Works at Colegio Amoros

For the past year I have been working at Colegio Amoros in the South of Madrid. This is a marianista college in the third year of an English Bilingual programme.

The school also teaches music, theatre and art through English and began to teach some workshops with the first of primary kids ( 6 - 7 years). With the decorations for ´Dive into the jungle ´ I cut out the props of a jungle scene and just let them go for it with several different classes applying numerous layers which gave a great intensity to the poster paint.

These classes can be mayhem but always enjoyable and I think this is a golden age with kids. They are so enthusiastic about everything but they are just getting old enough to work together and plan things a little bit. Later in the school year I had the opportunity to work again work the kids in the first of primary on a second project where I was able to use works that I had made the previous year in La Tabacalera (Madrid).

In August 2013 I had made an installation of five fullsize origami horses within a setting of a forest in part relating to a poem by Robert Forst and in other parts to personal experiences. The process of making the horses and the setting and the desired result was to be a physical one in a visual sense. I envisioned this installation in a large window front to viewed from the streetin an ambient setting with the aid of good lighting. But like any type of origami the process was very physical and with the kids we began a series of simple origami classes although this proved difficult because they were a little young.I was thinking on the theme of horses and how the native american Indians would print their hands onto their horses as decoration and thought this could be a away where the students could becaome part of the project a take ownership of the horses to a degree. This worked out much better.

Only three of the horses were used in  this way and after the workshops the horses were arranged in an open area in the grounds of the school in preparation for the National meeting of the Marianistas of Spain ( Jornadas de profesores marianistas de primaria de España)  which was held in Amoros this year on the 26 & 27th of June. With the help of the other Auxiliar teachers and Alejandra the head of the English department we set up the horses on a very hot afternoon.

Possibly in the future drawings of the installation may be used to develop a ´proyecto ayuda ` event to raise money for Marianista colleges in the South of Spain which are in need of financial assistance. These ´help projects´ are run at different times during the year in every marianista  College , it might be a sports event, or cooking or selling badges on St Patricks day or whatever to generate some needed income for distressed schools.

http://tv.colegioamoros.org/proxima-parada-carabanchel-alto/