Over 250 people celebrated creativity at Queen’s College at the first Festival of Creative Arts Gala Showcase Evening this week. The reception saw hundreds of visitors, friends, and families being joined by a dozen high-profile VIPs.
The school were joined by the Mayor of Taunton, the Taunton Chamber of Commerce, a number of national and international artists and designers (from Taunton to Ukraine), a national premier performance racing engineer and designer from Ariel (who brought an Ariel Ace motorbike into school), award-winning chefs from across the South West (including Marriott Executive Chef Richard Hunt from the largest hotel in the South West, Chef Andrew Swann Trencherman’s Award Best Chef nominee from the Castle in Taunton and local foodie Steve Ashworth Amateur Chef of the Year) plus the Daily Telegraph’s Food Critic, Food Author and television’s BBC MasterChef Judge William Sitwell, plus pupil prizes from South West Michelin Star Chef Michael Caines MBE from Lympstone Manor.
School pupils from Years 3 to 13 created over 300 artistic pieces of work in a huge variety of media from food, plastics, wood and card to more traditional ceramics, photography, textiles, paint, pastel and pencil. The aim of the evening was to showcase the tremendous achievements of all pupils from across the Faculty of Art, Design and Food coming together as one and to celebrate all the creative arts in one night. The theme for the showcase was ‘Patterns and Patterning ‘ and each pupil exhibited their own unique interpretation of the brief.
For the Art category pupils produced a piece of traditional artwork or a crossover with different creative disciplines, exhibiting pieces of traditional art, along with textiles pieces and photography, and in one case even film. Mrs Cade, Head of Art said, “pupils had the creative freedom to design something that they felt held real meaning to them and the results were both amazing and exciting pieces of Art based on the theme of Patterns and Patterning”.
In the Design and Technology category, pupils created kinetic moving sculptures by coming up with their own designs, by whatever method they liked whether that it was drawing, painting or collaging it and once they had come up with their patterns, built and engineered them to make them move by whatever means they could. Mr Higgs, Head of Design and Technology said, “I was really excited to see what the phenomenal works that the pupils came up with creating a moving sculpture based on Patterns and Patterning”.
Finally, in the Food and Nutrition category, it was all about creating a piece of culinary art with a stunning plated Tunnock’s Teacake. Pupils were asked to use their artistic creativity and food preparation skills to style a plate of food with a Tunnock’s Teacake on the theme of ‘Patterns and Patterning’. “Pupils used a wide range of finishing techniques such as garnishing and decoration,” said Mrs Cadwallader, Food Teacher and Mrs Barker another Food Teacher added, “the food styling results were astonishing, accurately presented and finished to an excellent standard”.
“We had a wonderful turnout and we are tremendously proud of the quality of work that has been produced at Queen’s College”, said Mr Mann, Head of the Faculty of Art, Design, and Food. “Pupils worked tirelessly over the last 8 weeks and it is wonderful to be able to give them a truly unique opportunity to present their exhibition pieces to professionals and industry experts who joined us. This was an opportunity to not only celebrated the hard work and dedication of our pupils and the fantastic and diverse programs of study in the Faculty of Art, Design and Food at Queen’s but also bring together the wider community beyond Queen’s College”.
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