Recycling Sculpture Workshops - Saturday 25th May

RE/form

Recycling Sculpture Workshops - Steeple Arts Centre, Fife

Two half day (3 hours) workshops for young people aged between 10-16 years.  Students will learn to use reclaimed objects and materials to make sculptures. Julia will begin with basic sculpture construction, help choose materials then help combine and assemble. She will demonstrate ways to connect different materials before setting a few simple challenges to begin making recycled sculptures

By the end of the session students will have constructed at least one Recycled Sculpture to take home and will have learnt about artists who have used discarded objects to make sculptures.

Students will be asked to bring any unwanted/discarded objects found or given to them for use in the workshop. A wide variety of materials will also be provided. Please come in suitable workshop clothing.

                                               

         The course will be taught by Artist Julia Barton who has made work from galleries, gardens, an American jail, to a bridge over the River Tyne and on the streets of London. A selection of projects can be seen at www.julia_barton.co.uk  Julia was recently featured in The Times.                   

Saturday 25th May: morning session 10 – 1  and  afternoon 2-5   Fee £30

Course numbers are limited to a maximum of 6 to ensure a good learning experience.  Minimum numbers are required for the course to run so it is helpful if students can book their place early.

For information and bookings please contact Julia at: 

julia_barton@btinternet.com  07977997605 

Introduction & Taster session with Julia making recycled sculpture after school on Thurs 21 March 2013 6-7pm  

Introduction and Taster session with Julia making recycled sculpture after school on Thurs 21 March 2013 6-7pm 

Steeple Arts Centre, Fife, Scotland

Artist Julia Barton will be showing stems of her recycled plant sculpture Heavy Plant Crossing which travelled through the streets of London May 2012 as part of the Chelsea Fringe Festival. 

She will demonstrate how she selects used materials and assembles them to make fun recycled sculptures. People will be welcome to browse and select materials to make a small simple relief sculpture to take away. She hopes young people will want to join her in a workshop later in the spring.

2013-14

Heavy Plant Crossing is now available to book for new expeditions in gardens, festivals and event. Call 07977997609

 

Mid Summer - will see the the Plant and Julia undertaking an exciting expedition through the National Trusts Wallington Estate in Northumberland on June 20th-21st as part of  the Festival of North East 2013.

Julia invites visitors to join her and her Plant on an expedition through Wallington Hall’s woodlands and gardens.  It is a plant-finding expedition with a difference.

On the first day she will be building her ‘plant’ and setting off with the estate map into the depths of the East wood to locate and closely examine trees with intriguing habits and characteristics such as spongy  bark and giant leaves that she has heard about through idiosyncratic Trevelyan Tree Book.

She will suggest the  origins of significant finds and whether they might have arrived as seed from other plant finders travelling the world or cuttings from famous gardens nearer to home during the past 250 years.
 

On the second day the expedition will travel into the interior of the Wallington Estate into the prized Walled Garden, to enjoy the vast variety of plants in this protected terrain,  to revel in the colours and forms of the exotic plants in the micro climate of the Conservatory. And to finally ceremonially peg down a cutting from her unusual  Plant in the nursery beds of the garden before re tracing the expedition route.

Original plant-finding expeditions were supported by the Trevelyan family, different members of which were passionate about the garden and plants  at their Wallington home. Charles Trevelyan was also committed to opening up the countryside to people and gave Wallington Hall to the National Trust

The event is part of the  WALK ON: Walking Art Northumberland  an     arts event organised and funded by VARC Visual Arts in Rural Communities

 

Reclaiming Sculpture

Three dimensional artwork in the majority of schools increasingly seems to be left behind, possibly because of the lack of space and time needed and often the cost of materials. So as part of Art Week  in schools this summer I am promoting the idea of recycling unwanted objects into sculptures. I see this as my next quest - to share the vast assortment of materials donated, collected and found for the Heavy Plant Crossing with young people to make sculptures.

My first workshop reclaiming objects this week was with twelve 15 year old pupils at Penicuik High School. This was their first opportunity to make sculpture and to work collaboratively. Initially bemused by the strange array of materials they quickly picked up objects and began to fathom out how they could join them together. Abandoning  pre-conceived ideas of what they might construct e.g. unicorns etc they gradually let the materials suggest what might be possible. The ideas began to take the most wonderful shapes and within a few hours we had three very different  humorous sculptures with evocative titles -Colin the Tourist - Jealous White Lies - C644 LTN - each with fabulous back stories. 

Definitely the way to go in introducing sculpture in schools, especially as reclaiming materials is  free and inspires such imaginative artworks and associated story lines with a strong sustainable message.