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May Day float and a girl waving flags

Date1956 - 1961

Object number00018780

NameLinocut

MediumInk on paper

DimensionsSheet: 205 x 150 mm
Image: 160 x 104 mm
Overall: 205 x 150 mm, 0.002 kg

ClassificationsArt

Credit LineANMM Collection Gift from C & P Millward Studio

Terms

DescriptionUntitled (A May Day float and a girl waving flags). Artist unknown. One of the works by children attending the Waterside Workers Federation art classes held on Saturdays from 1956 - 1961 and taught by Vi Collings, Nan Hortin and Clem Millward.History"I had no sooner arrived here actually, than I heard that there was a children's art class. I don’t remember who invited me to have a look at it to see if I might be able to do something but anyway I went, and met Vi Collings and Nan Hortin. I began to come in on Saturday mornings. we took it on a roster basis, but usually there were two of us there and I used to bring my daughter in. Up to 15 kids came along. Most were wharfies' kids but there were other people who knew about it as well. Local people. They regularly brought their children. They came for years. Children's art classes are not a case of teaching kids. It's a case of giving children material and allowing them to work and doing what you can to assist their concentration. Hopefully you can get them to carry something through to a conclusion. It's more encouragement than formal teaching. That's what it is, encouragement. Encouragement to carry it through, encouragement to think about it, you know. I mean, you can encourage some of the older children to see and to develop a thinking eye, to think about what they are seeing, but with the little children, you concentrate on safety and the use of equipment. We had them making lino cuts and all this sort of thing, so you'd be watching them all the time to see that they weren't chopping their fingers off with cutters. The children’s ages ranged from five and six through to fourteen. The classes were held in the studio upstairs. And we used the old SORA artist’s donkeys and SORA's old drawing boards. The children did lino cuts and they painted. We always had a lot of colouring. They used crayons - wax crayons - and we had an old letter press up there which we used to print the lino cuts on. Sometimes we had them modelling with clay or with plasticine. The classes were held on Saturday mornings from 10.00 o'clock till 12.30 or something like that. They sometimes went into Saturday afternoon'. - Clem Millward, 1992.