The clayshack longleet after-school club’s jubilee globe sculptures
The Clayshack’s Erica Hale and Dawn Thomas worked with 15 children at Longfleet Primary School After School Club. Towards the end of the piece former Poole Pottery Master Potter Eddie Goodall, and Paintress, Jo Winzar visited shared their experience of working at Poole Pottery and gave a hand.
Their desire was to build a sculpture with the children for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and this dovetailed beautifully with The Power House’s vision to connect the two communities of Hamworthy and Poole Town and linked in with The Power House’s Jubilee Project.
The Clayshack began talking to the children and asked them what they knew of the Queen’s role. We then agreed on a tower of globes and asked the children what should go on them. The children from Longfleet Primary School were aged between 7 - 10 years old and worked incredibly hard on their creations.
As part of the build, The Power House brought along and introduced a former Poole Pottery Master Potter, Eddie Goodall, and Paintress, Jo Winzar, to The Clayshack children.
Eddie and Jo brought pieces of their work to show and told the children stories of their working days at the pottery. The children loved this and very much enjoyed Eddie’s funny stories and they enjoyed learning painting tips from Jo. It was beautiful to watch the link form between the younger and older generations of Poole.
Meet the Artists - Erica Hale and Dawn Thomas
The Clayshack After School Club was formed in 2016 by Erica Hale and Dawn Thomas, two local ceramic artists with over 20 years’ experience between them in working and teaching with clay Poole.
“We wanted to give children the experience and joy of working with earthenware clay. From hand building pots, animals, monsters and much more. Over the years we have taught people from all sorts of backgrounds including children and adults with additional needs. We both have children with complex needs and felt passionately about our clubs being inclusive to all.
We accept each child for who they are and adjust our skills accordingly to meet their needs. Leaving the diagnosis firmly at the door. We have had many success stories over the years. Clay is an incredible, relaxing therapy tools and we have found that children who were shy, emotional, or couldn’t sit still or were easily distracted have become incredibly engaged with us and their peers.
Our goal is to give as many children as possible the opportunity to work with this beautiful, squishy and fun medium and who knows, maybe one of them will become the next great sculptor of our future generations.”
