4^th Form Artists get creative in response to ‘Spirals in Nature’ ceramic workshop and interactive tour of New Centre Arts Sculpture Park.

A welcome opportunity to unite both 4^th Form Art classes to experience new techniques, creative approaches and ideas working in clay lead by local contemporary ceramicist, Hiro Takahashi.

Inspired by their current project, 'Natural & Mechanical Forms', we had an opportunity to create a range of personal responses based around Thursday morning's ceramic workshop theme, ‘Spirals in Nature'. Over the course of the morning 4^th Form Artists produced dynamic and complex clay structures. Inspiring demonstrations lead by Hiro encouraged pupils to explore relationships between inner and exterior surfaces. Also, pupils explored and experimented with constructing layers, whilst allowing their clay forms to intrinsically grow and evolve. 

In the afternoon, we departed for Salisbury to visit the well-established sculpture park Roche Court, founded in the 1990’s. Founder of the New Arts Centre, Madeleine Bessborough has established an ethos that Art should be part of everyday life and subsequently created an environment for all to experience and engage with modern and contemporary art curated throughout the 60 acre estate.

In the capable hands of New Arts Centre Educational team, we embarked on a guided tour with a series of activities aimed at engaging pupils first-hand with artworks and sculptural forms. Throughout, we had the opportunity to discuss, share and explore ideas behind artworks. We visited works by well-known artist such as Edmund de Waal, Peter Randall- Page and Jacqueline Poncelet. Pupils visually recorded their experience and thoughts through first-hand observational sketches and a series of well-planned activities. Throughout, it was pleasing to see how the pupils confidently interacted and expressed their opinions in response to the artworks whilst making links to their current project.

It was a wonderfully enriching day with a tale of two halves from a hands-on practical experience to a visually engaging, interactive tour, and we look forward to taking this experience forward to help inform and develop pupils’ creative practice.  

George Cole - Artist in Resident

Flickr album: Art Workshop & Trip to Roche Court - 15th October 2020 | Height: auto | Theme: Default