school trip #2

I'm really enjoying my new job. (Shame it ends in two weeks, hope they ask me back after summer!! fingers crossed!!) It's so rewarding to be able to help the students with their drawings, and their understanding of art. Today we went to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, to see the Goldsworthy exhibition (and it didn't rain, hurray!).


Although there were a few complaints of 'I'm not walking on poo' (the country park is the home of many sheep and a few geese...) and 'this drawing board is too heavy, will you carry it for me' (my answer: no, carry it yourself. Am I mean?!) it was a successful trip.


We began by doing some sketches of Barbara Hepworth's 'Family of Man', bronze sculptures placed on the hill side amongst the trees. A good opportunity to think about form and shape and size, and how these effect our perception of an object.


It's also good to be able to walk amongst the sculptures and touch them, something we are so often forbidden to do in a gallery. And the colours of the copper and bronze are beautiful.


Some great sketches were done (especially when I could convince them to draw the backgrounds or use a bit of colour or tone) I think the drawing lessons of the last few weeks are starting to pay off, you can see them actually looking, which is brilliant! It makes a real difference.


So after visiting the Goldsworthy stuff (a treat for me and the students seemed to like it too!) with aching feet it was back on the bus, then home for a nice cup of tea. Happy days.

Goldsworthy at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

If you are anywhere near the Yorkshire Sculpture Park before January 2008 I would say it's worth making a trip... I visited the Andy Goldsworthy exhibition there this weekend and it really took my breath away.


I love Goldsworthy's work, although I have only seen it in books before now. I find his work unpretentious, thought provoking, beautiful, real. It's not often I go into an art gallery and and feel I don't want to leave, but the things Goldsworthy does with twigs and thorns, logs, stone and clay (to name just a few) just draw me in. There are pictures of the sculptures here, take a look, but I don't think they can quite convey the feeling of being in the room with those objects. The egg shaped Stacked Oak sculpture filled almost the entire entrance lobby, and squeezing round it to enter the gallery was an almost humbling experience, it's such an impressive structure, made entirely from logs wedged together, so strong and imposing. And in the next room a curtain made entirely from leaf stems and thorns, so delicate and fragile.


In fact I find it hard to pin down what it is I love so much about Andy Goldsworthy's work, I find my self amazed by each new piece I see, and thinking 'that's spot on that is'. I like the fact he works with natural things, things everyone has access to and can relate to. And then he does these amazing things with them, that seem so simple but in fact take and draw attention to the detail in nature, the repetition and pattern, the force of the weather and the passage of time. All the things that we might miss as we potter along in life. And he does this on such a grand scale, his output of work is prolific, so many ideas. I think it takes someone very clever to make something so simple and say so much. Spot on.


I think he sums it up best himself in this time lapse video of the construction and installation of the exhibition, worth a watch!