E.O.S.

A case study.

Shawn.

Some of the young people that participate in my creative workshops are excluded
from school, I rarely get to know the background to each pupil and the reasons
why they had been excluded, my theory is , they are a new person to me and
I treat every new person in the same way…with respect.

Its only when I get to read the back story previous and case notes to a pupil
with real issues that it sometimes stops me in my tracks and makes me realise
just how much terror and emotional trauma these young people have
witnessed, and knowing that , is it any wonder they have difficulties with
trust or  behaving in a social manner.

Shawn was 13 years old when he first came to the workshop and had been
diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome as well as severe behavioral problems.

Shawn was born into a large family of Irish travelers, his father coming from
another group of travelers from England. From the time of his birth Shawn’s
parents were constantly arguing and he was witness to several physical
attacks on his mother.  It was at the age of four Shawn saw his drunken
father beat his mother so badly that  she died of her injuries.

The father went on the run but eventually was caught by the mothers family
and they metered out their own form of punishment.

Old car tires were forced over the fathers body and petrol was poured down
his throat and lit, Shawn saw all this happen and didn’t utter another sound
for 4 years. He was taken into care at Eight years old and after much gentle
painstaking work by his foster carer Shawn slowly began to talk again. It
wasn’t until he was in a mainstream school that the emotional dysfunction
became apparent with sudden bursts of extreme anger targeted at
anyone in the vicinity, after the anger came the emotional shut down.

When I started working with Shawn he would create some very pained,
angry faces that he would delight in destroying each face shortly
after completing.

What I suggested was instead of using his time with me to create one face
he should make a different face every 5 minutes, with each new face
having the opposite emotion of the last.  Over the weeks Shawn started to
create some faces full of very subtle emotion but the biggest change was
the time he took over each face, it steadily grew from 5 minutes to 15 then
30 minutes each time he would also put so much more detail into the character.

Here are two of  Shawn’s sculptures, one is an example from the first week
with me, the second image is Shawn’s final sculpture after spending two
hours a week for ten weeks.

Shawn is now 16 years old and using the Sculpture Workshop DVD he
continues to create wonderful pieces of highly personal  sculpture. He says he
can loose himself in the process of creating a character which can now take
him days to finally perfect. When he feels angry he goes off and creates
a piece of  sculpture working out his anger on a piece of clay rather
than another person.

                                                                                                                               BEFORE                             AFTER