Modelling their village
Feature
Anton McNulty
antonmcnulty@mayonews.ie
On a warm sunny morning in Bunnacurry National School, the senior infants are getting their classroom prepared for their weekly art class. The copies and books are placed in the bags and left under the tables, which are then covered in black plastic bin liners. It might look like the start of an ordinary art class, but the project these pupils are involved in will be part of the village long after they have left the school.
For two hours every Friday for the last five weeks, the pupils have been immersed in the world of creative art under the tutorship of Castlebar-based artist, John Rowlands, and are taking part in a Mayo County Council initiative where they will help design a sculpture which will be situated at the new housing development in the village.
The project, entitled ‘Sowing the Seeds for the Future’, involves all the children of the school – from the youngest to the oldest – contributing to the future of the community. After winning a competition run by Mayo County Council to provide sculptures for new housing estates in both Bunnacurry and Currane, John had the idea of approaching both schools to get the children involved in the design and creative concept of the project.
“We are giving the pupils an opportunity to create something that is part of their community. Basically, it is getting all the children involved to produce pieces of work that will be part of the public sculpture that will be here for a long time. They probably don’t know exactly what it is about now but, hopefully. when they have grown up they will say they remember doing this project at school,” he said.
It was a learning curve for both the children and John who, despite being involved in a number of different projects around the county, has never worked professionally with children. John admitted the children responded well to his ideas of using nature and the plants and animals and putting them down on paper. He said he wanted the pupils to think differently about animal and plant forms and be able to express themselves in what they do.
After putting their ideas down on paper, the fun started for the pupils as they were introduced to clay and wax sculpting. It was the part which the majority of the pupils enjoyed most as they moulded and modelled the wax into different creations, inspired by nature with models of hedgehogs, spiders and trees to the fore. All the wax models created by the pupils will be used as part of the creative process which will give John the idea for the final bronze sculpture, which should be finished in September.
“I don’t know what the final project will be yet, but I will see what they will finish and I will have about three or four months to pull all the ideas together and do some designs based on these pictures and wax models,” he explained.
The wax modelling was a new experience for the school and, according to the Principal, Damien English, the pupils have really enjoyed themselves and it is something they would like to do again in the future.
“It is all good and well us [teachers] doing something with them but we can only take them so far. When you have an artist coming in who will get the best out of them and bring them further in their creative exploration [it’s better]. The kids can’t wait for the finished product and the fact that they are involved in it will make it even more special,” explained Damien.
