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 |  | Report by Faye Claridge
At the end of March 2003, I went to visit Matt Shaw, the resident artist at Whitnash Nursery School, in Leamington.
The school was flooded with bright colours, busy activity, smiling faces and children chatting to me inquisitively.
Immediately I could see the place had a creative buzz, helped by the appointment of the in-house artist.
The residency
| 听 |  | Child drawing at the nursery
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Head teacher, Karen Howell, and her nursery team were inspired to employ an artist after spending a study-week at a Regio Amelia nursery in Italy. Karen said the trip was hugely inspiring as she saw the positive differences a resident artist can make.
Matt was appointed to work full-time with the children from January - July 2003.
Nursery photographs
Click the images button below to explore the bright colours and busy activity in the nursery.
Artist's view
| 听 |  | Artist Matt Shaw
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Matt said his role at the school has been in building on the nursery's work. He said: "Really I'm enhancing what they do in the nursery already. It's important that I listen to the kids and respond to what they're interested in."
The residency is unusual in that it's being largely led by the children, organically developing according to their interests, rather than to a project brief.
Elaine McMaster, one of the nursery teachers, said the residency had brought a lot to the school. She said: "We love having creativity in the nursery and having Matt has allowed us to be creative in different ways.
"The staff are very creative anyway, but he's brought new skills and experience. He has been really good at observing the way the children work and has developed how they use materials."
Artistic influence
 ...art is important for conveying a message and enhancing people's lives. Education is a good way of fulfilling that aim.
 | 听 | Matthew Shaw, resident artist
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Matt has also brought his own skills and artistic influences to the residency. A lot of his previous work has explored the way people value objects, through sorting, collecting and recycling.
He has brought this interest to the nursery and is now gaining a child's perspective on value.
He has given the children jars, which they use to collect items, creating an interesting assortment of precious trinkets and found objects, kept for their qualities of colour, texture, rarity etc.
A child's eye view
| 听 |  | Artwork in the garden
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To better understand the interests of the children, Matt encourages them to take digital photographs. These show the nursery environment as the children see it, often focussing on details like hands, toys, pictures etc.
Many of these photographs are now on the walls of the nursery and they are a fascinating collection, showing unusual composition and content.
Chaos and control
The balance between chaos and control are also important themes in Matt's work, and in the nursery environment as a whole. I was impressed to see that at Whitnash, children work and play very independently. They often choose their own areas of study, but are constantly supervised and aided.
In line with this philosophy, Matt sees his role as resident artist as being a facilitator rather than a producer. He said: "I think that's what education is about, following children's interests and developing the things they're into, so they choose to learn.
"This is true in my artwork, too, I have always focussed on the process of art more than making an end product."
Documentation
| 听 |  | Playing outside the nursery
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Clearly, with such a focus on process and interaction, Matt is concerned about documenting his time in the nursery.
To solve this, photographs are being taken by him and by the children every day and it's likely these will be presented together at some point.
Artistic aims
Matt said the residency has already been extremely rewarding. He said: "It's scary that I could be influencing the children in the way they learn, as nursery education will have a big impact on the rest of their lives, but art is important for conveying a message and enhancing people's lives. Education is a good way of fulfilling that aim."
Residency details
Follow the link to the Nursery residency feature on the left fort eh details of the project.
Focus on children
Is your child involved in a special project at a local nursery? Would you like us to feature the work of your pre-school team?
Are you an artist that runs workshops in the area?
If you have any comment on art or education in Coventry and Warwickshire, email us or use the message board using the links on the left and we will follow-up interesting stories.
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