Projects


Once upon a time children and young people from Teesdale School and Montalbo Primary set about working on a very special project. They worked long and hard with artists and sculptors and made many beautiful things. They created animals from willow and set fairytales in clay, they sculpted a musical caterpillar and even carved a magnificent wooden chair, and when the work was finished, there, in the grounds of The Bowes Museum, a Story Garden was made.


The Story Garden

During the 2006/07 academic year, The Bowes Museum worked in partnership with Teesdale School through the MLA Learning Links Placement to create a space in the grounds of the Museum in which to tell stories. Delivering the project was an organic process which was very much dependent upon the design ideas of the young people involved. Students from years 8 to 10 contributed to the project and as a result, attended a series of artist-led workshops that complimented the natural theme they wanted for The Story Garden.

In February 2007 the Teesdale students worked with Ruth Thompson from Sylvan Skills to create withie (willow) sculptures and installations based on the Museum’s collections. Later on in this month they also had the opportunity to make fairytale inspired clay tiles with artist Phil Townsend. These tiles have subsequently been inset into the garden’s audience seating.

With funding from the North East Museum’s Regional Hub a multi-sensory element was added to the garden. Teesdale pupils worked with sound sculptor Paddy Burton over two days to turn a huge tree trunk into a musical caterpillar which works in the same way as a xylophone. These three workshops not only provided the young people with new learning experiences, there were also opportunities to develop their team work and problem solving skills.

I thought it was fun and instead of doing the same thing we did different activities to keep us engaged. (Jemma).

 


The Storyteller’s Chair

A common suggestion from the Teesdale students was for the garden to have a central storyteller’s chair. As a result the Museum established another partnership with Montalbo Primary School and Seaham-based sculptor David Gross to design, carve and assemble a magnificent wooden chair inspired by the Year 3 and 4 pupils’ favourite objects in the Museum.

With The Story Garden complete an official opening was organised on Sunday 10 June 2007 to celebrate the children and young people’s work and achievements. Everyone who was involved in the project attended the event where storyteller Malcolm Green regaled them with his stories of the natural world.

The Story Garden has been a successful, enjoyable project which has opened the door to new Literacy opportunities in The Bowes Museum. Two storytelling focus weeks have been planned for primary schools in the autumn term and the story theme continues into next year’s Learning Links project with Greenfield School – more details on this exciting collaboration to follow!

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The Cloth of Tales

 

The Cloth of Tales is a collection of textile panels created by a class of year 7 pupils at Greenfield School Community & Arts College in Newton Aycliffe. The eight month long project was funded by Museums, Libraries and Archives North East and the Durham Education Business Partnership in support of the Learning Links Programme.
 
The Cloth of Tales follows on from the success of the Story Garden, part of the Learning Links programme in 2006. The Museum has a special garden where a throne-like story chair can be found. The Cloth of Tales is the indoor complement to the Story Garden.   Visitors can choose a panel and read the story that accompanies its textile illustration. It is a resource for the Museum that will be very useful when working with primary school children especially.
The pupils from Greenfield School toured the Museum searching for a range of treasures. Once they had found the one they were looking for they worked in groups to create not only a story inspired by the object but also a design for a fabric collage to illustrate it.
 
A month later, an all day workshop to make the fabric pictures took place. Löne Grinter, a textile artist and designer, provided expert advice and demonstrations of stitching techniques which helped to give the pupils both confidence and creative ideas. Löne also finished off the panels by edging them and making the housing for looping them onto the metal rods on the stand. The stand was made by local craftsman Christopher Helliwell.
The project is a fine example of cross-curricular work, combining the English and Drama and Art and Design departments. It is not easy to fit project work in to an already full timetable and a lot of work was done during lunchtimes and after school sessions. The end result is a tribute to the wonderful efforts of 7K and their teachers, Sharon Simpson and Shirley Douglas of Greenfield School.