the thoughts and ideas of children and to support their learning once we have first established what matters to them. Similarly, we can see just how much children seek out teachers themselves to support and lead them in their learning,”

A Sully - Researching Children Researching the World

So what next? One of the challenges identified by staff has been how they can keep abreast of what is going on in this focus group whilst it is happening in a separate space from the rest of the group, and how the benefits can be shared with other staff and children.

So far we have had regular reflection meetings, members of staff have taken turns to work with me and document the children, and suggestions have been made as to how all the documentation could be used within the setting to make the learning more visible and ’share-able’.

Its a really interesting set-up at Ashmead, in that the three reception classes work in interconnecting spaces and a large amount of the time is spent in free-flow between these interconnected indoor spaces, and an outdoor play area.

At the moment we are looking at me paying a return visit to the school in the Spring Term, and working within this space as one of the ‘activities’ or resourced areas on offer, to help integrate the project into the setting. I think this could offer both benefits and challenges, so it will be interesting to see if we can offer continuity and depth of learning to those children who need it, whilst being visible and accessible to the less confident children who would be able to dip in and out.

All in all its been a really rich experience with a great group of children and adults, and has given me lots to think about.

If you’ve any thoughts or comments to add please do so here, as we are keen to be able to share ideas across projects and settings, and to explore different approaches to creative/child-initiated learning within this age group.

‘We have discovered a cycle of enquiry that constantly re-emerges: an encounter between children and materials coincides with their imagination or interest, is recorded by the teacher or saved as an artefact, and is retold by children and teachers, which becomes a provocation to pursue the encounter into the future. It is a continuous cycle of perching and flying. Like birds landing and taking off, children and teachers survey the terrain and ascend in order to gain a new perspective.”        

Barbara Burrington, USA

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19/10/2010 by James.

I’ve been busy creating small ‘vitrines’ from old suitcases recently, as part of my installation at College Lake along with three other artists commissioned by Outdoor Culture.

I’m going to be installing the work at the start of November, alongside large map-based panels that are currently at the framers and which were inspired by migratory birds, so not long to wait until the installations are open to the public!

Here’s a few photos of work in progress to give you a taster, combining archive photographs of the lake’s industrial past as a working quarry, images of wildlife found on-site, and found objects relevant to the reserve.

They are still a bit rough, and need a bit of working on, but I think they are progressing nicely.

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18/10/2010 by James.

I’ll be showing two pieces at BANA’s (Bath Area Network for Artists) New View group exhibition next month, Field and Snail, both framed mixed-media work, and both for sale.

New View will run from Friday 29th October to Saturday 6th November, and is open from 11.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m.

The show will be held at Bath Artists Studios Gallery, see here for how to get there.

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15/10/2010 by James.

As promised, here’s a short post on Yesterday’s session at Ashmead School. We began with each of the two Reception groups by showing them some images of different animal homes, nests, and nest-inspired sculptures/constructions. The children talked about what they reminded them of, where they’d seen similar things before, and of their links to College Lake (Rabbit holes, Swan nests etc).

We then went outside where a selection of materials was waiting - wooden tree stakes, bamboo, willow, rope, string, tape, scissors, hay etc. We told the children that they could make whatever they wanted, and then stood back a little to see who had a clear idea of how they wanted to start, and who might be less confident in taking the initiative.

One of the most interesting things about this kind of open activity in an outdoor space, is the relationships between the children, how ideas pass from one to another, and how relationships form as group-work takes place.

Some children had clear plans, were able to see several steps ahead and so decided what they needed to do/use accordingly. Others preferred to explore the materials and see where that led them. A few who were maybe not so used to such freedom, waited or asked for approval or instructions, and were supported in learning what possibilities lay within the choice of tools and materials. For example I showed two boys how to push stakes into the earth or join them with tape, and how to use the hacksaw. Slowly they began to try things out for themselves, and to join these new experiences together to create their own ideas and structures.

Several children made nests, one of which evolved into a basketball hoop. One group of girls ‘bandaged’ the trees with masking tape, and lots of the children explored the spaces between the tree trunks and branches by wrapping, tying and connecting with wool and rope. Its fascinating to see how when provided with connecting materials in a rich outdoor environment, the children connect the features and make sense of the spaces between them, in ways that seem to echo the relationships that they are negotiating and creating.

Some children also chose to mark-make, creating signs for their constructions with their names on, or in one case using a drawing of a bird to show the birds where to go to find the nest. Another girl created a measuring stick with pencil marks drawn up her length of wood to measure the height of different children, whilst a third hung written labels from a scarecrow that she had created.

There is such a richness in sessions like these, with learning taking place in lots of different areas of the EYFS Framework, so documenting the processes involved rather than the end products in isolation becomes vital.

Although I can recognise and relish the buzz of a group of children in a state of ‘flow’, as they explore, form ideas and experiment, the value in terms of the learning that takes place becomes more clear for me afterwards, when meeting and reflecting on that documentation with the teachers and TA’s.

By drawing on their knowledge and experiences of the children, and offering my fresh viewpoint, we can start to understand how certain activities can support language development, mark-making, the development of social skills, empathy etc

Next Thursday is my last session of this project at Ashmead, and we are planning that one right now, drawing on our reflections, and on the ideas of the children… more to follow here next week.

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13/10/2010 by James.

Monday’s session with the children and staff from Ashmead was held back at school. It’s a different set up to College Lake, obviously, and the children are bound to react differently to being at school as opposed to going on a trip, but I wanted to support them to remember their experiences at the lake, and to have a chance to explore the school grounds in a similar way.

We sat and looked at photographs together of our trips to the Lake first of all, with the children naming people they saw, and things that they had found or seen. I think this kind of group reflection helps provide continuity for the children, keeping their past experiences fresh in their minds as we continue with the project. It also gives me and the teaching staff a chance to hear what the children were thinking about as they explored at College Lake - sometimes children are so in the moment when they are exploring, that a later opportunity to reflect and to comment on what they have done is just what they (and we) need.

So after reflecting on the photos, we took bags and boxes and went outside to explore the school’s own grounds. We encouraged the children to use their senses to explore and to gather things that stood out for them. They clustered around wooden structures and compared them to bird hides, they found berries and feathers and described the colours of the different leaves, and we took a walk up to the school’s own large pond area to see what we could find there, and how it compared to the Lake.

A lot of what is beneficial about this project is in the process of exploring, of encouraging children to show us what they are interested in and providing ample opportunity for them to share that with us. For some children, the conversations with us and each other are really important and powerful, for others who are less confident verbal communicators, the chance to collect and to reflect through making becomes key to their equal involvement.

Once inside the children were provided with paper of various sizes, tape, glue, scissors, envelopes, labels, and different mark-making materials. I asked them to explore their finds using whatever they wanted to choose, and that they could write, draw or make. All the while, a slideshow of photos from the Lake was playing up on the wall.

Some children seemed very confident and clear in what they wanted to make or achieve, mentioning rivers, and ducks, or placing leaves and other objects carefully and confidently in particular arrangements, whilst others needed a little more time to experiment, or watch what others were doing.

From our observations of the children, we can see that there are a number of ways that the project could go next. There is an interest in animal holes, nests, hides and other enclosed spaces and animal homes of  various kinds, There are also the children who are most interested in the direct sensory experience of exploring the ’stuff’ of the world with their hands and bodies. And there are children who are keen to write, draw, or take photos that document their and other’s explorations.

To try and offer everyone something relevant to their needs and interests, I am gathering together a range of lager scale materials that we can used outside to create structures - nests, shelters, etc, that the children can use to change and enclose existing features, can climb inside and animate with their play, and can choose to label, or decorate with smaller finds and creations.

That’s all coming  on Thursday, I’ll let you know here how it all goes. In the meantime, here’s a plan for Thursday’s session, kindly drawn and narrated to us by a boy in one of the two groups, showing the nest that he would like to make outside, complete with the heads of baby birds poking out from the sides.

All the photos and details on this blog are intended as a snapshot of what happened in each session. Needing to avoid faces, and keep things fairly brief, you don’t necessarily get the full picture of any one child’s journey in the project. Within the setting these pictures can be used in series, informed by the teacher’s more in-depth knowledge of each child, and with the child’s own comments alongside to bring them to life and make sense of what the child is particularly interested in or learning about.

For a useful read on the role of documentation and reflection in creative learning projects, I’d recommend ‘Researching Children Researching the World: 5×5x5=creativity’ - follow the link for more info.

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08/10/2010 by James.

The second two days of sessions at College Lake with Reception children from Ashmead School took place this week, with each group of children showing very different approaches to exploring and making sense of the different environments at the College Lake reserve.

There was still a real fascination with the tracks and footprints left in the wet mud by people, animals and cars/tractors, and some children used found charcoal to make marks, but this time there was also more imaginative play about who or what lived at the reserve, and how they got there.

For instance, the old broom inside the reconstructed charcoal burner’s hut sparked tales of flying witches, and sticks became flying machines and fishing rods, whilst a wooden den in the woods was a school room for one little boy.

There was also more focus on seeking out and naming birds, listening to bird calls, and talking about the formations that they flew or swam in.

What we’ve done since, is to draw from our notes, photos and memories of the visits; the teachers sharing their insight on the children’s behaviour with me, and how being at College Lake has supported or altered particular behaviours, and me explaining my own interest in particular children’s ways of working, and how these relate to work I’ve done elsewhere or other areas of my practice.

On Monday I’m heading back to school to run the first of three days of sessions with two smaller groups, giving us a chance to follow those children’s fascinations to a greater depth, and translate some of the excitement and magic into the school’s own grounds.

We’ll be reflecting with the children using photographs taken by us and them, and offering a chance to use mark-making, sticking and construction, as one teacher suggested, to enable the children to share their thoughts and ideas in ways other than verbally.

We’ll also be exploring the school’s own fields and trees in similar ways to those used on our College Lake visits.

Its going to give me an opportunity to get to know individual children a lot better, and for us as a team to plan and provide them with new opportunities for the last two days of the project, that meet their needs more closely and support them to develop their own means of learning and exploring within the context of their own local environment.

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