Great Southern Grammar
Artist in Residence
Natures Apothecary
Taking inspiration from the variety of natural environments that encapsulates Albany and the greater region, the junior school and select middle school students were guided by Fremantle artist Holly O’Meehan, to develop ceramic works for a collaborative installation. Taking a closer look at local landscapes such as beaches and coastlines, bushland, mountains, farm land and marshes, the students were shown how to create leaves, rocks, sticks, flowers and other organic objects from clay. On the opposite side of this micro/macro examination, the middle school students built their own clay mountain and covered the surface with ambiguous shapes and patterns that reference the finer details that can be found in nature. The completed installation is a carefully curated display of “specimen jars”, teamed with a floor piece where each of the mountain’s, peak’s, hill’s and plateau’s have been brought together to become a mountain range.
The conversation of collaborating was an important point during this residency, with the hope that the students will learn and appreciate how an individuals work can come together with many others to create a large work of shared creativity. When the exhibition inevitably comes to an end, each junior school student who contributed work to the “specimen jars” will be able to take one jar home as a symbol of their creative work that is part of the whole installation. Even though this will be theres to keep, it will also always be one of the 216 collection.
