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International Celebrations – Another Fossil Wall Nearly Done!
I’ve not posted much lately…. well, I’ve not done much lately! After those busy six weeks before the school holidays started, I’ve split my time between having a few hours off, upgrading the website, and still going round schools finishing off the Fossil Wall art.
Whilst the hard work of actually making the pieces was done with and by the children, I’ve still had to go round and do lots of sealing to make the plaster work suitable for where they will be installed, and in some cases mounting on boards, etc for display.
So, nothing specifically new here, but it’s the first time seen as it will be displayed. I found a lovely new local DIY store today, and treated myself to a countersink drill bit, a new tube dispenser gun (is it wrong to be so pleased by these acquisitions?) and some other bits and bobs. I’ve only got to drill the backs of the plaques onto the boards for added security although with the amount of gripfill I used (a whole tube), they should be secure.
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Fossil Walls…
For the last six weeks, I’ve been working in various primary schools in the local area.
We’ve been making ‘fossil walls’ – a process that I happened upon almost accidentally that gave some rather surprising and lovely results – modern day (or any) objects, cast, and because of the sand used in the process, I thought they looked like fossils.
Each school chose their own designs and ideas. Some of the schools I went into chose to do individual blocks, where the children brought in items that were important or significant to them; others wanted to leave a ‘legacy’ for other children coming up through the years with their words of wisdom (quite interesting choices from 10 year olds!). We also have done some plaques on based on areas of the curriculum, as well as designs based on school logos and mottos.
In all schools, the children actually got very involved with the making – from deciding what went into each design, to piling sand into containers and finding objects to insert. There’s some of the more technical and Health and Safety stuff I’ve had to do myself of course, but I’ve tried to let the children participate as much as possible – this is their work. Oh, and in most schools, I’ve had some lovely able helpers at the end of each day to tidy up.
It’s been great fun, if hard work; the children have been a delight with their wit, intelligence, creative thinking, helpfulness and politeness.
Here’s a couple of examples below. I am looking forward to them all being dried out enough to seal and getting them installed to decorate all the school spaces (even if that’s more work for me!)
Curriculum and classroom names 
Einstein said… 
Inspired by the school logo 
What subject? 
Words of Wisdom from Year 6 -
Wow, what a difference colour makes!
I recently posted a couple of photograms that I’d started with my AA2A research.So, I did a couple of sessions in black and white before Chris, the technician showed me how to do colour printing (well, technically, didn’t show me, as unlike with B&W where you can expose and print using the red safe-light, with colour you have to work in complete darkness as anything you can see, the paper can see. As you can imagine, its not exactly easy lining stuff up, fumbling around and getting the exposed paper into the print developer doodah thingy, which has to be the right way up….
I’ve absolutely loved exploring the photo-grams, and really wish I could do more. Have so many ideas on how it could be expanded further, by using different combinations of glass, whether that be shape, pattern or colour, but also would love to explore scale.
Alas, I ran out of time, and we have our exhibition opening next week, so I’ve had to bite the bullet and work with what I have already got. I won’t show you everything just yet, as there’s an exhibition at the University of Derby for that purpose, but here’s a few of my favourites (including a couple more B&W for interest!)
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Building Bridges
Last Wednesday, yes, one of those days after we’d already had a considerable snow fall, myself and Gavin went on a walk with the support and guidance of a couple of the Walking for Health leaders, and some of the group members.Starting at Armstrongs Mill which is near to one of the former train station sites (Ilkeston Junction), we meandered along the canal path, down to Bennerley Viaduct – this is a historically important structure is Grade II Listed and is on the Buildings at Risk Register. Unusual for it’s time, it is a wrought iron lattice work structure, when most viaducts were brick built – because of former coal mining in the area, it was subject to a lot of subsidence and it meant the structure was lighter. If you want to read more about the Viaduct, click here – it will take you to the Wikipedia page about it, which is as good a start as any. Happy history hunting.Despite the cold air, and crunchy snow underfoot, it was a lovely day for the walk, and the light was simply beautiful. I opted to take my little camera with me for ease; I do wish I had taken my dSLR as my pocket camera tended to mess up on light settings, but hopefully you can get the idea of how lovely it looked:
Bennerley Viaduct 
Well, I didn’t actually use the black and white setting here! The light was not quite as dramatic and stormy as it looks, but if I lighten the image any more, it loses all definition.It was fascinating for me; despite having lived in the area for most of my life, I don’t know that side of Ilkeston all that well, and lost my bearings a couple of times – it was good when I saw recognisable landmarks (to me) such as the Awsworth by-pass.The walk ended with a cuppa and tea-cake in Armstrongs Mill and a good chat with the walking group. Hopefully we’ll pick up some interesting memories about Stanton, and Cotmanhay, the railways, and so on, but mostly it was a pleasure to make contact with new people; certainly the walk inspired me to want to start sketching again (something I don’t do nearly enough of these days); now I actually know how to get down to the viaduct, I will return to with the bigger camera and the sketchbook – this might inspire a whole new body of work!
