Three weeks ago, just before the decision was made by Councilors to move to a two tier system and close all middle schools, we went along to the unveiling of a new piece of public art at Nodehill Middle School.
The artwork, designed by the pupils of the school and executed by public artists, Eccleston George, depicts the history of the local area from as early as 1377 to the present day and celebrates the centenary of this wonderful Victorian school.
With the help of Creative Partnerships, Eccleston George set about last year working with the teachers and pupils to design the mural which stretches across 20 metres of one of the perimeter walls of Church Litten Park.
After the unveiling, we caught up with Nigel George, founder of Eccleston George, to chat about the process of working with the pupils to create this wonderful piece of public art, which may outlive the school itself.
Listen to the what Nigel has to say by clicking on the play button below.
[audio:http://otw-audio.s3.amazonaws.com/Nigel Eccleston – Nodehill Public Art Unveilling – edited.mp3]
Nigel explained that all the pupils were invited to get involved and just before Christmas Eccleston George (EG) received hundres of designs which they started sifting through and selecting for the tableaux style mural.
He went on to explain that all the children had direct input into what happened, and that EG considered themselves the hands that followed the lines of the young artists.
The process of selecting designs was very hard – during the early workshops they had talked about the concept of tableaux designs, incorporating lots of ideas into one image. Some children understood that brief immediately, and were able to put it on paper straight away.
The workshop groups consisted of representatives from each year at the middle school and they set about working on huge rolls of paper.
When working with schools, EG always aim to bring the pupils into their team and take them through process as they would normally do it. So the pupils helped measure the wall (using maths skills), take photos of the blank wall and work out how to convert designs onto the huge scale.
This is a very impressive piece of public art which attracted much attention as it was being created, as it will continue to over the next 100 years or so.
Grab yourself a cup of tea, put your feet up and listen to Nigel. Coming up later is a podcast with Nodehill Head Teacher, David Morris. [PS. We did have problems getting decent pictures of the mural as the weather was particularly grey and miserable that day]
