Viewing archives for Arts

Old Elizabethan and global internet celebrity Jay Shetty continues to make headlines as he pursues his quest to ‘make wisdom go viral’ – and one of his recent podcast shows he has not forgotten his QE roots.

Through his bi-weekly motivational podcast, On Purpose, which was ranked number 1 in the CNET media website’s recent list of the ten best health & fitness podcasts, Jay (OE 1999–2006) dispenses serious advice from doctors, successful business people and other guests.

Issued every Monday and Friday, the podcast is so popular that it has also become a magnet for celebrities, too: recent scoops included an interview last month with Khloé Kardashian in which she discussed her relationship with her ex-partner and father of her baby, Tristan Thompson.

Closer to home, Jay this month re-tweeted a recent episode in which he paid warm tribute to his QE Art teacher, Stephen Buckeridge, during an interview with American gym and fitness entrepreneur, Payal Kadakia.

In the course of a discussion about mentors, Jay said this about Mr Buckeridge, who is now QE’s Head of Art: “This man changed my life. First of all, I was a rebel at school. I was the worst kid from 11-18 – not grades-wise, in terms of just being a rebel, trouble-maker…I was suspended three times, asked to leave.

“Mr Buckeridge was one teacher who always stood by me, never judged me. The most important lesson he gave me was every time we did any art – whether it was collage, whether it was graphic, whether it was charcoal, fine art – whatever it was, no matter how good it looked, his question was always ‘Why did you do that?… Why did you put that colour next to that colour? Why did you put that brush stroke versus this one?’ He would always ask me ‘why, why, why, why, why?’

“…It took me years to recognise that he had coached me in always looking at the meaning and the ‘why’ – without me even knowing.”

On leaving QE, Jay went on to Cass Business School in London, from which he graduated with a first-class degree in Management Science. Then, however, his life took an unusual turn: he spent three years as a monk in India in the Hindu Vedic tradition, which accounts for his later sobriquet of the ‘urban monk’.

His career began to take off when he was spotted by Arianna Huffington and brought to New York, where he rapidly gained a following for his daily show, HuffPost Live #FollowTheReader.

Jay featured in the influential Forbes European 30 Under 30 in 2017 and his social media channels attract huge followings: some of his videos have now had over 1 billion views.

Year 10 pupil Dylan Domb’s dedication to art and to the work of one of the greatest 20th-century British artists won him a prize in an international drawing competition.

After starting a sketch in class towards the end of last term, Dylan completed it at home and duly submitted it to the Henry Moore Drawing Competition run by the Henry Moore Foundation.

The drawing, a pencil sketch of Dylan’s own Moore-inspired sculpture produced at School, took third prize in the secondary-age category of the competition. At 14 (at the time of drawing), Dylan was younger than both the category winner and the runner-up.

His untitled artwork is on display until 1st November at the Visitor Centre at the Henry Moore Studio and Gardens in the Hertfordshire hamlet of Perry Green.

Art teacher Jillian McAteer said: “Dylan is an incredibly committed student whose attention to detail and refinement of work regularly sets him apart from his peers. He is also quite independent, pursuing ambitious personal projects and extending class work.”

In Year 8, Dylan was part of the annual QE visit to the Henry Moore Foundation. In that year, his class were set the task of producing their own sculptures that ‘responded’ to Moore’s famous large, biomorphic landscape sculptures.

Dylan then based his sketch – started for a drawing exercise set towards the end of Year 9 – on the sculpture he produced.

“Not all were able to finish this before School ended for the summer, but Dylan developed the drawing independently at home. It is a stunning photorealistic drawing; he achieved a very high standard,” said Mrs McAteer.

The drawing competition, which drew almost 500 entries, was organised as part of the Henry Moore Foundation’s 2019 season celebrating the drawing practice of the artist, who died in 1986. He was a prolific and talented draughtsman, producing nearly 7,500 drawings during his career.

Entries were required to reflect themes in Moore’s art: reclining figure; mother and child; natural forms, or life drawing. They had to be submitted on paper or card, with the majority of the work being drawn, not painted.

The judging panel was led by Foundation’s Head of Collections and Exhibitions, Sebastiano Barassi.

Dylan went to the exhibition opening and took photographs of his work on the wall.

A contemporary take on a beach house took first prize in a Year 10 competition overseen by Cambridge Architecture student Danny Martin.

Old Elizabethan Danny, who has completed his second year at King’s College, helped out over the two days of the architectural modelling competition and judged the entries at the end of each day.

All 180 members of Year 10 were involved in the competition, which was held by the Art department as part of QE’s Enrichment Week.

Afterwards, Danny said: “The ingenuity and creativity from all groups was fantastic. I’m inspired and encouraged by the quality of all the outcomes over the two days.”

The boys were divided into teams of six and given the task of constructing 3D architectural models using only card, paper, tracing paper, pins and paper clips.

The competition rules stipulated that the constructions:

• Were to be of a contemporary design, playing with the idea of abstract shapes, negative space, light and line
• Should be structurally sound (free-standing)
• Should be no bigger than 60 cm in height, depth or width
• Could take the form of wearable architecture.

Each group was expected to work as a team and to appoint a designer and project manager, as well as assigning specific tasks, such as origami-making.

Pupils were encouraged to be innovative, creative and visionary, while also setting out the function or purpose of their model and the reason they had for creating it.

The entries created over the two days included models of museums, airports and mosques.

The overall winners came from Harrisons’ House. The team comprised: Vishruth Dhamodharan; Alan Gatehouse; Raheel Kapasi; Yuvraj Manral; Aiden Smith and Yuto Watanabe. They were commended for the design and construction of their model.

Head of Art Stephen Buckeridge said: “It conveyed the idea of a contemporary beach house and courtyard, utilising light and space in an innovative and creative way. The group worked exceptionally well as a team; they were calm and methodical, and had a clear vision for the outcome. The project management and construction displayed a range of skills, including paper-weaving, origami and nets constructed with mathematical precision.”

Year 9 pupils took a trip back in time to the dark days of Shakespeare’s Macbeth at a special Enrichment Day that offered them the chance to engage dramatically and creatively with the ‘Scottish play’.

Featuring a series of interactive workshops, the day brought to life Shakespeare’s brooding and exciting tragedy, which most of Year 9 had studied – from a purely textual point of view – earlier in the year.

Head of English Robert Hyland said: “Shakespeare was not written to be studied, but to be performed; therefore, an engagement with Macbeth would be incomplete without some understanding of the stagecraft and dramatic opportunities that this approach to the text provides, away from the minutiae of language analysis.”

Pupil Mahmudur Rahman enjoyed the day and said it helped him understand the play better: “The thing I like about drama is that you can play another person’s life – it’s a distraction from normal life and you can live in another person’s shoes. You can explore any dimension in history, going back centuries before, which I find fascinating.”

Mahmudur’s fellow Underne House member, Varun Maheswaran, said: “It was a fun day. When we played out the Macbeth scenes, it was enjoyable to explore the play in an interactive way.”

Organised by Mr Hyland, the all-day event took place in a classroom and the Main Hall. It was led by experienced drama professionals Gavin Malloy and Lauren Steadman, from RM Drama, QE’s external drama partner.

The workshops focused on:

• Key characters – such as the relationship between Macbeth himself and Lady Macbeth
• Key scenes – looking at the opening with the three witches
• Key themes – including ambition, guilt, the supernatural and violence.

The techniques explored included the deployment of ‘freeze-frame’ tableaux, the use of dialogue and improvisation, and the development of soundscapes (where atmosphere is created by the use of collective sound).

With drama not being part of the normal classroom curriculum at QE, the day was especially significant for those Year 9 pupils who were not involved in the School Play, Lord of the Flies, at Easter nor in QE’s contribution to the Shakespeare Schools Festival in the autumn, Mr Hyland said. “While a good number of students have been involved in school productions, many other will not have had exposure to such an innovative approach to a Shakespearean text. It was really refreshing to watch boys perform so ably and creatively, and engage with Shakespeare in a completely different way. For many, this was an opportunity to demonstrate a set of talents that might have gone unnoticed in the classroom.

“The team from RM Drama did a fantastic job at getting our students active and involved – there was a real sense of energy and purpose as the day developed.”

Year 8 boys had the chance to see another side of the work of modernist artist Henry Moore on a trip to his former studio and gardens.

Not only did the Art trip give the pupils an opportunity to experience his spectacular outdoor sculptures in the beautiful grounds near Much Hadham, but they were also able to see the largest exhibition of his drawings in more than 40 years.

Art teacher Jillian McAteer said: “It was a unique opportunity for the boys not only to experience his ambitious sculptures, but also to closely examine the drawings that underpinned the practice of one of the most influential modernist British artists.”

Yorkshireman Henry Moore (1898–1986) settled in the Hertfordshire hamlet of Perry Green during the Second World War; it remained his home and workplace for the rest of his life. The Henry Moore Foundation Studios and Gardens showcase his sculptures in woodlands and gardens originally created there by Moore’s wife, Irina.

“The foundation displays a fantastic collection of his sculptural work. The students were taken on a tour of the grounds by informative guides who described the inspiration and construction behind these iconic pieces,” said Mrs McAteer.

She added that the boys had been learning in class about biomorphism – art with an organic appearance or form – through clay sculpture, ink and drawing. “The grand organic shapes in Moore’s work are a fantastic example of where this artistic exploration might lead.”

One of the Year 8 boys, Sai Sivakumar, said the visit had given him clear insight into Moore’s creative processes, including his “every thought, inspiration and action”. Sai added: “Some of the many things we learned at the foundation included how to use different materials in Art, such as plaster, how to draw inspiration from real life, and the importance of practice.”

The trip began with a tour of Moore’s larger sculptures, before the group ventured inside his numerous workshops to look at his smaller, finer work. Here, said Sai, they picked up tips for improving their own sculpting, such as incorporating the appearance of bones and using textures inspired by nature, such as bark.

Next, the boys visited the current exhibition, entitled Henry Moore Drawings: The Art of Seeing. “We could see his style and skill evolving over time as he learned more and more.” The exhibition runs until 27th October this year.

After lunch, the boys drew their own pieces, taking from everything they had learned there to create a Henry Moore-style drawing.

Equipped only with card and drinking straws, Year 10 boys had to be constructively creative during an architecture event held as part of QE’s Enrichment Week.

For the challenge run by the Art department, House teams were asked to make an architectural structure made up of modular forms, with a theme of Folded Architecture.

Two of 2017’s Year 13 leavers, Nabil Haque and Tochi Onuora, who are both studying Architecture at Cambridge, came back to help.

Towards the end of the day, the participants were instructed to consider what purpose or building form their structure could fulfil. (They had not been told they were making buildings earlier in the day, so that their thinking would not be constrained by notions of what they considered to be normal for buildings.)

With function therefore following form, the six-strong teams decided that what they had designed could be put to use for buildings as diverse as stadia, hospitals, safari lodges and residential accommodation, to name but a few.

The pieces were judged at the end of the event. The Stapylton House team – comprising Alex Aliev, Nikhil Gulshan, Rakul Maheswaran, Jack Runchman, Aqif Choudhury, Riaz Kalim and Jude Miranda – won overall. Their contribution was praised for the way that it essentially used the same hexagonal shape repeatedly to build up the structure and create something very stable, yet still architecturally interesting.

Head of Art Stephen Buckeridge reported that the two visiting Old Elizabethans were very complimentary about the boys’ innovation, lateral thinking and openness to exploring new ways of thinking. He added that the models looked very professional, considering the time spent and rudimentary nature of the materials used. In fact, so good were the models that a small exhibition was staged to give other staff a chance to see them.