Life Doesn’t Frighten Me …

What a privilege it has been to support in delivering the ‘art’ within the ‘arts’ of 4SH’s eight days Arts ‘Fortnight’! Dance, song, poetry, art in the style of Jean-Michel Basquiat , a story and a rap have all contributed to their initial exploration of identity.

Maya Angelou’s defiant poem ‘Life Doesn’t Frighten Me’ celebrates the courage within each of us and is illustrated by Jean-Michel Basquiat. In ‘having a go’ in painting in his style, we discovered how by layering colour and blending colour using acrylic paints and pastels we too could create a background for a silhouetted figure to stand strong against. We noticed that the figure often had a ‘chalked’ rib-cage and bones with features also exaggerated using white.

This technique, we then adopted to create our own paintings on cardboard. The colour palette this time captured the colours associated with our interpretation of the emotion fear.

The figure represented our stance when encountering this emotion. Drawing each other’s ‘fear’ poses helped us to think shape and which features or body parts needed accentuating.

Further exploration in our sketch books provided the reference we needed when committing the silhouette to our paintings.  

Finally, we chalk penned the lines of our Kennings onto our art. Courageous creativity happened before our eyes. Well done 4SH.

4SH’s performance on Friday was truly special. A huge thank you to parents and interested adults who gave up their time to be the audience for the performance and share in the workshops with their young person. The following feedback shares how precious the afternoon was:

Absolutely amazing! You are all so talented, and it was a moving performance. Thank you to all the teachers, such a fantastic topic to express in various ways.

Amazing teamwork, singing and dancing. Boy, that rap was good!

Absolutely fantastic. Whole day was very enjoyable.’

‘Loved watching Logan perform and seeing all his lovely work. A lovely school.’

‘Really good interactive afternoon. Brilliant watching the children and their talents.’

‘I really liked the layout of the library. I had a great time exploring the hunt with my daughter.

‘A wonderful afternoon-the children’s enthusiasm was simply infectious-I think this speaks volumes!! Thank you all so much.’

‘Absolutely great. Loved seeing Kirsten in school. Great day.’

‘What a wonderful afternoon we have had. All of the performances were fantastic and even made me emotional. It was wonderful to see the classroom and also the library. It was also great to have to use my brain. Well done Lola and 4SH!’

‘Fantastic, very proud of the achievement. Well put together in 3 groups.’

‘Really excellent. We are so impressed with the afternoon.’

‘Such a lovely dance and such a lovely teacher Mrs Housam is. Enjoyed every bit of today’s performance.’

‘Loved watching the class dance and listening to the poem! Excellent piano Mrs Housam! Great hunt in the library and classroom and art studio 10/10! Thank you.’

‘Really enjoyed today! Nice seeing what the children have been learning!

‘What an absolutely amazing art fortnight. I was blown away by all the students! Mrs Housam is truly an inspiring teacher and I am always amazed with the effort the school gives to it’s students!’

‘I enjoyed everything with Amelia. Everything was great.’

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