Students at Goldington Academy received an extra boost when they returned to school for the new term this week – a huge new inspirational piece of art on the side of their school building.
The 5m x 7m mural is a collaboration between students at the school and local illustrator, Katie Allen and encourages pupils to ‘Keep Going, Keep Growing’, a reference to the Laxton’s orchard that once stood on the Polhill Avenue site.
“The work can be seen from within the grounds of the school in an area we wanted to brighten up for our students,” said head of creative arts, Melissa Lopez.
“At Goldington, we are incredibly lucky to have a headteacher, Francis Galbraith, who values and supports the Arts immensely.
“Francis and I were walking the site and discussing how we can get more inspiring artwork around the school. We had worked with Katie [Allen] in the past on previous projects such as the Bedford Creative Trail, and we knew she would be a perfect candidate to work with our pupils on an outdoor mural.”
However, what started as a small-scale project soon evolved into something much larger when they identified the perfect spot for the artwork, in a space that would be viewed by students on a daily basis.
“With the support of Katie and Vicky Stoeter, our Arts Governor, we worked together to develop a brief for the artwork. We were all keen to develop something that recognised the rich history of the site as Laxton’s orchard and that could act as a metaphor for growth,” said Melissa.
Katie then worked with some of Goldington Academy’s Year 10 Art students in a Matisse cut-out style collage workshop, where they worked from observation of fruits and vegetables to create some of the designs that can be seen blooming from the seed packet.
“Katie worked her illustrative magic to bring everything together into the final design, and our students loved hearing about the process, and the work has created a real buzz for the September start.
“We will now be using the artwork as an inspiration for cross-curricular discussion with students and of course, as a way to help brighten their day.”
Artist Katie said the experience of working with a school that “really values creative subjects” was amazing to be part of.
“For the design, we referred to seed packet designs from Laxton’s era, but gave it a modern twist.
“I spent a wonderful morning with art students creating imagery of the orchard fruit, vegetables, flowers and bugs, which I used in the final design, giving the students an insight and experience into the workings of a creative brief.”
