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St Joseph’s Barcaldine

St Joseph’s Primary School in Barcaldine hosted Flying Arts facilitator Nancy Brown for a series of workshops connecting arts with school curriculum. Forty two students from Prep to Year 6, seven school staff and one keen community member worked together to produce a series of tiles to be displayed in a cabinet at the school entrance.

This component of the project was delivered by Flying Arts Alliance’s Small Schools Fund, which allows schools with 50 or fewer students in regional and remote Queensland to apply for a bursary of up to $5000 per school year for curriculum linked projects. 


Terracotta tiles wrapped in copper emboss. Image credit: Nancy Brown.

Nancy delivered a 3.5 day incursion linking visual art into curriculum learnings around science and maths, including life cycles and the dependence of living things on each other and their environments. The Connecting Arts with School Curriculum (CASC) program aims to deepen students’ understand of non-arts subject by interacting with curriculum elements through an arts focus.

Keen botanist and Barcaldine local Jenny Mace got involved before the workshops began, taking the students and teacher of Level 3 (years 3-6) on an excursion around town to observe, photograph and learn about the local flora. 

Students participated in botanical drawing classes and made clay, aluminum and copper tiles which will be assembled into a collage and installed in the display cabinet at the school entrance. The students’ botanical drawings will be entered in the Barcaldine Show and Barcaldine Art Exhibition. 

Student working with botanical drawings and copper plate emboss. Image credit: Tallara Gray.
Observing and drawing local botanical specimens. Image Credit: Tallara Gray.
Observing and drawing local botanical specimens. Image Credit: Tallara Gray.

The botanical drawings show that the students made careful observations of the plant shapes, patterns and structures. “These drawings are outstanding considering the students have had limited drawing tutelage,” said St. Joseph’s Barcaldine Principal , Mrs Annie Wachtel.

Transferring concept drawings to copper emboss. Image credit: Tallara Gray.
Preliminary botanical drawings from observation of specimens. Image credit: Tallara Gray.
Preliminary botanical drawings from observation of specimens. Image credit: Tallara Gray.

The students enjoyed being able to continue to extend their drawing skills further using clay and metal. They were able to explore how their drawings and designs looked using different mediums. The students loved rolling, cutting and stamping the clay to make the tiles.

Drawing shapes with clay coils and onto the metal shim provided them further opportunity to improve their skills. “Watching their faces as their designs were revealed was brilliant!” enthused Mrs Watchel.

The sense of achievement and pride in their individual work was multiplied when the students saw how their tiles all contributed to a major art piece that will be installed at the school front entrance for all to see. 

 


The Small Schools Fund allows schools with 50 or fewer students in regional and remote Queensland to apply for funds up to $5000 per school year for curriculum linked projects (inclusive of facilitator fees, travel and accommodation). This opportunity allows schools to work collaboratively with an experienced artist to plan and deliver a visual arts incursion (workshop/residency) of your selection to create an arts rich experience for students and the wider school community.

To see the Lesson Plan for this workshop check out the Educators Resource page.


Nancy Brown is a visual artist working in printmaking, ceramic, mosaic, metal and textile printing. Her art practice has taken her on adventures across Australia to remote communities facilitating projects, creating decor and running workshops at festivals, schools, art in education programs and working alongside creative groups within the communities. Nancy sells her work at retail outlets around Australia and has both exhibited and completed large commissions nationally.

 


Thanks to the incredibly successful Make Art Big in Small Schools campaign, Creative Partnerships Plus 1 funding and generous support from Gandel Philanthropy, Flying Arts has been able to dedicate over $40,000 to cross curriculum arts incursions in 2019. Consider supporting Flying Arts to provide more projects like this – all donations over $2 are tax deductible.

Filed Under: Flying Arts By Request Round-up, Flying Arts News, Latest News, Small Schools Newsletter

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Flying Arts Alliance acknowledges the traditional custodians of the lands and seas on which we work, live and create. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.

Flying Arts Alliance is honoured to acknowledge the Governor of Queensland, Her Excellency Dr Jeanette Young AC PSM as our Patron. We also acknowledge Mr Tim Fairfax AC and Mrs Gina Fairfax AC as our Cultural Patrons.

Flying Arts is a not-for-profit organisation inspiring the appreciation, practice and professional development of the visual and media arts as a lifetime interest or career throughout regional and remote Queensland.

Flying Arts is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland. Flying Arts is supported by the Tim Fairfax Family Foundation and receives funds from Creative Partnerships Australia through the Australian Cultural Fund. Flying Arts is supported by corporate partners and benefactors.

Flying Arts is the administrator in Queensland of the Regional Arts Fund (RAF), an Australian Government program provided through Regional Arts Australia.

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