The Grand Opening

On Friday the 18th of July at 2pm the HANDS UP! scuplture was unveiled by Nigel Waterson MP and the Year 6 representatives. The opening was attended by Pam, Kevin, Geoff and Nathan from GAP Metal as well as a photographer from the Eastbourne Herald/Hailsham Gazette, so keep a look out for it in the paper!

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the people involved in the project and we hope you enjoy the new addition to the school.

Sculpture installed

The sculpture is now installed at Ocklynge school, it took Davie and I about 4 hours of bashing & bolting to get it all to fit together. We finished installing at 9pm.
So that's it, I hope you all like your sculpture, I have enjoyed working with Ocklynge and will miss you all.

Thanks to everyone who has participated for all your help on the project, with special thanks to Zoe Boulton and Davie for being so brilliant.

Latest Sculpture pictures

Today we assembled the sculpture at Gap metal, pupils from Ocklynge visited the sculpture to approve it and agree final colours. The sculpture has now gone off to be powder coated, hopefully we can install next week.

3 White Dots + Colours

The 3 white dots on the ground to the left of the front entrance of the school are to mark where the sculpture will stand, the parts for the sculpture will be laser cut next week.

The chosen colours for the sculpture are Red, Green and Blue. I like the idea of Red, Green, Blue as a combination, with red on one vertical side of the sculpture and Green on another and Blue for the seat, reasons are: you can make any colour out of RGB by varying the intensity of each one (this is how flat screen TV's work) I think this will lead to interesting colour mixes as you look through the holes in the sculpture when you walk by, and good colours in the shadows where the sun reflects off one surface onto another. Red was the winner of the popular vote so the biggest part of the sculpture will be red. The feet will be black.

The sculpture

Using the results of your votes I have designed the sculpture, the key features I have focused on are "including a bit to sit on" and choosing to use "curves" and "circles" with no "straight lines" or "squares". For the "secret stuff" I have hidden parts of the "school logo" in with the hands. The digital files have been sent to Gap Metal, so the parts for the sculpture should be made in the next few weeks, on Thursday I will be visiting the school to discuss the site for the sculpture and to decide on the exact colours we will use, the most popular colour in the vote was red.


The work will be made from four curved uprights with a flat central 'seat' (red in the pictures) section which passes through the lower curved sections to form three 'seat areas' each of the sections will be made up using the hands so of course they wont be solid they will be full of holes. I think that there will also be extra small groups of hands (not shown) bolted onto the main curved surfaces to provide more colour and detail. The fundamental geometry is based on three intersecting circles, every curve is an arc radius of exactly 1m.

Making models

I have been trying out some different ideas for the shape of the sculpture, these are some rough models made with cardboard and masking tape, next I will work on the computer to develop these some of the ideas in CAD (computer aided design). They will be virtual models in the computer.

Questions

I have posted some questions on the right side of the blog, I hope that you can help me by answering them, your answers will help me decide how to make the sculpture and what it will look like. One of the questions is - Should we include the school logo in the sculpture. These pictures will give you an idea of how the different parts of the school logo could be included, the Blue shapes are different bits of the logo and the Orange hands picture has bits of the logo cut out from the hand shapes, can you spot which bits of the logo have been cut out and which have not?

Workshop 2 at Black Dog studio

Today we had another workshop with 12 more Ocklynge pupils, it went really well and we created lots of new designs which in turn have given me lots of good ideas for the final sculpture.


I will start work on the design for the sculpture next week so keep checking this blog to see more images from the workshops and my ideas for the finished sculpture.

Workshop at the Black Dog Studio

Today we had our first workshop, It went really well with lots of good ideas and designs being produced by the class rep's, I will post some more images and talk more about the ideas next week, these pictures are a taster from today.

Questions from Ocklynge School, answered by Will Nash

Q. What made you think of the idea for the HANDS UP! Project? (4W, 6ST & 6Z)

A. I wanted to find a way to include as many members of the Ocklynge Junior school community in the project, when I saw that the theme for this term was “the body” I thought that I could use an outline of a part of the body, because hands are quite small and easy to draw around I thought that I could use lots of them to make up one big sculpture.

Q. What metal will it be made from and what will happen if it rusts? (3D, 4MO & 5WR)

A. It will be made from mild steel, to stop it from rusting it will be spray coated with zinc then it will be powder coated

Q. Will there be too many hands to fit? (4B)

A. I don’t know yet, it depends on how many hands we get and how big they are. Q. How will the sculpture be made?

A. The collected hand outlines will be arranged together then digitally traced in order to create the pattern for the sculpture. The sculpture parts will then be cut from mild steel using a CNC laser cutter. The parts will be bolted together to make the final shape of the sculpture.

Q. How did you become a sculptor: did you always want to do this and how did you train? (5BD)

A. I wanted to be a sculptor from a very young age, I did also want to be a pilot, maybe I can learn to fly planes when I am old. I trained to be a sculptor at art college in 1994, recently I went back to art college to become a ‘Master of Arts’ that’s when I started doing community projects.

Q. Why do you enjoy working with schools and the wider community? (6Z)

A. A lot of sculptors work on their own making sculptures without involving other people, I have done that but recently I have been working with different types of communities, I enjoy sharing the creative process and like the unpredictable nature of collaborating with hundreds of people to make something new and different.

Q. Is there a way that children can identify their hand in the sculpture?

A. I am going to try and make that possible by making a map that shows the location of each classes hands in the sculpture, I might not be able to say exactly which hand is where but the map will show roughly where each hand is. You will have to put your hand on the sculpture to try and match it!

Q. Ocklynge logo located somewhere? On a sign explaining the project?

A. I think that a sign would be a good idea; it depends on what the school would like.

Q. Sections could be arranged for each section with bigger hands at the bottom.

A. That is a good idea, we will try it out at the studio to see if it works.

Q. Hands could be arranged in cup formation, praying, different angles etc...

A. We can try these ideas out during the school visits to my studio, I have tried a few small arrangements of hands already, once we have a few hundred laid out it will be easier to make decisions.

Q. Will the sculpture be multicoloured or red to represent school colour. Can we choose colours?

A. It could be either, because of the way that it is made we can’t have too many colours, probably six at most. I would like pupils from the school to help me choose the colour or colours. We should include red, as it is the school colour. Maybe it could be six different shades of red.

Q. Could it be a big archway that can be walked through into the school.

A. It could be a big archway, but I don’t think that we can put it in front of the entrance, just in case any large deliveries need to be made, it would be annoying if they could not fit. Keep checking this blog to see what shapes I come up with.

Creating the artwork

The next stage in the development of HANDS UP! was for all pupils to complete their hand outline. With the dedicated help of our Ocklynge teachers each child had the opportunity to explore how hands have been used throughout art history and more specifically symbolic aboriginal art from Australia.

Whilst thinking creatively about themselves, their likes, hobbies and personalities, every pupil personalised their palms with symbols that represented themselves. Each year group used black, white and one other designated colour to create striking pieces that will now go with each class representative to Will's Black Dog art studio in Lewes.

Teachers, support staff, parents and other Ocklynge community members have also contributed their designs. We have received 30 hands from our link school in Egypt and are hoping to get some from India very soon.

Keep watching to see what happens next!

Ocklynge School Council Feedback

The involvement of all Ocklynge School pupils is an important part to the HANDS UP! project. As a way of allowing all children to take part in the project, the existing School Council and Mrs Boulton have been asking classes questions about what they have learnt from Will Nash so far and what they would like to know.

White Hat
1) What information have you leant through the assembly? Collective comments from 3D, 3F, 3R, 4MS, 4W, 4B, 4MO, 5BD, 5WR, 6ST, 6RJ & 6Z.

"Will Nash told us there are different types of art and that sculptures are one aspect. We learnt that sculptures can be made from a variety of materials including polystyrene, plastic, metal and even SPACE HOPPERS, not just bricks. Will is a local artist who likes to include the whole community and in our project he wants all of our hand outlines, as well as some from our link school children abroad, to make a large metal sculpture. This will be cut using lasers and will be placed outside the school entrance."


2) What would you like to know more about?
(Are they any questions you would like to ask the artist?)

• What made you think of the idea for the HANDS UP! project? (4W, 6ST & 6Z)
• What metal will it be made from and what will happen if it rusts? (3D, 4MO & 5WR)
• Will there be too many hands to fit? (4B)
• How will the sculpture be made?
• How did you become a sculptor: did you always want to do this and how did you train? (5BD)
• Why do you enjoy working with schools and the wider community? (6Z)

Yellow Hat
3) What do you think are biggest benefits to being involved in the project and seeing/ hearing a real working artist?

"So you know how a real artist works and learn from him." (3R & 6ST)

"Good for all to work together on a project." (4W)

"Inspiring you to remember our time at Ocklynge with pride." (4B & 6RJ)

"It will make the school look more attractive and interesting." (4MO)

"It is different to what we usually do." (5BD)

"The school will look cool!" (5WR)

"Encouraging art in the school environment, inspiring us." (6Z)

Green Hat
4) What do you imagine the final piece to look like? (could be drawn) &
5) Have you any ideas you would like to suggest to the artist?

• Is there a way that children can identify their hand in the sculpture?
• Ocklynge logo located somewhere? On a sign explaining project?
• Sections could be arranged for each section with bigger hands at the bottom.
• .Hands arranged in cup formation, praying, different angles etc...
• Multicoloured or red to represent school colour. Can we choose colours?
• A big archway that can be walked through into the school.

Assemblies

On the 18th of March I presented the Hands-Up project plan to the whole school, because the school has large community I presented the project 4 times. At the end of each one I took pictures of the whole group with their Hands-Up. I think that the whole school are now looking forward to taking part and seeing the project take shape.

I am looking forward to seeing all the hand outlines, I hope they are good...

The Hands Up project begins

Tomorrow I am presenting 4 assemblies back to back, I have prepared a power-point presentation. I am going to be introducing the project and talking about what is involved with being a sculptor.

This is the worksheet I have designed for the project, it will be completed in class by the Ocklynge Junior school pupils and we hope by pupils in other schools with links to Ocklynge.
It will also be available for parents and anyone else who would like to take part in the project.

Thats it for now