Sculpture

This is the last forging day on the project, the last day for anyone who hasn’t had a go at making a feather in copper, wire bird or forged feather to try their hand. I had four members of staff come and forge feathers for the bird designed by Toby, this will be just small…

Today I had lovely Year 2 to work with, the last class to spend their day with me.  They started off watching the demonstration and asked really great questions and stayed fully attentive for the whole demo which I was really impressed about.  With so many questions I had gone over my allotted time! We…

Today’s making time was kindly given by Head Teacher of Ark School Mr Chislett to the local German School from Hardt.  They came with 6 pupils and two teachers and one older pupil to document their day!  I love this kind of cross school/age group involvement in a community school project. Each pupil spoke a…

What a fantastic day we have had at Ark School!  The sun shone all day, even hot enough to warm the metal and tools without using the forge!  I was working with teacher Mrs Rickards and her Year 3 class today and brilliantly the class decided to have their whole day outside in the tented…

For me not being used to military life it was slightly daunting to come and stay at JHQ for a two week duration while working at ARK School. I am so used to my freedom and autonomy as an artist, military life is almost the exact opposite I imagine. I have been allocated a room…

The end of the week was really hot and sunny on the playground, working with year 4.  We managed to get some birds completed today so are only a little behind schedule. Year four had some pupils with real strength and accuracy which enabled them to push on with the work.  The bird we made…

Today I was joined by six pupils and their teacher from Windsor School based at JHQ.  A couple of these pupils had previously attended Ark School so it was great for them to return for a day. They were a fantastic bunch, they got totally into making copper feathers using repousse techniques and although they…

I had an amazing day making wire birds with Year 1 pupils, it was really lovely for me to work with the younger children on this project, not something I usually get time for when working in schools.  Fantastic help was provided by Mrs C and Mr R and Yr 1 LSA so each child…

My tools and I have safely arrived at The Ark School JHQ Rheindahlen.  We have a lovely working area set aside in the school playground using two old garages as dry workshop and storage space. Day one went really well working with year six pupils on their lovely designed bird with a big scrolled head…

I have just loaded up my small Victorian bellows forge and little anvil plus approx half a ton of hand tools into a van that is now scurrying over to Germany.  Organising and sorting through my workshop to find the right tools to take to JHQ Monchengladbach for this project has taken far longer than…