we plan for listening and activity that might enable this.
I pick up on interests around instruction and direction, what we hear or how we read and understand words. How we interpret these words and what we imagine.
In the studio on my bookshelf, inside the pages of botanical books, I find detailed descriptions of plants, a particular language to describe them, and then I have to scramble to the middle pages to find a drawing of the plant, if there isn’t one I have to imagine. Robert Lloyd Preagers words describe intricate landscapes……. a postcard image does not accompany them….. presenting possibility and potential to imagine these places. I remember an exhibition by Haris Epaminonda, presenting objects with specific information omitted allowing spectators to reinvent or reinterpret each piece every time it is contemplated. I think about instruction based art, guidelines, diagrams, and rules…….Sol leWit_ each person draws a line differently and each person understands words differently, artists working like composers, writing instructions to be realized again and again.
I am not be in the studio again this week, but I want to share this space with P2. I tell them what happens there and describe what they might find in this space……
…….theres a sculpture made of flowers, they are Cow Parsley flowers, I picked hundreds of them in May, and dried them in a giant flower press. They’re not in bloom now so I describe them;
The hollow stem grows to a height of 60–170 cm (24–67in), branching to umbels of small white flowers. Flowering time is mid spring to early summer. The tripinnate leaves are 15–30 cm (5.9–11.8 in) long and have a triangular form. The leaflets are ovate and subdivided.
The hollow stem grows 60-170cm high, it branches out into clusters of small white flowers. The leaves grow on each side of the stem, they are like feathers, they are 15cm – 30 cm long and are triangular in shape.
Ms Cross breaks down this description into step by step instructions and the children make drawings of the Cow Parsley flowers.
We followed with more drawing instructions to imagine what these flowers now squashed look like and to make a drawing of a Cow Parsley Veil together;
Draw a dot.
Draw 7, 8 or 9 spots around the dot.
Join the dot in the centre to the spots with a line.
Draw7,8 or 9 small dots around each spot close to it.
Cut your drawing out and join it to someone elses
“ it looks like snow”……..”or dragon flies”!
Our session moves fast, its loud and i’m a little lost in Boyle. While we planned via email, we didn’t get to talk it over. I don’t know the children and they don’t know me, its difficult to hear me and see me on this sunshiney day; and we’re struggling to get to know each other!
A great chat with Ms Cross after our session, we remember how much planning is required, and decide a real visit as a next step.