This article from Edition 7 of The PYP Essentials, was published by the New South Wales/Australian Capital Territory PYP network network in July 2011. It was written by Ronnie Pratt (Visual Art Teacher), Peter Fox (Music Teacher), and Susie Cujes (Resident Artist) from Trinity Grammar School Junior School, New South Wales, Australia.
How we express ourselves – a collaborative approach between visual arts and music teachers and a resident artist
This year at Trinity Grammar Junior School we are working with Mrs Susan Cujes who is a practising fibre artist. She is acting as a mentor, using her skills to help our boys create large sculptural felt artworks to install in the new Junior School building. Students from all year groups, Pre Kindergarten to Year 6, are learning to roll felt and use felt embellishers and sewing machines.
The school crest which reflects the three aspects of the school, “Mind, Body and Spirit” will provide the inspiration for these large felted artworks. Each art experience is planned to relate to a transdisciplinary unit of inquiry. Below is a description of the unit that was developed for Year 3 “How we express ourselves” unit which provided an opportunity for collaboration between Music and Visual Arts.
The lines of Inquiry were:
- The different ways we respond to and interpret artistic expression
- How we can use different forms to create our own artistic expression
The concepts were Perspective and Reflection.
The boys were taken to the School Chapel, where the artist in residence asked the boys to think about how people express themselves in relation to being in the School Chapel. The boys looked around and talked about the shape, textures and strength of colour in the stained glass windows and discussed the differences in colour between the windows, walls and wooden pews in the chapel. They then talked about how these elements were combined by the architect to create a sense of the spirit.
Then their music teacher discussed how sound is produced on the pipe organ and how the pressurised air passing through its pipes (which are selected at the keyboard by the organist) causes a vibration. The students explored how the selection of pipes by the organist could change the tone, colour and texture of the music and how the difference in the size of the pipes determines whether high or low sounds or both are heard.The boys listened to a Baroque piece chosen by the music teacher (the Prince of Denmark’s March by Jeremiah Clarke) played on the School’s pipe organ. The music teacher led the boys through a discussion of the musical form and techniques used to create the piece.
The boys listened to the whole piece through and then each section separately. At the end of each section, the boys responded to the sounds that they heard through a line drawing, focusing on musical elements such as melody (and its shape), texture and dynamics. They were visually representing what the music “looked like”.
It was interesting to see how each boy interpreted the shape of the tune and noticed the use of ornamentation in the music – in this case the TRILL. The boys had studied ornamentation as a distinct characteristic of the Baroque period in music. This helped to create a nice link between the visual and the aural and highlighted the stylistic relationship between Baroque music and architectural form.
As the musical piece progressed, the texture, tone colour and dynamics of the music intensified, and the boy’s line drawings reflected this. The concept of perspective was clearly demonstrated as each boy’s response to this project was an individual and each person’s artwork was different to that of his peers, yet it was a reflection of what they had all just experienced together.
The drawings created in the chapel then formed the basis for the felting work. A recording of the 
music was played again while the boys worked on their designs. They looked at their three drawings and selected one to use as the inspiration for their composition on felt. Next they selected wools and embellishing fibres and translated the music they had heard in School Chapel into a work of art on felt. Once they were happy with their designs the boys had fun dampening the felt with soapy water and formed the piece into a tight roll. They rolled the felt over and over again using pressure to embed the fibres into the pre-felt fabric. The pieces were then unrolled and left to dry on the rack.
The following week the boys used embellishing machines to add further textures to their work using the embellishing fibres, scraps of felt and wools. Photographs of the boys experience in the chapel combined with images of the large final works were displayed on the art room wall together with teacher questions. Using post it notes students answered teacher questions related to the concepts.
Reflection – How do we know these lines and marks relate to line and texture in music?
Perspective – What were the differences in the ways you used the lines and marks to interpret the music?
They also asked their own questions which were considered during class lessons over the next few weeks.
Following the fibre art experience, the boys looked at how sculptural forms could be used to express line, texture and form in pattern. They listened to the music again and discussed their understanding of the ways sound can be used by artists to create objects that show line and form. The boys then worked with flexible wire, twisting and bending the material to create their own interpretation of the music. They then talked about embellishments and ornamentation and used clay rolled into balls or coils to change the shape of the wire. The following week, when the clay had dried on the wire, they were able to strengthen the work using plaster bandage. Finally the works were painted using colour that reminded them of the chapel.
The completed felt pieces together with the sculptural wire and plasterworks will be attached to plastic pipes, reflecting the form of the organ in the chapel.
Eventually these felted SPIRIT inspired pipes will be combined to form a suspended artwork and displayed in the new school building. We hope to be able to add a movement sensor to the base of the work linked to a recording of the music. As the boys walk past the installation the music will play.
