It’s a given spending time making visual art is good for all of us!
But what’s brilliant about community art workshops and projects is they don’t just bond the like minded but can also provide a bridge to a space (the project) where people with differing views and from different parts of a community can get to know one another whilst working together. Apart from creating a more vibrant neighbourhood through the art itself there are also health benefits (physical and mental) plus opportunities for leadership, building life skills and, of course, art education.
What is more, whether in a school art room or wherever art activities are held it is a place where everybody can learn so much more than “just” how to use materials. It’s also a space where imaginations can explore ideas, thoughts and feelings. Where anybody, regardless of age, can improve not only their visual analysis skills, but feel empowered through the “mistakes” they make whilst creating.
large and small - a selection of past projects
Suspended sculpture “Blossom” (def: A flower or mass of flowers/Mature or develop in a promising or healthy way) for the then new Parkview Centre for Health and Wellbeing in White City. Created with 484 local people from the White City estate covering all age groups and representing GP practices, community groups and schools. My priority was to enable inclusivity. I created modified versions of the standard workshops to ensure all ages and abilities could be involved. Bringing the project to completion was only possible through planning and collaborating with school heads, teachers, and managers at the Centre.
Fieldgate Mansions mural in the courtyard on Romford Street. A predominantly Bengali community, the concept for the work was Bengali Kanthas (highly decorated embroidered quilts made from fragments of old garments). Workshops were held where participants drew, cut and printed paper stencils based on the traditional quilts. The resultant design contained a combination of symbolic images from the quilts as well as collared parakeets, a native of Northern India and flocks of which are now resident in many parts of London. Plus a stylised umbrella pattern, a symbol for shelter, as well as the local climate! It incorporates lines in English and Bengali from a local parent’s and a famous Bengali’s poetry.
Delivered for Arts Express alongside Groundwork London. The mural was initiated by Southern Housing.
Always popular and infinitely adaptable a selection of photos from the very many screen printing using paper cut stencils workshops and courses I have run/managed. Banners, t shirts, tote bags and tea towels in schools and gallery settings as well as drop in community workshops at large scale events. EG, Thames Festival, Chelsea College Alumni, 1A Arts, Orleans House Gallery, ACAVA, Drink Shop Do, Park Life - Friends of Mile End Park.
Betsy the “Boxasaurus” was created for 1A Arts, Holborn with children attending St Alban’s C of E Primary School. The workshop was run in the form of an “art gym”. IE., the children were split into small groups rotating around the 1A Arts studio space taking turns to work on creating Betsy’s skeleton, skin, an environment, food and of course an egg!
