ABOUT WILD-LIGHT 'SPARKS' The Painting of St James Church, Avebury, Wiltshire
The Avebury Angel come to light
Wild Sparks, Wet Feet !
THE PROJECT
In October 2018 Wild-Light-Design was commissioned to run a workshop with 30 children aged 9-11 from 2 local to Avebury schools.
The projects final aim, with a limited period of just 4 days to complete, was to paint the church. The culmination of the project was an evening finale, an after dark presentation to parents and invited guests.
St James Church Avebury illuminated path and clock
THE CANVAS
The Church of St James in Avebury is one of the most historic churches in Britan. Its location, next to the world heritage site of Avebury Henge Stone Circle, one of Britain's largest and most complex Neolithic ceremonial sites, marks a point where ancient pagan beliefs meet modern religious ideas.
The conversion of Anglo Saxons to Christianity gave rise to its initial construction around AD 1000. Evidence of the passage of time can be seen both inside and outside the church.... Megalithic standing stones used as building material, Saxon and Norman Architecture; markings from medieval pilgrimages; processes of the Tudor Reformation. All these factors offered a wealth of educational value and made St James the ideal location to undertake such a project.
Gnomes in the Churchyard
THE AIMS
Discovering historic hidden detail
Working together creating inspiration
Tablets set in camera mode
THE PAINTING
Each child was provided a tablet set to camera mode and an assortment of coloured lighting gells.
With instructions to go and explore the church and its grounds to find things that inspired them, their curiosity and imaginations were stimulated like being on a visual treasure hunt.
The tablets became their paint as they assembled their own palette of images. When everyone had filled their palettes they each chose one image that most excited them. Each of these images were printed onto accetate sheet, ready to be transferred to projectors, their paint brushes.
At the evening finale the children arrived with their parents to discover St James illuminated, as a 3D canvas, both inside and out, by the projections of the images of their collective work.
Large format OHP Projectors
THE RESULTS
With the understanding of how the project would evolve, through the experience and guidance of Wild-Light-Design and the encouragement of the church clergy and their school teachers, the children realised that their contribution would provide the vital ingreedients and they engaged in the task with a keen, team spirit.
Their enthusiasm for exploration and ability to activate their visual perceptions provided a high quality of images to work with.
Experimenting with different combinations of the images on accetate sheets for projection provided another oppertunity for team work and they showed an outstanding flair for composition. Mixing and blending colours, with light as the medium, initiated a subsiduary workshop introducing them to the theory of light refraction.
The painting of St James proved to be a unique and collaborative project and showed that historic monuments can be utilised as a rich source for education.
Verification that the project had made its impact came at the finale with the simple comment from one of the children,
"Wow! Avebury church is really cool."
The Hidden Angel
