WIX Primary School

Last thurday I did my first workshop with the children. The teachers had warned me that it would be very difficult to convey my message, 'too abstract' they told me, 'they are only 8'. So I started by asking them what they thought art was. They replied painting, pottery, sculpture, collage, photography...they knew quite a lot already, they even mentionned Picasso, Monet, Miro, Van Gogh. That was a really good start but it was time to speak about my project. I told them that I didnt know how to paint or sculpt or draw and in fact I was rather clumsy but one of the thing I was really good at was to have ideas and one day, as I was waiting for the bus, I wished a bus would come to take me to the country 'Love'. I wished buses would take me to emotions I wanted to experience. So I asked the children to tell me the 'countries of emotions' they would like to experience too. We then had the most amazing session with children coming up with about 20 different emotions : Jalousy, relief, joy, humour, kindness, rage, fear, pity, peace, sadness, panic, generosity, stress...That was all very good and both with the teacher we decided to give them the postcards. I explained how I wanted them to pick one emotion of their choice and explain how they could relate to it and write this on the postcard that would be sent to wandsworth art department. All these postcards would be shown at a later stage during an exhibition.

After the session, I was thrilled and excited. The children had got it immediately, it wasn't too abstract or too difficult, in fact it seems it was quite easy for them to escape to a country emotion.
One little boy said: 'I would like to travel to the country Love because I love a girl and I would like to take her there so I could marry her', another one said' I would like to travel to Envy, that way I would want everything on that planet food and toys'.

These children were exceptional!