A group of Armidale High School students is working towards making a mosaic wall for the school’s Reconciliation Garden.
Member for Northern Tablelands Richard Torbay was invited to inspect the work in progress at the BackTrack Workshop recently.
The project, led by BackTrack Artist in Residence Matt Pilkington, was made possible through $1500 funding from Arts NSW.
Each week, 12 Years 10 and 11 students attend a workshop to make tiles which will be put together as a design for the wall.
“It’s great to see a project where young people are collaborating to produce a work of art for their school,” Mr Torbay said.
“Working with their tutor on a design and then producing individual tiles for a major work is an excellent way for the students to learn and practise techniques they can apply to other projects in the future.”
Mr Pilkington said the response to the workshops has been “fantastic”, par-ticularly after three days at Scotts Head where they worked with well-known artist Guy Crosley who led the Nambucca Heads mosaic project.
“All the girls are enthusiastic about expressing their ideas in art and learning skills along the way,” he said.
“It’s a lot of fun as we prepare the materials and then work on the tiles. I’d like to see these workshops continue, to allow them to further develop the skills they’ve learned.”
As Artist in Residence, Mr Pilkington is also working with BackTrack boys in the Iron Man Welders workshop.
“Many of the boys want to take their welding skills a step further,” he said.
“They are very talented and have some good ideas about designs for sculptures and they are keen to try some woodwork as well.”
