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Life as an Artist in Residence at a Nursery School
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Matthew Shaw (Engineering Design and Technology 1993-96) is an artist. He has recently finished his second year as artist in residence at Whitnash Nursery School, Leamington Spa. He has also recently exhibited his most recent work 'Underneath the Arches', an interactive trail through forgotten and discarded spaces of south Leamington. Matthew's art has taken him to Cyprus, Zimbabwe and South Africa and he returned to Leamington in 2003 to take up the residency.
'It was very soon after graduating from Warwick that I decided to pursue making art a career. My main passion was in sculpture and during the first few years this passion was satisfied by creating what I now consider more formal forms of art such as stone carving and drawing. Stone carving was great and it became a good excuse to travel. I spent a period of time at a stone carving village in Zimbabwe and then moved to South Africa to help set up an Arts Centre there. I returned to apply to do a masters in Sculpture at Winchester School of Art.
Work from Waste
It was at Winchester that I reconnected with many of the ideas and philosophies that I had started to play around with whilst on the degree at Warwick. This resulted in huge pieces of work, generally made from waste that encouraged the viewer to actively interact with the work. Trails were made through the piles of rubbish and objects were arranged evoke and challenge memories and ideas about waste, consumerism and our environment.
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Creativity through Play
It was through thinking how to challenge ways of thinking that I became increasingly interested in combining the creativity of art with education and this led to me being appointed artist in residence at Whitnash Nursery School. The school is a unique and fantastic place to work. The main focus has been to encourage creativity through play across all areas of the school. The lead is taken from the children and my job is to facilitate their ideas in a creative way. If a group of them want to build a castle then I help them to achieve this in as exciting a way as possible. In the last year, water has been a major interest to the children and they have learnt what a diverse and important resource this is.
The work at school has had a major influence on my own work as well. My most recent work has dealt with the idea of play and childhood. I set a trail for people to follow around south Leamington. To many people who took part it was, in a way, a return to the way we discovered and found places to play as a child. Where and what next is the question now.' |
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