Spring | Summer 2011 8

Story by Deborah Everest-HillPhotography by Peter C. McCusker

art teacher and entrepreneur collaborate to

enhance education

S

Beyond the Brush

Teacher and artist, Paul Sandilands of the Bronte Art Academy.

visual arts

Sitting inside the cramped waiting area of the Bronte Art Academy surrounded by paintings, sketches and other works of art, Paul Sandilands and Titus Sequeira can’t hide their enthusiasm. Sandilands, Academy owner, and Sequeira, a techno-entrepreneur, share a lofty goal. Th ey want to create a learning environment that imbues children with a thirst for knowledge. “I am a teacher,” says Sandilands. “My goal is to create artists and give every child the knowledge to be a Renaissance man or woman.”

Sandilands and Sequeira are intrigued with the concept of a learning community launched in Boston, Massachusetts in March 2010. In conjunction with Fablevision Studios, the municipality introduced the Live Wire Learning Community, a partnership between schools, libraries and community centres. Children in Boston elementary schools use Animationish software to create drawings, interpret these drawings, and share their ideas with the class. Children can access the software at school, in libraries and at community centres, drawing more individuals into the learning process.

Sandilands and Sequeira want to establish such a program in Halton, then across Canada and later to India and Africa. In this learning community, students, parents, teachers, government, industry and support organizations would connect and contribute to fi nding the

talents and leadership potential in each child. “Th e focus is encouraging creativity and self-expression,” says Sandilands, something he has been doing as an art teacher for over 25 years.

A graduate of the Ontario College of Art, Sandilands aspired to be an archeological artist, but a shortage of jobs lead him to taking a position as a manager for the Toronto Star. He provided art lessons to adults and children in his home before opening Bronte Art Academy on Bronte Street in Oakville in 2001.

Sandilands teaches a variety of art forms in his studio and has made some amazing discoveries about the ways in which children learn. “When I teach art, it’s not just about the art,” he says. “Th ere is always a mystery to explore: like a mistake in a Michael Angelo, or if a portrait of Mozart is really him.” When he probes children about a particular topic, he discovers what their interests are. And, as he walks around the room, he sees children, a maximum class size of 3, interacting with one another and engaged in discussion, “their interest and enthusiasm rippling out like when a pebble is tossed in the water.”

Sandilands has also witnessed the therapeutic value of art when working with children with special needs. He has provided art instruction to children with Autism, Aspergers Syndrome and those with depression and personal problems. “What kids really want is for you to connect with them,” he says.Sandilands and Sequeira connected when Sequeira’s son, Nigel, began studying art with Sandilands at the age of 8. Sequeira says his son learned a lot more than art during these sessions and credits Sandilands’ teaching methods for his son’s thirst for

knowledge. Now pursuing life science at McMaster University, Sequeira says Nigel excels academically by

applying his extra-curricular learning in art and music to his mainstream education. “Th ere is something inside us that is natural,” insists Sequeira. “We have to fi nd that talent in children and fi nd it at a young age.”

With 21 or more children in the average Ontario classroom and increasing pressure on parents to balance career and parenting demands, Sequeira says children aren’t getting the one-on-one attention they

“What kids really want is for you to

connect with them”

Spring | Summer 2011 9

...cont’d on page 10

ANature and nurture aren’t always opposing principles. With Susan Collacott’s art, it’s a healthy cultivation of both.

“I was always making things,” she said. “It began in preschool and making things with my grandmother, to the Arts in high school and clay art in college.”

Her style has evolved over time from paints to digital images and photography. She has also recently worked in sculpture. A diverse visual artist, Collacott can’t really define her work as any ‘one’ thing. However, her work has always been inspired

by nature. “It’s not landscape or portrait,” she said.

“And it’s on the fence between abstract and recognizable. It’s about nature. Interrupting nature and the process of nature.”

Being naturally creative, Collacott initially went to school for Interior Design, but later changed her focus to Fine Arts. She currently holds several academic degrees

- an Honours Degree in Fine Arts from the University of Windsor, a Master of Fine Arts and Master of Arts degrees from Northern Illinois University and a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of Toronto.

In a series of paintings, which Collacott calls her Evo Devos, paintings are done like layers of a geographical grid. They show plant and animal forms as basic, primitive life, as though they never evolved. “They show early animals budding out of rock, imbedded into clay,” said Collacott, who

was inspired by fossils found at the site of the Rocky Mountains.

“I would bury small fossil images in photos,” said Collacott. “Now they take up entire paintings. I began with trees, then moved onto the deep sea,” Collacott said. “I’m now crawling out of the sea and onto the earth, with fossils and lava.”

Collacott doesn’t always use the real colours of nature in her work. “I’ll have purple and orange rocks,” she said. “I’ll have pool tide forms, ocean seaweed, the forest floor. It’s the creation process and memory.” She calls these works the “Earth Evidence Series.”

Civilization (see the images on page 3) is a prized painting from Collacott’s Tree Series created at the end of the 1990’s. The painting depicts trees growing over an old ruin.

“It was inspired by the ruins on Crete,” explains Collacott. “The idea was that nature will overcome Man. There is no guarantee for Man being on earth for as long as the

dinosaurs. When we’re done exploiting the earth and are gone, nature will remain.”

For more information about Susan Collacott and her work,

visit her website at www.susancollacott.com

Artistic Evolution

Story by Cassandra HalikasPhotography by Peter C. McCusker

visual artsneed. What’s the solution? Sandilands and Sequeira believe there has to be more focus on children’s interests and talents from the beginning. In Russia, for example, Sandilands says children’s academic, athletic or art interests are identified early on and the child’s education is tailored accordingly. “We need a similar approach here,” he says, and he and Sequeira have teamed up to see their vision through to fruition.

What Sequeira coins “Beyond the Brush,” is a collaborative Kindergarten to Grade 12 education movement that enables children to learn from various influences in their lives such as school, parents, the arts, sports, and the community. By connecting all of these forces, “children have a better chance at learning,” he says. Goals of the program include:

instilling children with education •habits that empower thembetter informing parents •on decisions related to their children’s futuremotivating, rewarding and •building better relationship between the child, parents and institutionsbuilding confidence and self •esteem in children

Sandilands’ teaching methods and the learning community, which the two partners envision have the same purpose: connecting children with each other and other influences to encourage creativity, self-expression and ultimately discover their natural talents. For Sequeira, one of his passions is singing but he didn’t discover it until his 30s. He doesn’t want more children to struggle with knowing who they are and what career they should pursue.

Sandilands has seen this approach to learning work in his art classes and Sequeira has witnessed the positive results with his son. Together, they hope to instill children with a thirst for knowledge that will guide them for the rest of their lives. “Kids want to learn, be rewarded and feel good about themselves,” says Sequeira. “We need to be able to see inside our children—to see beyond the brush.

For more information about the Bronte Art Gallery and artist Paul Sandilands

visit www.artgalaxy.com.