Staff and students from BA (Hons) Textiles & Surface Design and MA Design Practice: Jayne Hemmis, Jo Stenberg,  Grimesz, Charlotte Tupling, Sophie Ridsdale and Mads Sutherland worked on community based arts project entitled ‘Connections’ at St Georges Academy Middleton St George, near Darlington. The project took place over summer in June and July this year.

Student Sophie Risdale said, “the initiative of this arts week is to encourage and spark creativity in young children – specifically primary school children where the school curriculum is based more on Maths, Literacy and Science. During this process, we had the opportunity to work in the classroom and assist pupils and help them advance more creatively.”

Lecturer Jayne Hemmins explained that “the textiles students and staff led workshops with all year groups (ages 3 – 11), exploring screen printing, weaving, clay work, drawing and painting. We also created a whole school collaborative long ‘connections’ bunting that was around 30 metres, and featured humans, animals, insects, plants and trees, to symbolise how humans and the natural world are connected.”

Sophie said she got involved in the project because she “enjoys working with young children and interested in working in a teaching environment. I assisted Jayne and Jo in helping the Year 6 students design their leavers shirts, using their old shirts. We used screen printing and embroidery to provide their own unique quirk within their shirt.

I also helped Year 3’s make clay tile embellishments by pressing plants into the clay. I also worked with the Year 4’s painting wax onto paper and fabric for their ‘Rivers’ theme. Although our main theme is ‘connections’, I could argue on how water connects our land. I also assisted the Nursery and Reception children on colouring bunting for us. We also encourage the older kids to do some bunting colouring as well.”

MA student Grimesz worked with the children to design a mural which he then scaled up to fill the entire courtyard in the centre of school. Jayne reflected that “Grimesz’ project became a real talking point for the school, with children eagerly watching as Grimesz spray painted each surface of the courtyard. It took several weeks, and the results are fantastic. The teachers and pupils are absolutely delighted with their new vibrant, colourful, visual courtyard.”

Grimesz said that “working with the pupils at St George’s has been a tremendous experience for myself and the community. I asked the kids to gather inspiration from their courtyard area (where I was given permission to paint) and I worked with each year group to draw and paint designs for me to use. I took the best concepts from the large collection of designs; I then applied my style to their ideas to various mural designs before scaling them up and painting them in the space!”

The children were excited to watch me paint and to see their ideas come to life. I found that they were inspired and motivated to participate in the arts more. The impact I have seen from this experience is massive, I can see other schools in the North East benefiting from encouraging arts practitioners to collaborate with their arts programmes. Additionally, I have observed that the generations to come, all have a deep appreciation and love for street art and large-scale artwork.”

He also reflected on the relationship between urban arts and the public through projects like that, commenting “The stigma surrounding urban art and culture is slowly changing, opportunities like this facilitate a healthy relationship with the urban arts. I am very grateful for this opportunity, and I give my deep thanks to the St George’s faculty and Claire Bentley for supporting this experience.”

The project was a brilliant way for our HE students who would like to be teachers and community artists to develop their skills and knowledge of working with young people in a school setting. It is also a great outreach opportunity to raise awareness of the talent and creativity of The Northern School of Art, and to raise the profile of the arts to a younger audience and their parents. An exhibition of the work was held on Thursday 12^th July, and the children were really delighted at the chance to show off their artwork and see the grand opening of Grimesz’ mural.”

Student Sophie reflected that “despite the different ages, I found the children to be very friendly and curious; some even saying “Hello!” to me as they went passed me in the corridor. I’ve also been called ‘Miss’ many times which I personally didn’t mind. They were also able to listen and help whenever they can, including finding classrooms and ask me a question. This experience has helped me to talk a lot more and really had me work in a school environment. With this experience, I will use it toward my CV in hopes of working in a school environment one day.”

Student Charlotte Tupling said, “I really enjoyed working with the children at St George’s Academy. The children loved getting hands on and letting their creativity flow. I feel it’s really important to get kids in touch with their imaginations and just have fun making art, so I’m really proud I got to encourage this through my visit. I also found this experience reminded me (through the children) that it’s okay to just have fun and get messy with art- art doesn’t have to be so serious. This experience has definitely made me want to get involved with more community arts projects in the future.

If you are interested in studying textiles at degree-level we offer a fantastic course that offers students the skills and opportunities needed to carve out exciting careers in the creative industries, make sure you check out our degree page. If you are post degree and thinking about taking the next step forward in your practice and research, make sure you find out more about our postgraduate degree programmes.