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

 

Washed Up

In my continual 'look out' for interesting materials to recycle into my Plant I have been struck by the rubbish I have found on the beaches along our coast and intend to somehow use this washed up debris to make work which will ultimately be recycled .  This film clip brings home the pervasiveness of our wasteful society.



The first stage of my next recycling project is taking a closer look at the materials.

Mark II

The autumn strong winds have hit the HPC test beds here in the Northumberland nursery. The various propeller flower heads positioned along the fence are rattling around at great speed and reminding me of suggestions that I could be generating electricity as I travel. 

From left to right i.white desk fan flower  ii. aluminium  butterfly heater fan flower iii. black radiator fan flower with red inner wheel centre

With the development of Mark II of the plant on my mind I have been watching closely to compare smoothness of rotation of the various forms and the visual appeal of each of them. 

Taking up the offer of a colleague Tom Mullholland (engineer & science teacher) I took my collection rotors (propellers) down to his workshop in Sunderland to explore the possible ways of converting  the wind power into energy to light up the plant.

 

Surrounded literally by hundreds of stacked boxes containing mechanical parts, grommets, salvaged  electrical devices and a kettle heating up next to us  by solar panels on the roof - I knew I was in the perfect place to get advice and technical help.

  

Tom explained how the most appropriate motors to use for this situation are those designed to operate from batteries rather than the mains, i.e. using a lower voltage.





Checking out possibilities and thinking through fixing methods for each propeller it was decided that the heavier propellers such as this acrylic and metal fan once used to inflate hot air balloons would be best mounted onto an old drill.

While smaller motors used for running model cars etc could generate the electricity from the smaller fans.

Precise measurements were taken for Tom to be able to calculate the extension shafts required to fit over the motors axle.

While Tom is making the electrical links I am searching for tubes of the exact dimensions to house the motors. These tubes need to connect onto & become part of the  plants overall stem structure.

The first aim of our experiments is to light up a series of LED parasol lights that fit neatly round the plants stems, but which until now have been powered by batteries.

With the darker nights approaching I should have plenty of time check how well the flower turbines work.

Prize awarded...

At last the prize for naming the plant has been received by William White family in the Midlands.

The winning name being 'Mistral' - inspired by the winds that whipped up during the performance outside the Natural History Museum.

The prize was the first cut stem taken from the plant, plus
special chocolates.

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.

Inspired names......

Thanks to everyone for the fabulous names which rival any plant label names.

Explorer             Sarah            Grace                          GM
Plantastic           Freddie          Car Plant                      Tamla

Wanderer             John             Trundleweed                    Jan
Hooveronimous        Ian              Morph

Florian              Stephanie        Stranger                       Steven

Morrissey            MM               Sojourner Truth.               Susanne

Changeling           lionpops         Euphrasia Eye-bright           Claudia

Poly                 MD               Black Night                    Caroline

Dizzy                CB               Pipe Dream  Pipio insolitus    LS

Barton’s Bloomers    AM               Lazylizzie
Wheel-plant                           Botanical Billy                Haywain
Doobiesaurous        Alex             Horace                         Stuart
Black turn ripples   AV               Contraption                    LL
Venus pie trap       Malia            Whirling Dervish               SG
Mistral              WW               Rhododendroid Perambulenta     WMB

Steamwheel           Anon             Everything Out                 Joe
Hector               Ian              Beauty form the Beast
Mobile Gimigog       Ireland          Spiderplant                    LL
         

The winning name was 'Mistral' - inspired by the  breeze that picked up outside of the Natural History Museum which suddenly began to turn the flower heads assembled from various fans. 

'Mistral' was put forward by William White - please let me have your postal address your prize awaits - the first cut flower stem and a collection of artisan chocolates.