Title
Maryport in Painting
Year
2023
Location
Flimby, Dearham, Netherton, Maryport, Ewanrigg and Ellenborough. Exhibition at The Settlement and St Mary's Church.
Partners and coverage
Shipping Brow Gallery, The Settlement, Maryport Town Council, ITV Border News, BBC Radio Cumbria Helen Millican, Times and Star.
Description
A 4-month project involving co-researching with around 400 school children across Maryport (8 schools, ages 5-11). The research question: 'what did we know about the Maryport painter William Mitchell?'
The question was prompted by the founding of a new gallery museum, The Shipping Brow Gallery, who are committed to re-animating and making relevant, Maryport’s cultural history.
To answer the research question with the young participants, I introduced the arts-based method of painting, as this was also the tool/medium once used by our research subject, William Mitchell. Before introducing this painter’s work, I presented several exercises that drew attention to the building blocks of painting. With stations set up with various brushes, colours, and surfaces, the children created imaginative works from which they could learn about the expressive language of this material, and gain an awareness of how it affects our bodies, our thoughts and feelings.
We used our interior (memory, imagination and dreams) and external found imagery of Maryport area. The children learnt about paint's vocabulary and grammar, creating small paintings, small sentences, if you will. This prepared them, increased their fluency, before they moved on to decode the painterly language of William Mitchell.
On analysing an original artwork of his, we asked questions of William, to surmise how he had constructed the world and feelings inside his painting. In a pre-photography era we guessed how he may have practiced recording visual aspects of maritime life, as well as listening to mariner accounts, then proceeded to enhance his interpretations with detail, drama and exaggeration.
The children then clarified their understanding of Mitchell's methods through creating their own paintings after him. These were large scale works, carried out in groups, involving negotiation of variables such as composition, painting methods, development and completion of the artwork.
The 3 facilitating artists, myself, Chloe Maitland and Felix Butterwick, guided the groups, helping them decide at what point the painting had formed a 'sentence', when it conveyed what the group wanted.
The film below is approximately 8 minutes long.
The question was prompted by the founding of a new gallery museum, The Shipping Brow Gallery, who are committed to re-animating and making relevant, Maryport’s cultural history.
To answer the research question with the young participants, I introduced the arts-based method of painting, as this was also the tool/medium once used by our research subject, William Mitchell. Before introducing this painter’s work, I presented several exercises that drew attention to the building blocks of painting. With stations set up with various brushes, colours, and surfaces, the children created imaginative works from which they could learn about the expressive language of this material, and gain an awareness of how it affects our bodies, our thoughts and feelings.
We used our interior (memory, imagination and dreams) and external found imagery of Maryport area. The children learnt about paint's vocabulary and grammar, creating small paintings, small sentences, if you will. This prepared them, increased their fluency, before they moved on to decode the painterly language of William Mitchell.
On analysing an original artwork of his, we asked questions of William, to surmise how he had constructed the world and feelings inside his painting. In a pre-photography era we guessed how he may have practiced recording visual aspects of maritime life, as well as listening to mariner accounts, then proceeded to enhance his interpretations with detail, drama and exaggeration.
The children then clarified their understanding of Mitchell's methods through creating their own paintings after him. These were large scale works, carried out in groups, involving negotiation of variables such as composition, painting methods, development and completion of the artwork.
The 3 facilitating artists, myself, Chloe Maitland and Felix Butterwick, guided the groups, helping them decide at what point the painting had formed a 'sentence', when it conveyed what the group wanted.
The film below is approximately 8 minutes long.
Location
Flimby, Dearham, Netherton, Maryport, Ewanrigg and Ellenborough. Exhibition at The Settlement and St Mary's Church.