Downs View

Art Works were commissioned by Downs View SLD School in Brighton to run five days of workshops involving all 86 students. Much of the work was installed in the main school hall.

Kate Adams writes in PAW Anthology 1997 - 2012 ... " Each child had specific and often profoundly different needs. We ran a pre-workshop presentation for staff and at the end of the project, installed the work the children had made in a specially designed construction, in the school hall."

Guns of Hastings

Experiments with Melted plastic and packaging - photographed in the empty Observer building adjacent to Claremont.

Art Works at the De La Warr

1997_PAWDelaWarrInvite_wm.jpg

This was an exhibition of work produced from the Project Paul residencies by children with special needs from Glyne Gap School, Bexhill and Hazel Court School in Eastbourne during two Art residences conducted in the autumn of 1986 by artists Kate Adams and Jonathan Cole. The residencies were mainly funded by the schools with additional grants coming from South East Arts. The exhibition was sited on the top floor where around 100 plaster casts and 60 etched copper plates were exhibited alongside some notable paintings. One; 'Rainbow Road', so huge it had to be positioned outside in the roof area. Kate wrote in the following in her forward to the exhibition;

'We employed techniques which were directly expressive of form, movement, gesture and cognitive engagement including direct methods of casting, mark making and painting. It was our intention that each child would have unaided access and engagement with the range of methods and media we employed. As far as possible we try to avoid being prescriptive'.

Following the exhibition much of the work of the work was permanently installed in the schools.

Philip Cole

Hastings College

Jon was employed as a lecturer on the Foundation course at Hastings college of Art, working under the guidance of Tony Colley.

'Jon was a wonderful lecturer but could simply 'forget' to keep records or hand in marking on time. When Tony Colley retired, Ian Brown took over - he loved Jon but had to relegate him because he still didn't keep records or marks. I came back from retirement and for a few years took Jon's number two roll but we team taught and never ever fell out' - Rod Harman

Art Works

Whilst sharing a studio space in Hastings, Jon and artist Kate Adams began a conversation about how to enable young people, even those with the most complex needs, to make art on their own terms, within their own, individual sphere of ability. This was a simple proposition but illusive as a motive for making art in collaboration with others. It aimed at a kind of record of engagement through mark making, rather than a way of intentionally making art and yet many of the images made have huge vitality, power and aesthetic balance.

Kate Adams - from Anthology PAW 1997 - 2012

 

Project Paul

In Project Paul, Jon and Kate tested their ideas for 'Art Works' during two ten day residencies in schools for children with severe learning difficulties (SLD): Glyne Gap SLD School in Eastbourne and Hazel Court SLD School in Eastbourne.

Kate Adams - from Anthology PAW 1997 - 2012