Total Pageviews

Artist in Residence Term 2 2013 Lulu Quintanilla

 
Carnival of the Animals
Sculpture and Clay
 
 
 
Artist in Residence - Lulu Quintanilla
Term 2 2013
Princes Hill Primary School
Sculptors are involved in many processes depending on the medium he or she uses. The grade 2 students will have the opportunity to work with Lucreccia Quintanilla, our artist in residence this term. Lulu will engage with the students in her chosen field, Clay. She will make links with her cultural heritage and help students to create clay creatures based on South American sculptures of imagined and spiritual creatures. Lulu will be exploring new territories with the students; an exploration of her own heritage and the animals and creatures of her childhood that she has wanted to re-create for a long time. She will work with them, explaining techniques and skills that are important to understand when using clay as a material for sculpture.
Lulu is a multidisciplinary artist working within painting, installation, and ceramics. She has exhibited both interstate and overseas and is currently undertaking her Master in Fine Arts degree at Monash University. She has worked at the studios of Arts Project Australia and is currently also conducting workshops at Signal, a creative studio for young people aged 13-20.
As a child growing up in El Salvador, Central America her imagination was captivated by traditional as well as Pre-Columbian ceramics which commonly depicted interesting and humorous animals both real and invented. Lulu considers her time as artist in residence at Princes Hill as an opportunity to finally explore her interest in this form of ceramic and to be sharing her inspiration with the children at Princes Hill.
 
Week 1
This week Lulu introduced herself to the Grade 2 students.
 
She bought along with her an example of the ceramic work she wanted to explore with the students this term. We passed Lulu’s small ceramic creature around. Each child examined it carefully.
 
Students asked Lulu about her creature. She explained that it took her about an hour to make and that it came from her imagination and that it was part deer, part donkey.
When you begin something, it may not turn out as you expect it to. But it is ok to change your ideas as you keep working. Lulu started drawing a deer and then her final work turned out to be more like a donkey.
 
 
Lulu explained that she is from El Salvador in Central America. There is a rich history of clay work in El Salvador.  Many centuries ago, the people of El Salvador didn’t have a written language. They recorded their stories through pictures and through sculpture, toys, works on walls, textiles and architecture. Over time, the only things that survived were the clay works. The things Lulu remembered most from her childhood were the animals in these art works. These remain today to tell the stories of the people from that time. There were many examples of clay creatures, both real and imaginary. These creatures told a story about the myths, beliefs, and the way these people understood the world around them.
         
Lulu explained that over the next few weeks we would all be making our own imaginary or real creatures out of clay. We will be learning the techniques and skills that artists use when working with clay.
 
 
Students asked Lulu some questions:
When you create your own work, do the things you make also tell a story? Nicole
Yes. I look in my studio and books and at other art works in museums for inspiration. I then draw my ideas. The things I make tell a story about my own childhood.
How do you know what the stories are? Rufus
Signs, symbols and pictures tell stories that are passed on through the generations.
How did you find the clay? Saskia
The clay was bought in a shop. Clay is mud, but a special kind of mud. There are different kinds of clay that you can use to make things with. The clay from the shop is very refined and smooth.
What inspired you to make this animal?
The materials artists‘ use and work with often help them to bring their ideas together. Ideas often change and develop.
After the students asked Lulu questions they set about designing their own creatures, inspired by pictures of Pre- Columbian work and Lulu’s own work.
 
 

Lulu helped the students with their designs. She walked around the tables asking students to think about many things. Remember to think about texture, whether it will be fat or thin, and how many legs will it have? Think about the creatures head, its torso and its legs. What shape will each part of the creature be? How will your creature be supported, and how will it stand?
Lulu was very impressed with the student’s imaginative and creative work. Each student had their own style of drawing. She really liked the way each student thought about the inside and outside of the creature they designed.
                       
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Week 2
 
Last week, under the guidance of Lulu, we recorded ideas for our sculptures of animals. This week Lulu guided us through a range of skills and techniques of how to handle and manipulate clay. It is important to use the techniques that Lulu taught us because it is really important that our clay work is strong and the joins are strong and that it survives the firing in the kiln.
 
She explained that today was a day that we were free to experiment, where we should try to make different shapes and have fun with our clay. This week we are using one ball of clay and modelling it into a creature based on the designs we created last week.
 
We learnt how to use clay tools to create shape and texture.
We played with shape.
 

 
We thought about structure and how our creature will stand.
 
 We trained our brain and hand to have a conversation; how your head can make a shape and your hand creates a texture.
We worked with our hands and our thumbs flattened some areas while our fingers manipulated the clay into the shape and form we imagined in our head. We noticed that when we started to work our ideas changed. Sometimes we started with one idea, but as we moulded the clay the form took on its own identity. We also noticed that sometimes we had no idea about what to make and when this happened, creatures emerged, without much thought, from the clay. Some people noticed that when they worked ideas also happened as they were working. We realised that there are many ways of working to create a sculptural form.

What we all did was to create a conversation between our hands and our brain.
We started to think like sculptors.
 

Week 3

This week marks the culmination of our exploration into clay through the childhood memories of our Artists in Residence, Lulu Quintanilla. This week we brought together our ideas from week 1 and our techniques about how to use clay from week 2 to finally create our creature, either real or imagined.
Lulu was able to offer advice and help along the way.
 



The students delighted in finalising the creative process and seemed to bring their ideas together with speed and assurance. Their speed when making the final work highlights the importance of carefully working through ideas and thinking through possibilities when creating an art work.
 
The students then started a new process of collaboration, bringing all their ideas together with Lulu as the catalyst and created a collaborative sculpture of animals. This collaborative sculpture had a number of students creating small creatures which Lulu fused together with their help!

 
 

Students enjoy the final collaborative piece.

We are looking forward to glazing our individual work and the collaborative pieces, which we imagine will be very colourful and joyous.
 

We will say goodbye to Lulu for a few weeks until our work is fired and then she will return to give us advice on how to glaze and colour our final pieces.


 
 
 
 
 


No comments:

Post a Comment