Artist in Residence
the Arlington artist in residence grant project
IF WALLS COULD TALK – PRESHIL’S 80TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS
It was a great privilege last week to be invited to open the exhibition that the children in the 8s and 9s have been so engaged with over the past few months with our Artist in Residence, Penelope Bartlau. The Staff at Arlington were delighted when we were successful in being awarded an Arts Victoria ‘Artists in Schools’ grant that allowed us to engage an artist for up to 20 days to work with children and teachers on a creative project.
Penelope is a puppeteer, writer and director, who has worked professionally in film, television, theatre and radio drama for the last 18 years. Penelope trained for 6 months in Commedia Dell’Arte in residence at the Scuola Internazionale Dell’Attore Comico with Antonio Fava in Italy and for a year in Method Acting at the Lee Strasberg Institute in New York City. She has also studied Professional Screenwriting at RMIT University and has a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Political Theory from Monash University. In 2007 she completed a Masters in Puppetry from the Victorian College of the Arts.
The exhibition is wonderful and it is clear how hard the children had worked. They have certainly let their imaginations run wild designing and creating such engaging pieces to view. It is truly inspiring to see the children’s results after being so engaged in various forms of creative expression. The installations are a truly imaginative way to showcase the children’s learning and it is a joy to watch them explain to the many parents the stories behind their creative work.
Penelope Bartlau, Artist in Residence Statement
The idea for the project ‘If Walls Could Talk’ was to focus on the history of Preshil, as part of the 80th Birthday celebrations. This focus was to take the form of a series of installations, based on objects, histories (oral & other) and/or stories from Preshil’s past.
Our first few weeks focused on: puppetry – play and operation, story creation and telling, performance techniques, installation creation and collaborative artistic processes. After term two holidays, we returned to work on story refinement, with a greater bent toward factual history in story, rather than the fantastical.
The children were asked to think metaphorically and conceptually about their installation creations, choosing objects that implied a greater meaning, to convey story elements visually. A good example is the snappy dog, much loved by Mug, called ‘Randy’, became a brandy snap in the installation and in the puppetry performance. The fragility of the object itself reflects the fragile temper of the animal, and the name ‘Brandy Snap’ is a play on words, reflecting the dog’s name and nature.
I always search for a greater premise or theme in any work, whether it be my own, with a community, with a school, or with other artists. The theme that strongly emerged from the research the children undertook was the expansive nature of Mug’s love and care and, equaled only by Mug’s toughness. Many of the stories the children have developed and presented reflect this. Mug is, undoubtedly, a chocolate royal: hard on the outside & soft on the inside.
I hope you enjoy viewing the works as much as we have had creating them – But don’t take my word for it: ask the children: an incredible bunch of free thinking, creative, deliciously individual human beings.
My thanks go to the teachers and staff here for their openness, trust and support in the creative processes; to Arts Victoria for generously supporting the project, most of all to the children.
Below are the stories about the children’s installations and their explanations
The Flats and The Farm
Object of inspiration – A bell, which turned out to be a part of a toilet, which brought up stories of the grumpy neighbours, and then the nice ones.
For the installation we have made the beautiful farmland created at the nice neighbours.
There will be three parts to our performance:
The first part will represent the nasty neighbours in the flats near the school who blamed the children of Preshil for everything: rubbish, rats, smells and head lice! For the performance we will operate a giant rubbish monster in Bunraku style puppetry – those neighbours were full of rubbish!
The second part will about the nice neighbours across the road from the school, who let the Preshil children build a garden full of animals, plants and trees, in the 1980’s. The final section – well it’s a surprise! (You’ll have to come to the performance & see!)
The Bomb Shelter
Object of inspiration – Mug’s Hurricane Lanterns.
During World War Two there were bomb shelters at Preshil. The boarding school kids would often sneak out at night and into the shelters and steal the food from the ration packs kept there for emergencies.
We have made a bomb shelter. You can see inside all the food and beds. We have shown some bombs that have exploded.
For the performance we will use shadow puppets to show the children running around the garden stealing the food from the shelters. Mug appears with a lantern, catching the children stealing.
Mug’s Cranky Dog
Object of inspiration – Alsatian Dog sculpture from Mug’s Lounge room
Our installation shows that there are two sides to everything – in this instance, one side bad and one side good.
On the bad side there are lentils making a floor. We have Brussels sprouts and broccoli for trees.
On the good side (which is Preshil) there is fairy floss for the floor and jelly babies for the children at school. For some of the good side there is licorice allsorts used as a fence for Preshil. In the middle of both worlds there is a bridge made out of musk sticks and Minties.
It was funny because at the start Ruby (one of the children) decided to call the dog Brandy when his real name was Randy!
We decided to do a bad side and a good side because Randy was a stray and the bad side represents that. Then he found a home and he was happy and that’s why we did the good side at Preshil.
Josie Fox – The Bad Apple
Object of inspiration – An old cigar box from Mug’s Lounge room
Our story is about Josie Fox. This is a true story that Deb (one of our teachers and a past student at Preshil) told us.
Josie was a naughty girl (a bad apple) and was here in the year 1968. Mug loved the naughty kids.
We made a scene for a play about Josie Fox. The pencils represent the objects Josie Fox threw out of the tree. The story goes that Josie was up the tree for hours, Mug patiently waited for Josie to come down. The cigar box covered in tea bag tags represents the sitting room where Mug took Josie. The teacups represent when Mug gave her tea and biscuits. Whenever children at Preshil misbehaved, they were ‘punished’ with tea and biscuits and a talk with Mug. (Once a boy was so bad he got a Mars bar!)
Mr. Stezic-The Grouchy Russian Hoarder with a Heart of Gold
Object of inspiration – An old coffee pot from Mug’s Lounge room
Our nest represents a cleaner called Mr. Stezic. He worked here a long time ago. He was a child in the war. Mr. Stezic had nothing, so he used to take and collect other people’s things such as hammers, wood – even a silver coffee pot, and would stash them away in the shed. Once on Margret Little’s birthday, apparently he turned up with a bunch of flowers for her. Every one said how nice it was of him – but it turned out that he had taken the flowers from Margret’s garden. Despite being a grouch, Mr. Stezic was kind. If children wanted wood for a cubby house, he would take care give them more than enough.
We made a nest because, like a bowerbird, Mr. Stezic’s gathered things to make his own ‘nest’. Mr. Stezic is represented by the silver teapot in the middle of the nest.
We had a lot of fun making our nest. Our nest is made of sticks. We joined them together in squares and triangles. We painted a big wooden box green and sprinkled it with dirt. Then we got lots of silver and gold jewelry and put it on the bottom. We then put the nest on top and sprinkled sequins on it. We made rings out of paper and paper clips, gold spray paint, glue and fake jewels.
Object of inspiration – A painting from Mug’s Lounge room
Our work leads the audience to all of the different Preshil stories in the installation and in the plays. We introduce every story. Our creative journey started from words that we thought explained our object, the painting, and we each made stories from these words, except for Preston, who made his story up on the spot.
We combined all our stories together and made one big story. Penelope liked a particular part so we played ‘Fortunately / Unfortunately’ (a storytelling game), and from that game we formed a new story.
‘It was a rainy day…’ as Sia said.
Within our story you would find a tree of caramel, a fire place filled with lollies, you would be reunited with friends, from nowhere there would come a destructive giant fan and there are beautiful dresses that whisk you back to one of Mug’s histories through a wardrobe. All of this taking place in Mugs sitting room.
There was an idea that the dresses would lead you into different stories. Stories are normally represented by books (as is traditional learning), so we decided to use books in our final installation, which bring you into all the worlds you find here today.
Our beautiful eagle represents Preshil. It is in the colours of gold and green which are our school colours.
Mugs sign
Object of inspiration – A wooden ‘Mugs’ sign belonging to Mug
Our project is inspired by the wonderful artist called Penelope.
The Mugs Sign art project is one of seven works. All are fabulous and tell a bit about the history of Preshil.
Our installation is about the ‘MUGS’ sign we found in the sitting room of Arlington House. The tan bark represents the school grounds. We would tell you more about it but it is a surprise. You will have to wait and see…