FULL DESCRIPTION OF A RECENT PROJECT

PAST PROJECTS
 

 EDUCATION

Jeff has undertaken over thirty successful educational residencies  over the last fifteen years. These residency commissions are often for schools and institutions where the artist works with pupils and students to create permanent, mostly outdoor pieces. These are often entrances, archways, totem poles, external wall mounted sculptures usually in carved oak or coppiced wood.  These pieces make reference to the life and history of the institution involved. 

There are two primary concerns here. The first is with an introduction to the processes of design and tool use while the second is the communality of the actual making.

An introduction to the safe use of handtools such as axes, adzes and mallets and gouges is a central feature As the project develops children will be introduced to a range of handtools and green woodworking techniques. Working with handtools gives a great sense of achievement. This is especially so when working on a large piece of tree trunk and watching it evolve through your own efforts. When this satisfaction is combined with working with others, including adults and parents, to create something that will be seen and admired everyday it is an extremely powerful tool for group cohesion.

Using such tools as gouges. adzes and axes also links with the hands and experiences of generations of tool users.  There is a great pleasure for quite small children in announcing, “This is real work”!

There is enormous scope for all kinds of curriculum based work stemming from the project and this  is an area for discussion and development as the project proceeds. The images are often those concerned with the energies involved in learning, opening, flowering, unfolding transforming, dealing with the passionate engagement of the young with their world and the remarkable and often surreal world of childhood imagination. The size of these pieces means that whole classes and sometimes whole schools are involved in the making processes enriching both individuals and the life of the institution.