Julia Midgley, centre, with staff from St Cleopas and DLA Piper and pupils from the school _320
ARTISTS in residence have become a growing part of business and community life. The idea is simple: an artist is given an open access to some business or organisation and pictures the life around in paint or drawing.
It gives a more subjective view of life in a big organisation than photography could ever do and supplies a distinct personal touch.
Illustrator and Liverpool John Moores University lecturer Julia Midgley is currently capturing life in the Liverpool offices of DLA Piper, the legal services organisation which sponsors the international modern art exhibition at the Tate Liverpool.
Her work at those offices has now inspired another project and one that is more unusual.
Pupils at St Cleopas Primary School in Toxteth have become their own artists in residence.
The 31 pupils have been spending the last few weeks capturing life behind their school gates.
They were given sketch books and pencils donated by DLA Piper and asked to record all the events that happened in their school in a scheme also supported by John Moores University.
These ranged from the end-of- term disco and games in the playground to more formal lessons.
The project was launched at the DLA Piper’s office in Water Street where Julia met the class and told them more about the world of documentary illustrators.
They were then given the sketch books and told to get busy on a visual diary of life at St Cleopas. Head teacher Jacquie Fleetwood thinks the results have been outstanding.
She said: “Every morning, some of the children were picked as that day’s artists in residence. They were given special badges and that meant they could wander around and get a chance to see what was going on around the school, not just in their own class.”
The children had really taken to the project, she said. “We have some real budding artists here and this project helped them develop new skills and learn how these could be applied in the work place.”
Julia was equally impressed with the results.
“Documentary illustration is all about capturing a moment in time and you could see from their drawings that the children were really inspired by the project,” she said. Philip Rooney, managing director of DLA Piper, was delighted that the artists’ residence idea had proved so popular with the children.
“Hopefully we have been able to raise their awareness of different careers open to them, including becoming professional artists,” he said.
DLA Piper already works with St. Cleopas through the firm’s reading scheme where more than 20 staff volunteer to help.
