art at the park

WEEK 16

Artists in attendance 13

ITS FREEZING and Its time to think about the exhibition! eeeek!

The group are still working on their pieces for the exhibition, this ia a tremendous achievement as a few months ago they would want to finish at least one piece of per 2 hour session.

We have decided the the exhibition (no title yet) will start on March the 29th and will run for a month. This date has been changed to a Sunday due to a paid booking for the room on the Saturday for a 50th wedding anniversary.

This week we have been discussing the ins and outs of putting an exhibition up, it isn’t just about hanging pictures on the wall. The group seem to be shocked when explain to them all the jobs that need doing.

I had a lovely afternoon session surfing the internet with one of the artists searching for images of places he had spent on holiday as a child. It was great to listen to all his stories most of them he thought he had forgotten. It gives people such a boost to relies all there memories haven’t been lost.

We had two new people come and join in this week from a nursing home just across the road. It was lovely to have new people in the group. Its going to be pretty hard to get them to produce a piece for the exhibition in such a short time so im not sure how to play this one. The sketch books and previous works will be on display so maybe that’s the way. I don’t want to put pressure on them as they need time to settle in.

I have drawn up a timetable of events to that the group can look forward to and prepare them selves for them

Jan 28th 1-1 design workshop with me and our graphic designer

Feb 4th   1-1 design workshop with me and our graphic designer

Feb 11th 1-1 design workshop with me and our graphic designer and our next          guest artist Nicola it popping in to meet the group

Feb 18th Filming with Hayley (making a film about what it means to be part of a group like ours)

Feb 25th Whitworth art gallery trip

March 4th Nicola Smith guest artist

March 11th Filming with Hayley

March 18th finishing off work mounting preparations for hanging

March 25th hang exhibition

Sunday 29th march exhibition opens!

I am really looking forward to the gallery visit what will they think will it be different from when they started the group? Cornelia parkers exploded shed will be there what will they think?

WEEK 14

Artists in attendance 11

Happy New Year!

Above is a picture of some of the group (a jolly, enthusiastic bunch!)

After a lovely kind of relaxing 2 weeks off I thought I would start the New Year with a group exercise just to gently get the group back into their practice. We used the format that the lovely Ria Roberts (our first guest artist week 10) taught us. After all who doesn’t like a bit of doodling and a natter? The group loved it and thought it was a fantastic way to solidify the group again.

Exhibition

I met with one of the trustees of the charity to discuss having our exhibition we decide that it will open on sat 28th of March and run for a month. I have planned a few things in the run up to it so that the group can take part in the whole experience of setting up and the running of an exhibition. I have invited another guest artist to come and do a workshop around what makes a good exhibition and curating a show. Her name is Nicola smith and she is a performance artist/ curator/ facilitator I have worked with her many times and she curated the last show I had work in ‘Furiously Mad’ at the peoples history museum last year so I can highly recommend her. We have also asked a local gallery owner to come and talk to the group about pricing and the value of work, a film maker is joining us to interview the members about what being part of this group means to them and the progression of their Artwork and a graphic designer is going to hopefully come in and run some workshops to create the promotion leaflet/ poster with the group. Phew it’s all go! All these things will hopefully give the group an insight into what work goes into “putting paintings on a wall”

Lots and lots to do and such exciting stuff. I love having an exhibition!

Next week back to abstraction + discussion and making plans!