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Scoil Mhuire Gan Smal in Graiguenamanagh | Butler Gallery Artists in Residency Scheme 2010
2010-05-08
Scoil Mhuire Gan Smal in Graiguenamanagh
On Wednesday 27th April I had my first meeting with Grainne O`Mullane, the teacher and Jean Tormey, the co-ordinator in Scoil Mhuire Gan Smal in Graiguenamanagh. We discussed the theme and timing of the sessions and decided to use the landscape of Graigenamanagh (which is stunning). This along with incorporating local history of legends we thought it would be a great way for the children to engage with where they live.
The first session was yestersday (7th May), with 25 10-11 year olds. One girl has mutliple disabilities so it was imporatant that making was also geared towards her ablilites too. Shortly after arriving her parents called in as an important delivery of an amazingly exact replica of her right hand had arrived after she`d left for school. The casting had been made by the a team that made models for Harry Potter. I think it was done for children in Great Ormonde St. Childrens hospital as a special treat. It was great to show the class a another aspect of 3-d work that I don`t have acess to show them.
So I started with a general talk about what I do and the rocess of ceramics showing them different clay etc. and then a demonstration of throwing on the wheel, which seemed to go down well, really got their attention, I hope we get the time to let each of them have a go. Next I paired them up and got them to draw each other, trying to get them to look at size and positioning of facial features. After a demonstration of making the masks they got their hands on the clay and made the 3-d version in air dry clay so we can paint them later. One thing I think I need to do though is to have either handouts or step by step instructions written on the board as running round such a large group was hectic as well as getting the teacher more handson, altough it was a particularly busy day in the school so I don`t think it`ll be a problem in the future.
Next was the story telling! We had an ex teacher from the school, Sister Aileen who told the children about life in the Abbey, nunnery and school as well as a few local characters. Using this and an outing to a well in the hills we are going to do a series of wall panels where the children work in group.
The girls (all 25 of them!) were great to work with, really enthusiastic and I`m delighted to have been paired with them.
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