residencies
Totem Project: A London Secondary School Artist In Residence
This was an ambitious 3D environmental project for the grounds of a secondary school in South London.
On being invited to visit the site, I was inspired by the idea of creating a trio of totem poles to be erected in an unused space near the art sector. I researched different approaches to the theme and calculated what tools and materials we would need, as well as costing the project as a whole.
The students who would be working on the project were to be groups selected from years 9, and 10, who had chosen art and design as one of their specialist subjects for GCSE. I designed the structure of the project to allow each student to develop their own piece for the totem alongside discussion and collaboration with their friendship group.
I created and gave slide presentations of different examples related to the wide range of cultural, racial and religious backgrounds of the students involved. Students were encouraged to do their own research, to explore ideas and make sketches and maquettes for their final piece.
I gave the students regular demonstrations of the techniques required for creating their totem piece. Each stage of building was given to the students in a booklet of printed, annotated images.
I am a teacher of Art & Design with many years experience across the 14 – 19 age range. I have worked in comprehensive education, further education and special needs.
Recently I have been involved in Artist in Residence projects with a number of secondary schools.
In discussion with the schools, I have either initiated and developed project ideas or responded to commissions requested by the individual school.
I have created a section that outlines a number of school projects. From each project title, you can view the student responses.
In order to protect their privacy, the identity of the centre and the students is not shown.
Contact me with enquiries if you are interested in making project plans and dates for a possible residency. Please leave me a message via this website.
Education and Training
I have worked as a trainer, a presenter and an examiner in Art & Design for an exam board, where for some years, I was Chair of Examiners for the Art and Design sector.
During my time in this role, I wrote the specifications for A Level Art & Design and created a wide range of CD training material with examples of exemplar student artwork. Over a number of years I presented the training material to groups of tutors and teachers working in the 14-19 curriculum for Art and Design, both nationally and internationally.
I have also co-written a book for both tutors and students of BTEC Art & Design: Building a Portfolio in Art & Design published by Pearson and available on Amazon.
The School-Based Projects
Special Needs School Projects:
The following images are taken from my recent projects with Special Needs groups of students
I have written, designed and instigated art projects for groups of Special Needs students aged 11-16 in East Sussex. There were three separate activities:
- Costume Design (Paper and Black Bag)
- Clay Rabbits
- Mural Design
Costume Design (Paper and Black Bag)
I worked in collaboration with the school to create a costume design project using recycled and recyclable materials from different papers, card and plastics.
The students were placed in mixed age and ability range groups. This allowed for collaborative working where older or more able students could help those less able.
I encouraged each group to work in pairs so that each could be the model for the other. The students sketched out possible costumes and I gave advice on keeping their designs simple and in some cases only creating ideas for accessories. These pieces turned out to be equally if not more effective! They could also use their skills of measuring and documenting in order to estimate the amount of material required for their designs. I gave examples of ideas using the given materials to demonstrate different techniques.
The students completed the project with a fashion show. They created a stage using PE mats and a line-up with the more confident students demonstrating how to best walk the walk and show off their creations. Students were on hand to create short videos of each display.
Clay Rabbits
This was a project inspired by animals as pets. This was negotiated with the teacher assistants as part of the activities offered to students during Activity Week.
Students chose the rabbit as their theme.
The material used was to be grey buff or crank stoneware clay. These bodies of clay are suited for building, modelling and carving as well as being strong and durable after firing.
At the onset of the activity and throughout the project, I gave demonstrations and created examples of modelling, moulding, building and carving.
On completion of the project I took the students’ clay rabbits to be fired at the local FE centre where I had access to the kilns. They were returned to the students in time to be taken home to show parents and carers.
Mural Design
This was to be collaborative student project for a show in the school hall and then would become a semi-permanent display.
The students lacked confidence in using art materials and my idea was to get them to work as freely as possible to create a rich and colourful mural design based on making marks using different tools and materials. So with the teacher assistants I devised a project idea using mark-making as our jumping off point, which could then be developed further into more pictorial ideas.
The students were given rolls of print paper to experiment with mark-making using home-made tools as well as drawing and painting materials.
I gave demonstrations in the use of tools and made example pieces to show students how to freely express different kinds of marks on paper. We discussed appropriate use of adjectives, such as fast, slow, soft, hard, thick, thin and so on.
As the experimenting progressed and the students gained confidence, we considered the results. I asked what they could see in the random abstract marks and patterns. Some saw figures or animals or stars and more. They wanted to find pictorial associations and make them clearer so each group worked on their mark-making creating images inspired by the marks they had made.
Some images were cut and pasted on to mark-making sheets; some images remained as part of the whole sheet. Students were then encouraged to continue working over the top of these until they were satisfied with the composition and colour of their final pieces.
Final discussions included how the project had helped students not to be fearful of painting and drawing and to work more freely, using gesture and brushstrokes to express ideas.
Maggie Edwards 