06/12/2010 by James.

From December 2010 I will no longer be adding to this blog but will be blogging from a new site at -

www.jamesaldridge-artist/blog

You can continue to visit here for information on past projects, but please update your bookmarks or sign up for email updates to keep up to date with my new blog.

Both my website addresses will remain the same -

http://www.jamesaldridge-artist.co.uk

http://www.creative-ecology.co.uk

Posted in Art & Disabiltiy, other art, Museums & Galleries, Learning/Teaching, College Lake Residency, events, environmental issues, Blogroll, 5x5x5=creativity, me & my work, projects, Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

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.

Posted in College Lake Residency, Museums & Galleries, other art, environmental issues, me & my work | Print | No Comments »

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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13/09/2010 by James.

This toolkit was commissioned by the MLA from Salisbury & South Wiltshire Museum, as the legacy of a series of creative family learning projects, run by myself in partnership with the museum’s Learning & Outreach Officer Laura Bullivant, with the support of the Wiltshire extended schools service.

The projects aimed to use outreach projects to give families of primary age children a chance to explore the themes of the museum’s collection. The sessions were delivered creatively, informed by the children’s own interests, and linked to the participants’ local environment.

This toolkit was informed by three projects, two of which I was directly involved in delivering, Connect & Create and Making Tracks, and posts on which can be found on this blog under the ‘Projects’ category.

The third project, Explore:Connect:Create, tried a different approach, using the recruitment of volunteers to work alongside Laura with the aim of developing a financially sustainable way of working for the future. In this case I provided professional development for the volunteers and mentoring for Laura.

Please click on the following link to go to the News section of the Creative Ecology website, where the toolkit can be downloaded - Toolkit Download

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01/09/2010 by James.

I thought I’d share some work i n progress using leaves from Westonbirt Arboretum and a couple of botanical gardens in Cornwall.

I’m always picking up bits and pieces wherever I go, a leaf here, a rusty cog there, its something I’ve done my whole life, and I find it very satisfying when they all come together to make artworks, like miniature versions of the world.

When I was a child I had loads of collections - feathers, fossils, matchboxes and coins, crystals and seedpods, like my own private museum.

These days I still gather them and dot them about my house or stitch and bind them together, but I’m also working with and for museums, using my knowledge of how searching and discovering in creative ways can really foster a love of learning, and of our natural and cultural heritage.

I guess what it does is to give people what can often be a rare chance to see the world for themselves, taking time to notice what’s important to them, and the beauty and preciousness of everyday ‘treasures’.

Tomorrow I’m back at College Lake with Foundation Stage teachers from Ashmead School, planning sessions for Reception age children to explore and discover the site with me.

I also heard today that the Search Museum in Gosport has got funding from Renaissance South East’s as part of Green SLIME (Science Learning in Museum Education), to employ me to work with them and a local school, developing a resource supporting other schools to use creative ways to learn about biodiversity.

And in amongst all this I’ve been researching bird migration for my own artwork at College Lake, with the aim of sharing with visitors how this little oasis near Tring is just one piece of the very large ecological puzzle that its bird visitors need to survive.

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18/08/2010 by James.

I know its not January, but with the new academic year starting, and my work needing to fit with the school year more and more, this year I’ve kept most of August aside to get things done that I never have time for, and feel like things are just about to kick off again at the start of term.

Its been great to be able to step of the treadmill of work and get my websites updated, visit museums and galleries that I’ve been meaning to for a while, carry out research for my installation at College Lake, and generally reflect on everything that’s happened so far this year, and all that I need to plan and prepare for in the Autumn.

Its meant that I have spent a lot more time than normal staring at a computer screen, writing c.v’s, making the creative ecology site more user friendly, and getting slightly obsessed with twitter.

As someone who can feel fairly isolated by being based in rural Wiltshire, I’ve found twitter invaluable for keeping up to date with what everyone in the arts, heritage and environmental worlds is up to, making really interesting new contacts and being signposted to useful documents and events.

But I remembered this morning that another thing I was aiming to do this Summer was to actually switch the computer off and give myself some time out, exploring my local patch. It was a beautiful morning and just what I needed, getting up above everything, with a breeze blowing, a pregrine turning and swooping to avoid mobbing crows, and butterflies all around me on the downland flowers.

I try to keep a balance in my work life, and that’s not easy when you’re fascinated by the relationship between so many things. Yes I love to go out walking and quiet peaceful time in the hills or woods, and to make things in a quiet, meditative sort of way, but I also love the buzz of a stimulating conference, a meeting with like-minded, passionate people, and travelling around the country making new connections and sharing ideas.

And most of all I love to combine the different strands together. Its been great to have a few weeks to get things up to date, to visit the new Ashmolean in Oxford, and discover for myself the Sir John Soane’s treasure packed rooms, but I’m itching to get back out and be working alongside the children again, sharing my passion for the outdoors.

So, tomorrow I’m heading to Bristol for a meeting with English Heritage about developing the family backpack project for the Stonehenge landscape, and will pop in to see the Art From The New World exhibition at Bristol’s Museum & Art Gallery that I’ve heard so much about (on twitter…). I’m also talking to another museum about working together to create a teacher’s resource on exploring biodiversity creatively, and on the 2nd September I’m meeting with staff from Ashmead School in Aylesbury to plan an exciting creative outdoor learning project as part of my residency at College Lake.

So, its all go again, exploring, making, sharing and learning, all mixed up together, and I can’t wait.

Posted in College Lake Residency, Learning/Teaching, Museums & Galleries, me & my work | Print | No Comments »

09/08/2010 by James.

Right now I’m occupied with thinking about the overlap in my practice between art, learning and interpretation, as in interpretation for heritage or environmental sites.

Most of my work at the moment falls into three main areas -

1. Developing interpretation materials for English Heritage/The National Trust by consulting creatively with children and young people, for Stonehenge and its surrounding landscape

2. Responding to the environment of College Lake Reserve in Bucks for Outdoor Culture to develop an installation for a bird hide and creative learning programme for a local school

3. Mentoring or providing professional development for artists, teachers and museum educators on the role of the arts/creativity in learning

I personally see all of this as my practice as an artist, because my practice centres around the role that art can play in supporting individuals to engage with the world around them, and in ways appropriate to them. However, I describe my role to different people in different ways depending on the context in which I’m working, because the popular image of what an artist is/does often doesn’t quite fit. This seems to stem from the image of the artist as being somehow separate from society, not someone with an integral role, apart from to entertain or provoke, or to make things pretty.

But can’t art be interpretation, can’t interpretation be art, and what is the relationship of both of them to learning?

I’m not going to try and answer these questions, in fact I’ll probably ask a lot more. What I’m interested in doing is looking at the role that artists can and do play within the field of interpretation and learning, and explore the relationship between these areas within my own practice.

When I was at college, studying Fine Art and making sculptures that explored the relationship of my body to the landscape around me, I was told by one tutor that my work was too beautiful. She told me that she wanted to be shocked, to be challenged. My response at the time was that that wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to engage people, to connect with people and to seek to connect people with the material-reality of the world around them, through engaging them with my artwork. I wanted to encourage a kind of empathy with my experience as the maker, through our shared cultural and bodily relationships with the artwork. I wanted to start to set up a dialogue between them and me, via the materials and processes that led to the creation of the object, and so to the place where the materials might have come from.

In the 15 years since then, my work has developed to engage much more directly with other people, through participatory projects and creative learning initiatives, but the direct sensory experience of exploring a place, and making in response to that, has stayed with me.

I understand that there are lots of kinds of art and artists, and that not everyone is trying to achieve what I am. There are also various approaches to learning, and interpretation materials in heritage and environmental settings take various forms. But what links my work across these areas is the belief in the need for each individual to be given the opportunity to engage with a place, a material, an object, in ways that leave room for them, for their own personal context.

My installation at College Lake could well be seen as a form of interpretation. The other interpretation already on site could also be seen as art - illustrations of the species and habitats are placed around the site and work well. But what I want to offer at College Lake is an opportunity for engagement and learning through interaction with an artwork, within the context of a specific place, that could be said to be poetic, in that it offers more than the sum of its constituent parts. I hope that it will offer a chance to be moved or changed by the experience of that specific environment, rather than being purely illustrative.

So can, and should Museum and Gallery interpretation look to encourage a similarly individual, emotional and imaginative response to a place or an artefact? Can one work of art offer a ‘way in’ to another?

There are plenty of examples of artists carrying out residencies in Museums (see Art & Artefact: Museum as Medium by James Puttnam), of creating interventions that respond to or highlight the background of specific artefacts, but these tend to be temporary, and afterwards things tend to return to normal, like the ‘parachute’ art projects that pop up and fade away in schools. Some interpretation aims to evoke a place or time using film, sound or smell, but is this art? Is there room for an audience or participant to interpret and adapt the experience to fit their own needs and experiences?

My interest is in exploring how artists can facilitate more meaningful interaction with sites or exhibits, questioning assumptions, and giving permission for alternative interpretations to be discussed and shared, in ways that can be transformational for all involved. Can (should) Museums, Galleries and Nature Reserves look to work with artists on a longer term basis, to support a re-evaluation of what a site can look and feel like to visitors, and what they might gain from interaction with it?

As with successful artist-teacher partnerships, this could be beneficial for both partners, with artists offering alternative ways of presenting and interpreting artefacts or information, whilst gaining from the in-depth knowledge and experience of site (Museum, Reserve etc) staff/professionals.

My work in education, especially on behalf of 5×5x5=creativity, seeks to support a move towards permanent change - a move towards educational practice that is responsive to the needs of the participant, that places them at the centre of the learning experience. I see my work in this context as being socially embedded art. I am acting from a position within the system, working in partnership and effecting change through dialogue.

Can involving artists in developing interpretation do the same? Can interpretation evolve in ways that value and respond to the individual, and provide information, rather than simply placing emphasis on the ‘official’ story of an object for example? Can we release our grip on telling people what to think and instead start to focus on engaging and asking people what they think, supporting them to learn for themselves? (See ‘Curiosity’ at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery)

I was watching ‘Behind the Scenes at the Museum’ last night on BBC 4, filmed at The Freud Museum ( http://www.freud.org.uk ). The staff at the Museum seemed to be exploring similar issues to those mentioned here, with a new director looking to make the Museum appear less elitest, and a discussion amongst staff debating whether letting the objects on display speak for themselves or increasing the amount of interpretation would be best.

The programme seemed to infer that the office staff as theorists/academics took a different view to those staff who were more hands-on. Essentially the Museum was struggling to understand what their visitors wanted and who their visitors were; whether to focus on Freud’s theories or to draw on the life of the Freud family and their personal effects.

I guess that some of them were worried about ‘dumbing down’ and felt anxious about change. From my own work with Museums, there often seems to be a divide between those that conserve and study artfacts, and those that seek to encourage greater access to them. With interpretation lying at the  boundary between curation/research and learning/access, it isn’t surprising that there is some conflict.

But as a more creative approach to learning begins to creep into our schools and museums, encouraging more inclusive and person-centred practice, I think that Museum interpretation has a lot to learn and gain from it.

Its not about ‘dumbing down’, its about providing access to a wider range of people and encouraging greater dialogue, resulting in interpretation that is multi-faceted and responsive to the needs and interests of everyone. As people who explore the world around them in creative ways on a daily basis, artists could be the ideal partners in helping this to happen.

After all, what is the point of preserving artwork or wildlife at a specific site if we don’t seek to forge links between them and their local communities, to allow learning to take place in ways that are moving and meaningful to the individuals of that community, using the site as a valuable learning resource and raising awareness of its importance.

Art to me is not something separate that might occasionally seek to engage with society, it is a way of exploring and engaging with the world, which when embedded within our institutions can lead to powerful social and environmental change.

(For more discussion on co-creation of exhibitions with artists and the public, see Museums Association website)

Posted in Learning/Teaching, College Lake Residency, Museums & Galleries, environmental issues, me & my work, projects, 5x5x5=creativity | Print | No Comments »

30/06/2010 by James.

Next week there’s an exhibition at The Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston University, set up by the three settings involved in 5×5x5=creativity, in our new research cluster in Kingston Upon Thames.

The exhibition will include photographic and written documentation, together with artworks, to share the learning journeys of the children involved in the research, and of the artists, teachers and cultural organisations working alongside them.

Please follow the link below for more information, and see the Stanley Picker Gallery website for directions.

5×5×5_spg_exhibposter.pdf

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25/06/2010 by James.

Another busy and rewarding week, and the last two days of my work with Churchfields Infant School in Redbridge, through Creative Partnerships.

We had our celebration day yesterday, with parents and governors coming in to hear more about the project, see documentation and artwork, and to get hands-on, trying out some of the activities developed with the children during the life of the project. This included a group of parents constructing a shelter, designed through mark-making and modeling by their reception age children, which will continue to evolve as the children themselves add onto it.

It was brilliant to hear how individual children had been continuing their investigations at home, exploring their own gardens, reflecting on the buildings and structures around them to discuss what makes a shelter a shelter, noticing the shapes and patterns on every day things such as leaves and feathers found on the floor, and bringing parents to the documentation panels and structures placed around the school to share their learning.

Its been a really interesting journey for me. We started out with an aim of supporting the children’s voices to be heard, and of using the local outdoor environment in creative ways, with the possibility of generating ideas for enriching the school’s own grounds.

My last session with the Year 2 class ended with us looking back through hand made journals of drawings, photos, rubbings and gathered found objects, reflecting on what we had learned over the last few months, and where we had been.

We then asked these children to think about what might come next, how could their explorations and their learning continue beyond the life of the project?

Their responses were rich, detailed and inspiring, with maps and plans showing networks of enclosed den-like spaces reaching out across the school grounds, connecting the play areas of the different year groups and providing new spaces for talking, playing, reading, and for wildlife.

 It reminded me of the work I’ve also been doing with/for English Heritage, giving local children and young people an opportunity to develop designs for the interior of the education space, and for ways of sharing the importance of the environmentally sustainable features planned for the visitor centre, through engaging and accessible interpretation.

Of course the future of the centre looks in doubt now as one of the many spending cuts, but the opportunity to be listened to, to have your ideas and vision for the future documented, taken seriously and (hopefully) acted upon, is such an important experience. Whatever happens with the centre, and in the school grounds at Churchfields, I hope that we have given the children greater confidence in their creative ability to shape the human world to suit their needs, increased empathy and understanding of difference, and a greater awareness of how people can live in an interconnected harmony with their local natural and cultural heritage.

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09/06/2010 by James.

Here’s a few images taken from a recent drop-in family workshop, that I ran at Salisbury & South Wiltshire Museum for Salisbury International Arts Festival, responding to chalk hill figures with liquid clay, chalk and charcoal.

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