Hikurangi School Art Exhibition (1)

All professions, careers, jobs and vocations have their ups and their downs, their sacrifices and rewards, their disadvantages and their compensations.

There are a number of compensations in the Teaching profession that offset some of the frustrations, stress and relentless work.

One that is at the top of my list is childrens art. After 40 years of teaching, for me, childrens capacity for creativity is still a high point of the educational process. Childrens art is always fresh, like a new morning, like dew on leaves or a sun rise. It often takes my breathe away. I would be pleased and proud to have any of the art works created for our exhibition to be displayed in my home.

These are two exhibits that my children from Room 5 have made for display. The first is an exhibition of painted and decorated papier mache bowls. The bowls were made over a plastic bowl which was used as a mold. The second is a multimedia block print. We made the printing block and then decided not to use it with printing inks to make prints. Instead we used a number of other media to decorate them - vivid pens, crayons, dye and pastels. Some children etched into areas covered with pastel with the sharp end of a nail.

Congratulations Room 5 - You are all bona fide original artists of very high attainment. Well done.