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Zart Extra Article Term 1 2008

Art Makes My Office Beautiful

Andy Bennett
Principal
Dodges Ferry Primary School

I am currently sitting at the desk in my office looking down the hallway. My first view is a line of corkscrew tails hanging of the backsides of brightly coloured and lovingly crafted Papier Mache pigs. They are pink and yellow and bright red and some have spots and others have stripes.
They are calm and peaceful pigs because they cohabitate with elephants (I think) and some kangaroos and other beasts who I don’t think appear on a register of known animals. All the animals don’t seem at all perturbed by the frightening and alarming array of shiny lacquered masks that infest the walls opposite.


A desk in my office is covered in a collection of clay models that our very talented students put together for the recent Hobart Royal Show. There are masses of them. Some are prize winners, some are place getters. All are beautiful. There are spotted cats, long horned devils, laughing clowns, strange half human-like busts with oversize ears and there is a wonderful punk rocker who sits menacingly in the middle.


In the corner of my office sits a beautiful mosaic of hand painted tiles designed and constructed by a grade five class of artists. They donated the mosaic to the school at a recent school assembly. The kids who made it shone as brilliantly as the tiles when they handed it over to me.
On the walls of my office exquisite, striking and mysterious hand painted mono prints inspired by the work of Picasso. They have been produced by students from 8 to 12 years of age. What imaginations they have. On a desk in the other corner is a pile of portraits, some on paper, others on canvas drawn by kids from Kinder to grade 6. They were entries in the Tasmanian Education Department Young Archies Awards early in the year. I think they all should have won first prize… but so should have each of the 100’s of other entries from around the state. You should have seen the exhibition!

I keep a couple of old favourites from previous years to remind me of students past and because I like the paintings. They are abstracts painted on paper by a couple of students who struggled to succeed at school to be honest. But these works are wonderful; complex, intricate and somehow full of meaning. A wonderful grade 6 teacher who sees art as another avenue for kids to communicate showed them some famous abstract works. The class talked about what they might mean and then the students went to it. Where we had struggled to motivate the students I mentioned above we now struggled to stop them painting and they finished the work. Perhaps a first time experience for them.


I love art, but I know nothing of any technical value. Even more I love what it provides for kids and I think I have accumulated some technical understanding of how kids learn and grow over the years in education. Art works for kids. It is accessible to all yet it allows individuals to excel. It allows the unheard to express themselves and the confidence to shine. It brings kids and our community together. Like all beautiful things it attracts an appreciative audience. Our community loves it too.


Art makes my office beautiful. Come and visit sometime.

 

Dodges Ferry Primary School, Profile, principal, Andy Bennett