Arts Projects
Over the years, Pennine and some of the co-workers and students have been involved with a number of arts projects —
James Mason, Visual Artist, My Life — My Pictures, 2010
James Mason created this series of paintings in 2010, during his final year as a student at Pennine Camphill Community, under the tuition of artist and teacher Michael Barnell.
James has been influenced by a number of artists including Van Gogh, Franz Marc, Von Jawlensky and August Macke. These paintings are the result of exploring various themes and images selected from the RDA stables where James worked for part of his course at Pennine, and also using research from the internet as well as from art books. To produce these delightful images he used a combination of techniques and materials including water colour and pastels; they have a jewel-like quality that could easily transfer into stained glass or ceramic.
James is also gifted in working with 3-dimensional materials and can construct a horse, a crocodile or a Trojan successfully in a matter of minutes using cardboard boxes as his starting point. This move into 2-D work reflects and extends his interest in colour, structure and form and illustrates events that are at times real and also illusory.
James's art course at Pennine was based on a series of visual thematic archetypes, with a progressive emphasis on self determination of both content and composition. He worked hard to prepare and compile a portfolio of art work for his final year and was nominated for the Pennine Arts Award 2010. He was presented with the award during his Pennine graduation. One of his paintings, ‘Still Horse’, won both the regional and national RDA Arts Competition.
As a result of this work, James was offered his first public exhibition, at Greens Health and Fitness Club, Wakefield.
The Labyrinth Experience, 2005-2006
The Labyrinth Experience was an exciting year-long arts project, during 2005 and 2006, which involved professional artists, members of Pennine Camphill Community and interested members of the public.
Most of the work produced was made from organic materials and it evolved with the changing seasons. So the themes of cycles, circles, life, letting go, death, renewal and resurrection were an integral part of the project. Click here to find out more about the Labyrinth Experience.
Sculpture Project, 2002
For the ‘Art in the Community elective’ of the second year of his degree course, Raph Taylor worked with a group of students at Pennine to produce an outdoor installation in the grounds of the Community. The emphasis was on group participation and the process of creating art.
The project went very well, and at the beginning of his final year Raph was invited to organise and run another project, again with a group of students. This project, undertaken between January and March 2002, became major part of Raph’s final year degree exhibition, in which he explored the relationship between idea, process and product and, for this project, the involvement of a group of people in creating art. The intention was to create a sculpture focusing on relocation, and the relationship between organic forms and fabricated materials. The main aim was to work as a group and develop an idea that would evolve as the work progressed. The initial blueprint for the sculpture came directly from Raph’s work involving spirals, dislocation/relocation and space and scale, and as the project progressed it began to feed back into his studio practice, influencing many of his decisions.
The cedar tree used for the work had been felled the previous December, and the site where it had stood, near to Boyne Hill House, was the perfect location to place the sculpture in public view.