walk draw map tent | Claudie Frock & Rene Bolten
‘WALK DRAW MAP’ is a collaborative drawing, printmaking and mapping project, engaging participants to creatively interact and connect with the natural and urban spaces surrounding them. The Community Arts Project will run from Feb 2021 – June 2021, culminating in a public exhibition in July 2021 at Elevator Artist Run Initiative Gallery, Lismore, NSW.
The project is facilitated by two well-known Northern Rivers-based artists, community arts workers and educators Rene Bolten and Claudie Frock. The artists will work with a number of schools and community groups to produce a series of collaborative artworks (quilted maps) on calico fabric. Local designer and seamstress Bec Massey of Lismore’s Thready Set Go business, will then sew all the quilted maps into a large tent structure for exhibition in Elevator (ARI) Gallery in Lismore in July 2021.
MORE ABOUT THE ARTISTS AND THEIR PROJECT: WALK DRAW MAP
Artists and educators Renè Bolten and Claudie Frock have worked collaboratively over the last decade in the fields of visual arts, performance, community arts, and within different learning environments. Claudie Frock is currently the Community Engagement Officer at Lismore Regional Gallery; she has a Bachelor of
Arts with Honours and Diploma of Education from Southern Cross University, with over 20 years' experience as an arts educator, artist, community arts worker, and Art Facilitator at REDinc. supported art studio.
Claudie has worked on large scale community arts projects and events in the region including; Hiromi Tango Art Magic : Remnant exhibition and community art project, with over 400 participants and 100 Wonder Place Arty Party and Playground Children’s Festivals, which have provided quality creative experiences for hundreds of Children and their families.
Rene is a highly skilled, award-winning, and well-loved Northern Rivers-based artist and arts educator, with a Degree in Visual Art Education from Amsterdam Academy, Netherlands. He has worked as an educator for over 30 years, for TAFE, Byron School of Art, and REDinc. supported Art Studio.
Both artists also hold current Working with Children Checks and Public Liability Insurance.
During the 2020 Covid lockdown period, Rene and Claudie began walking together, taking pieces of calico with them, and creating drawings through mark-marking with natural materials they found during their walks; such as water, dirt, leaves, berries, lichen, burnt wood, rust, mud, flowers and tree resin, etc. So began the concept for WALK DRAW MAP.
As part of a walk on Gomeroi Country, Tenterfield, when they spent time walking and drawing around the Bald Rock area and Boonoo Boonoo, they created the work ‘Dirt Map’, recently shown at Byron School of Art as part of their exhibition nagedachtenis/keepsake. (see attached image). They have also recently created a Walk Draw Map on Nyangbul Country, Bundjalung Nation, Shaw’s Bay Breakwall, Ballina, which will be exhibited as part of Combustion Athletics exhibition at Elevator ARI gallery in Lismore, NSW. These works were made by mark making processes such as rubbing, dragging, drawing with burnt wood, dipping in water, crushing bark, flowers and berries onto the fabric, then sewing these drawings into a larger quilted map.
THE NEXT STEP...
WALK DRAW MAP to create a TENT
The two artists have continued to create these quilted maps and are now including members of the Northern Rivers community in the process. During the summer school holidays, Rene and Claudie collaborated with a group of children and their families to create a series of drawings mapping around the Lismore Quad and Lismore Regional Gallery spaces, using natural and found materials as well as various art materials (see attached images).
The artists shared their printmaking and mark making skills with the group, and together they created a number of artworks on calico which will be sewn together to create a large quilted map to be combined with other collaborative drawing works to construct a large tent. This artwork will be exhibited at Elevator ARI Gallery Space in July 2021 to coincide with The Playground Festival (Lismore Quad & Lismore Regional Gallery partnership event.)
The artists are planning to continue this project with a number of schools who have already shown interest in being part of this fun and skill-building collaborative art project, that speaks about how we experience our sense of place and create community connection, both physical and emotional.
WALK DRAW MAP: SCHOOL WORKSHOPS
The artists Rene Bolten and Claudie Frock will visit schools to deliver 2 creative workshops over 2 days, each workshop running for 2 hours.
The artists will take participants on a number of different walks around their school’s environments of their choosing, to create drawn maps on calico fabric using natural materials found during the walks, such as dirt, mud, burnt wood, water, lichen, grass etc. as well as collecting objects found in the environment such as leaves to create prints from.
*The artists will provide their time and creative techniques free of charge to the schools, however schools are invited to donate a fee towards art materials which includes calico, printing ink and some traditional art materials such as charcoal, pastel chalks, pencils.
THE SCHOOL WORKSHOPS
Workshop 1 (2hrs)
Part 1. Exploring | Collecting | Identifying | Mark-making
Students (participant) and artists will walk and explore the area around the school or chosen environment, to search for natural materials to create marks with, as well as collecting natural materials for printmaking element of the project.
*The artists will encourage the students to work gently with the collecting of the plant & other natural materials, and to leave no rubbish when they are participating in the walks.
Part 2. Printmaking
Artists will teach printmaking techniques to the participants, and together they will create prints from natural materials collected during in their walk. The prints will be made on calico fabric and each student can take a print home as a souvenir from the workshop. The other prints created will be incorporated into the drawing, mark-making mapping process in workshop 2.
Workshop 2 (2hrs)
Walk | Draw | Map
The artists and participants will work together to create drawings that map their school environment, using calico fabric, natural materials, other artmaking materials and the printed calico fabric from Workshop 1. Then the group will work collaboratively to assemble all of the different calico drawings to build the quilted maps, that will be taken away and sewn into the larger group tent. This final tent will be installed for exhibition at Elevator ARI 16 King St Lismore opening 26 June to 10 July 2021.
*The schools, participants and their families will be invited to the exhibition opening and an early bird preview can be organised for schools to visit before the end of term, if this works better for school to visit as a group.
