King’s Bruton art scholars help local Somerset artist in award winning London Olympics project
Two King’s art scholars have played a big role in a community art project which has been awarded the prestigious Inspire Mark by the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games.
The Goaloid project, created by local Somerset artist Elliott Brook, will be exhibited on Shepherds Bush Green where the 1908 Olympic Games football finals were played. It will be on display throughout the London games.
The art work consists of wooden rotating cubes that have the same dimensions as the goal posts used in 1908. Circulating for 45 minutes each way, it reflects the changes of time and space on a football field.
The two boys, Tom in Lyon House and Tom in Old House, are both Sixth Form Art scholars. They said how lucky they felt to be involved with Art in the community and what an inspiration Elliott had been to them.
Seamus Harkness, Art Teacher below describes how King’s became involved in this exciting project.
"Elliott approached me a little over two years ago saying that he had a very interesting Art project in the pipeline and he was very eager to get our school involved. We met up and he described to me the initial idea of the Goaloids and how he saw it as a community project involving local children. He proposed that I should identify some pupils that could assist in the preparation of a corner piece of his Goaloid. I suggested two that were incredibly interested in Art to undertake the painting of his maquette which has subsequently been used in the presentation to the board to highlight his ideas.
I have always thought that it was extremely generous of Elliott to want to involve us in his inspirational idea. The two art scholars have certainly had a whole world opened up to them which they are very grateful for. It has been a fantastic opportunity for them. Since the project, Elliott has judged our Art competition and he also came to our end of year show.
In the long term I am hoping that we will continue to keep working with Elliott and be able to assist him whenever possible with his innovative ideas. I know that the school is very grateful to have had the opportunity to be involved with the project and we hope that this will be the start of a long term tradition of being linked to artists in our local community."