Eastfeast; Gorselands Primary School

This project allowed me to work with the special needs children at Gorselands Primary School, dropping in to work with them over a period of a year and a half. The continuity achieved by working over a sustained period of time allowed me to get to know the children, and they me, and to introduce them to different techniques.

The half-day workshops were treated as a drop-in activity, giving the children the choice of working with me, or not. This free choice gave the children the confidence to try new things under a non-threatening environment and resulted in them producing some absolutely wonderful work.

As the first Eastfeast PPD programme was a huge learning curve for me, so was this; working with special needs children is a challenge and also a great privilege. They re-introduced me to the joy of discovering something new; printing and painting by getting mucky – hands being the most often used implement. Pattern and colour; drawing with wax crayons to produce self-portraits and even DIY; using a hand-drill, screwdriver and hammer to jointly make three large, standing sculptures in Cedar of Lebanon.

For more information on Eastfeast see: www.eastfeast.co.uk