CREATIVITY AND COLLABORATION Words by Kate Rivers HEAD OF LEARNING AREA – VISUAL ARTS, HEAD OF JUNIOR ART & PRINTMAKING, DIRECTOR OF SUSTAINABILITY
Talent is a dirty word in the Art Department at Rangi Ruru, ‘talented’; is a word you will not hear in our classrooms. Deep thinking, independent decision making, taking risks, and putting in time to practice and develop both thinking and practical skills, is our proven recipe for successful artmaking.
Year 11 Art - Still Life
The exciting thing is everyone can make successful artworks when myths around talent are dispelled; follow the recipe and the results speak for themselves! Evidence of this can be seen when senior art students teach drawing, painting and printmaking classes for staff. By breaking down drawing into scaffolded steps, our Principal, Business Manager, teachers administration and support staff, produce stunning, well observed and well resolved artworks. Like many of our students in their first year at Rangi, most of these staff genuinely believed they could not draw. Like our students, they all discover they can! Rangi’s Visual Art Faculty have inspired, challenged and empowered students with this recipe and our philosophy for the past twenty years. In this time, eight students from the faculty have been awarded Top Scholar in New Zealand and numerous girls have gained NCEA scholarships and outstanding scholarship. 8
