Cranford Review 2018

The National Saturday Art and Design Club
The
National Saturday Art and Design
Club at Cranford Community College
has thrived, developed and grown in numbers each
year. Now, at the end of the fourth year, we look
back on many defining moments of this year.
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One of the most significant moments of the
year is the National Saturday Club’s welcome
exhibition at Central St Martin’s that occurs
at the start of each academic year. This year,
the students have had first-hand experience
creating, and exhibiting work at Central St
Martin’s – a triumph in its own right. For the
exhibition work, we combined artistic media –
black and white photography and colour monoprinting
– to create unique, juxtaposing
and bold selfportraits.
After
the exhibition,
we attended the
Whitechapel Gallery
for the Thomas Ruff
photography exhibit.
This was a moment
not to be missed for
some of the students
as their first experience at an art exhibit. This event
was vital to building the students’ confidence,
motivation and enthusiasm for the year – it enabled
the students to understand the curation involved
within exhibitions, the creativity, research and
workload concerned and empowered a sense of
achievement surrounding their own creations.
The event also emphasised the importance of
individual artistic study outside of the Saturday
Art Club – bringing to them an awareness of all
the galleries and museums on their doorstep.
Over the year, the Saturday Art and Design Club
runs sessions and workshops covering various
areas of the arts; we have explored the diverse
drawing techniques of renaissance masters,
experimented with mono-prints, collage,
expressive painting (and its link to colour,
emotions and sound), impressionistic painting
and abstract expressionism (studying the artists
involved within the artistic movements and the
painting techniques), performance art and gestural
art, clay and sculpture, graphic design and recycled
art, comic book design and character building,
amongst many others. Additionally, we intersperse
the sessions with critical theory, artistic techniques
and processes, and art history; this takes the form
of presentations, group debates and project work.
This year, a particular discussion surrounding
contemporary art and politics underpinned one
of our final pieces for the Protest Art division
of the end of summer show. We discussed how,
what and why contemporary artists used particular
media to explore the cultural, political, social and
historical associations in their art and how that
pertained to their personal lives. We spoke about
how our own associations with politics, society
and personal history can amplify our artwork and
provide another layer and meaning to our work.
The students became actively passionate about
current politics (and its effect on their lives) and
channeled this into fueling thought-provoking
protest art.
During the year, we participated in at least
two Masterclasses run by artists and designers
within the creative industry. This year we had the
opportunity to visit Thomas Matthews, an ecosustainable
graphic design company, and partake in
an all-day workshop with comic book artist Richy
K. Chandler. These masterclasses influenced and