Artist James Aldridge has been working with Yr 4 Children of Chorleywood Primary School and their Class teacher Hadyn Dwyer on a project aimed at helping the young students to become more in tune with nature and their environment.
The project is part of a wider scheme, The Chilterns Commons Project, a four year project primarily about reconnecting people with their commons, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, Chilterns Conservations Board and other partners. James reports on the progress so far. Including the use of visual arts to develop personal awareness through direct sensory interaction
So far in the first 3 sessions we have drawn, painted, made sculptures with materials that we’ve found on the Common, mapped our sensory experiences of walking down to the Common from school, and created large maps in pairs which focus on what the children have most enjoyed or are most interested in. I wanted to provide the children with a whole range of access point into the multi-layered subject that is Chorleywood Common.
Everyone has different skills and interests that they bring to the work and its important that we respond to those.
What the children think…
I enjoyed:
Charlotte: going to the ponds, running about with my friends, making my amazing sculpture, and sharing my umbrella with Cora…
James: Seeing a leech for the first time!
Izzie: building the art with James because he makes it exciting!
Ajai: The different materials that you had to make the sculpture
Tara: Creating the art and holding the newt on our first trip
Cora: Creating homes for animals because I liked thinking what animals would come to the house and what would happen to them
What materials did you use?
Rishi: Mud, leaves, soil, sticks, rocks
Sophie P: Recycled materials, paint, fallen leaves, pencils and pens
What did you make?
Max: A badger and a bat and a map
Eloise: Things in the journal about what we find at the Common. A map on the way to the Common that we did there and on the way back.
Poppy: We have created a hut for animals and we also made a massive map of the Common by walking around the Common. We also made a rabbit out of materials we collected
Allannah: A picture of a hedgehog made out of natural things like flowers that were lying on the ground, and information posters
What have you learnt?
Eloise: All the fascinating history and what animals live there, and what they were used for a long time ago…
Iana: That people used the Common to graze their animals and that they dug out a hole get the material they needed
Sophie W: That all nature is special and all nature grows in different ways
James Aldridge working with Chilterns Commons Project/Chilterns AONB/CWPS