SALTHOUSE CONTEMPORARY NORFOLK ART

August 2006

Thirty, year 5 school children from All Saints Primary visited the Annual Exhibition at Salthouse Church in North Norfolk and took part in a Fruitful Arts sculpture workshop linked to the exhibition.

Curated by Sarah Cannell, The theme the exhibition was the Cross-Over between Fine Art & Craft.  Artist facilitators used questioning and brainstorming with the group to identify possible distinctions between art & craft and we settled on the function or ‘usefulness’ of objects as a starting point. Then the children were then sent to find useful objects that were either obviously or obliquely represented within the exhibition.

After soaking up the exhibition the group transferred to the church hall for the making part. The idea was that the children would take useful objects and transform them into art objects that no longer had an obvious function.

Children chose two ordinary useful objects from a selection and then followed demonstrations for mould making and plaster casting. Then they examined their two plaster components and were asked to fuse them imaginatelively to make a new sculpture. For many this became a distorted animal, creature, alien or another more inanimate object which they could operate. Every sculpture took on a new life of its own and was expertly animated by the children through drawing and written elaborations. 



www.northnorfolk.org/salthouseartandevents