North Lanarkshire Craft Residency

From October 2005 to March 2006, North Lanarkshire Council was funded by the Scottish Arts Council to run a twin craft residency that took place in Coatbridge High School and associated school, Townhead Primary. The project has been a great success which has benefited all who participated. 

The project was set up to address North Lanarkshire Council's Raising Achievement policy.  This was done by providing new learning opportunities for young people through offering the schools first hand experience of working with professionally qualified craft practitioners based in each school.

Another important aim was to enrich the formal and informal curriculum in the schools and augment and support the schools' development plan.

The local community benefited by being offered the opportunity to see the work that was produced through craft residency exhibitions and a fashion show at both schools. The project also raised the profile of Townhead Primary School and Coatbridge High School as innovative and dynamic schools that fully support new and inspirational initiatives that benefit the school and local community.

The legacy of the project was the work created, the experiences that the practitioners gained, the documentation of the project and the press coverage as well as the overall experience of those who participated. Sarah Keay, jewellery artist shares her experience with the residency.

'From October 05 to March 06 I was employed as a craft practitioner in Coatbridge High School. I worked three days a week in the school with every second Tuesday afternoon spent working with a primary 3 class at Townhead Primary.

My main task was to help the pupils develop skills in which to create new innovative work that would be shown within the final exhibition. Projects during the residency included screen printed textiles that were collaged, then digitally manipulated by Photoshop before being printed; digital prints for chair designs, where the collaged image was repeated on Photoshop then digitally printed onto fabric; felted shoes, with the S5 design units including hats, evening bags and lampshades.
  

In the Primary school the pupils designed and produced items of jewellery to tie in with the theme, "Alice in Wonderland".  The work was made from felted beads and wire chains with a variety of materials used to decorate the pieces.

I was provided with a dedicated space within the school to use as a studio in which I spent a good 40% of the duration of the project.  There I experimented with machine knitted wire and hand knitted wool to produce a range of wire bangles and woollen drapes that incorporate precious materials for the final show.

Working with the pupils informed my own practice through material experimentation and new techniques developed through the problem solving aspects of the projects. I also learned how to felt onto mod roc structures that I thought would be impossible to begin with!  The teaching staff were excellent and gave me plenty of time to concentrate on my own work.

My overall experience was fantastic due to the great support that I received from them all.'

Sarah Keay