There’s a tin dustbin billowing smoke and a Year 9 girl is recklessly shovelling sawdust into it. She’s wearing what looks like a gas mask. Is this art?

“It’s raku firing,” explains her classmate, Micha Lewis, who goes on to give the details of what can be done with clay, metal oxides and propane. They obviously know what they’re doing and, even though they’re under the watchful eye of Brian Holland the potter, all the hands-on work is coming from the pupils.

“We could never achieve this in school,” enthuses Joanne Wilson, an art teacher at Hinde House school, Sheffield.

“They’re so impressed. Just being here in a different environment gives them all sorts of ideas about what’s really possible.”

The action is taking place on the terrace outside Brian Holland’s studio. He’s one of 68 artists at Persistence Works. Rising above the roofs of Sheffield city centre, this new purpose-built studio building is the only one of its kind in Europe. It’s a factory for artists and Holland believes it’s important for school groups to see that this kind of place exists. “They can see all art activity under one roof - everything from furniture to video,” says Holland. “And not only a breadth of disciplines, but all sorts of different people making a living as artists - the not-so-young like me and people just out of college. They can see that we’re part of the real world!”

Peering through the smoke, Joanne Wilson is also keen to emphasise the practical side of the experience. “Sometimes the process gets lost at school - all the work with the kiln, for example, is done behind the scenes. Here, we get to be part of the whole thing. It’s brilliant.”

Yorkshire ArtSpace Society, the organisation that runs Persistence Works, is an arts education charity and encouraging artists to work with schools is at the heart of what it does. Often the artists undertake residencies or workshops in the classroom, but getting the children into the artists’

studios gives them a whole new sense of what art is about.

“This is not just another gallery visit,” explains Rachael Dodd, the outreach co-ordinator. “This is alive - it’s about a personal experience. There may be pieces of finished artworks lying around, but a visit here is more about real action, seeing artists at work in their studios trying to make a living.”

Upstairs on the fourth floor of the stunning new building, artist Chloe Aspinall makes her living by creating artworks from stuffed animals and artificial snow.

“I make some very strange phone calls to suppliers,” she admits as she shows round a Year 3 class fromSheffield’s inner-city Springfield School. The group is now sitting round Chloe Aspinall’s latest work, which she is finishing off for an exhibition in London. They can’t keep their hands off it - particularly when Aspinall tells them the snow is the same as that used in the Harry Potter film.

“Getting them to see work like this, which isn’t finished and tidied up, is very important,” says Aspinall. “Usually art looks very pared, austere. It can push people away.”

Aspinall has been developing art projects with Springfield School as part of a long-term Yorkshire ArtSpace initiative called pARTicipate, so she knows the children quite well. But this is their first trip to the studios and it’s an important landmark.

“Their world is very tiny,” says Aspinall. “Coming here is about tackling completely new situations. It’s about building confidence.”

The Year 3 class teacher, Joanne Grossett, agrees. “It’s a complete eye-opener. You see things in galleries or shops and you don’t always think about how they get there. Here the whole process is visible. You see that someone actually makes these things. It all begins to make sense.”

Reassurance that art really is a valid career choice is one of the things the artists hope talented young visitors will take away with them. So even if the curriculum doesn’t allow time for the rigours of raku firing, a visit to the studio introduces GCSE and A-level students to the creative industries as a growing economic phenomenon.

Back in Aspinall’s studio, the Springfield class is having a detailed discussion about the difference between abstract and representational art. They are asking a lot of questions. Eight-year-old Andisheh Amrollahi explains why they’re having such a good time: “We can ask real artists why they do it, how they make it, and what materials they use. It’s so different from what we can make in school - it really makes you think. We’ve learnt so many things.”

CONTACTS

As well as the services of its 68 artists, Persistence Works can offer schools a purpose-built education space and a huge public art studio for any classes tackling big-scale projects. Schools can book half or full day, hands-on sessions with artists, which include a tour of the building, or they can tackle a longer-term series of sessions which can be tailor-made for each school. Alternatively schools can book a taster tour of individual studios.

Yorkshire ArtSpace Society, Persistence Works, Brown Street, Sheffield S1 2BS

Open Monday-Friday 10.00-5.00 (except Thursday 10.45-5.00); Saturday 11.00-4.00

Telfax: 0114 276 1769; Info@artspace.demon.co.uk

www.artspace.org.uk

Contact: Rachael Dodd, outreach co-ordinator, Persistence Works Tour: free. Book in advance; Hands-on sessions: pound;70 half daypound;140 day + cost of materials Education room for hire: pound;25 half daypound;50 day + VAT