Chunk 4:
One thing I have done a bit of over the past year and a half is community projects. The WEA in Southampton asked me to run some workshops with 2 of the community groups. 10 weeks, 2 hours per week with a materials budget of £30. Yes thats right, £30. So I did these and they were great. On both projects I was working with groups of fun and eccentric Asian ladies making various cultural patterns – we looked at Aboriginal, Rangoli and Islamic. They seemed to absolutely love it and produced some truly fantastic and beautiful work. It wasn’t until the last day of the first project that I realised just how much I had the work and couldn’t wait to get started on the next one! The groups were just lovely to work with and it was incredible seeing such a big change in these peoples confidence, perception and ability in just a few hours. They all started out wanting to take part but all thinking they weren’t good enough. At the end of the project they were all producing well thought out work which was of a very high standard and quality and they all left with a sense of achievement and success. It was great. I loved it. I wish that was my full time job sometimes!
I feel like I could just keep writing and writing all afternoon but if anyone out there is actually reading this then I’m afraid of boring them with just ‘background’ information. I think maybe it’s time to get on to some meatier stuff which is more about art than about me.
Since moving house and doing all the packing and unpacking, I have gathered all my diaries and journals from the past 2 years into one place. I am going to start looking back through those and condensing what is relevant into a new place and try and make connections and patterns and get some reading and writing done about the things it is that I am interested in. I need to narrow things down a bit, right now, I’m sort of thinking about everything, but also I’m thinking about what I’ve made in the past. I need to find a middle ground whereby I am re-phrasing some of the pieces, not re-making them.
