Sculpted learning brings out artist talent in Newmarket Academy students

Last week, award-winning journalist, photographer and artist Debbie Burt returned to  the Newmarket Academy to run a specialist sculpture workshop with a small group of Year 10 GCSE Art students.

The workshop focused on the work of Edgar Degas, who used the ground-breaking action photos of a galloping horse by Eadweard Muybridge as reference for his own paintings and sculpture.

Debbie showed examples of this work to the students via slides and a reproduction bronze, which she kindly produced for the day. Students were then tasked with crafting their own horse sculpture using Plastillin (a more malleable form of Plasticine), moulded onto a wire base.

Reflecting on the workshop and her partnership with the charity, Debbie said: “I have been working with Racing to School for over 10 years now, primarily through teaching this workshop at Newmarket Academy through the Godolphin Beacon Project. Whilst learning the skills to build an armature and model a horse are the main aims of the day, I always look forward to the opportunity to engage with the students and demonstrate how working in horseracing can lead to other diverse career opportunities, in my case art, photography and journalism.”

The main aims of the Newmarket Academy Godolphin Beacon Programme are to expand the aspiration and ambition of every student in the school through presenting the diverse career pathways that exist for them and to provide students with the tools required to pursue these ambitions using the Gatsby Benchmarks.

Debbie added: “The charity’s mission is to ‘inspire young minds’ and this year’s group in particular were a pleasure to teach, attentive and hardworking, they grasped the basic principles well and then fully embraced the instruction to make each piece their own. It is also particularly pleasing to see that several of my previous students have continued with this medium and are now producing work to a high standard. I can’t wait to come back next year.”

Students produced some fantastic pieces of work during the session, all of which can be used to form the basis of their practical coursework.