Back in Ireland now and at the start of a new year, I decided to visit the children. The children had been collecting waste packaging for a few months now and I decided it would be a good time to go and have a look at how we could use it to make our own Art installation. Armed with tools and different fixings and ties I made a surprise visit. The children were so excited and welcoming. I find it really helpful to meet the children in person and when we meet we talk about the difference between being in the room and on screen. Its often difficult to hear the one to conversations we have on screen so one to one in person definitely benefits building our relationships. The children seem to have divided opinions about which they prefer but overall the insight onto the studio and my travels is really curious to them. I often think about how much of an impact this would have had on me at their age especially as I had always known I wanted to be an artist.
We talked about the collected materials and how this could be a starting point to think about what we would like to make. We had decided we wanted to make an installation, a sculpture that we could put outside and experience. We wanted to make something that would last a long time , a permanent installation and that we could put outside and that the whole school could experience.
So we sorted through what we had and lots of ideas came to mind. We group similar shapes together and colours together and held them up to the light to see how they behaved and changed in different light. We tried to take labels off and look at the form the objects took.
Through a few experiments of ways to join materials together we decided that a large circular hanging sculpture made from a curtain of bottle tops would be the artwork that we would make. We discussed ways of making it and hanging it and how we would need a lot more bottle tops. Everyone was going to ask friends and family to collect bottle tops, this way lots of people would be involved. We talked about how we could launch the artwork later when complete. This idea was going to take patience and precision to make and was going to take a few months and we were excited about this process.
working drawings of the sculpture
hanging the sculpture to test to out
