An update was the next step – let all the artists know all this good news, keep the momentum going. They are just as excited as I am, which is great stuff, and welcome the invite to the Embassy – this will be great PR for us – to go along and meet Bolivian artists, officials and friends of the Embassy. It’s short notice but even if two or three of us can put in an appearance…
I informed Terry too, let him know what progress is being made, and remind myself really that we are indeed moving forward. Terry was also quick back, asking what week we would ideally like to have use of the venue. Thinking about the conversations we had around involving local school children and the community, February half term would make sense. Then we could run some workshops with local children alongside an exhibition of the works, some tuition in portrait drawing/painting maybe. Hopefully we can make this happen, quite a few of the artists are really keen on this idea.
I haven’t mentioned the artists yet, because I thought it better to check they didn’t mind being identified here in my blog, the great news is that they welcome the mention. So I’ll attach the slide I took to the Embassy with an example of their work and add their details to this post.
I also had a chat with Bow Arts Trust, where my studio is, regarding the possible involvement of the education side if we were to hold workshops early next year. Rob Smith, Head of Education and Learning at Bow Arts Trust, has been really supportive and encouraging and has offered to assist us in any way they can. Brilliant.
One of the artists – Sarah – is also a bar manager in town and through her contacts has managed to secure some South American beer for our exhibition(s) which is great news too, well done Sarah… lots of details like this that need to be addressed soon. But the printing is probably the most pressing, finding the funds for making this possible. I know a little bit about crowd-funding and really want to make time and explore this option – put up a pitch on one of these sites, see if we can raise the necessary funds this way.
As part of the email to the Embassy with the translated version of our presentation, they also wanted an indication of how our timeline looks now. This is a tough one as it highlights to me just how many moving parts there still are.
Ambitiously I’m thinking:
– All artwork complete by mid January
– An initial exhibition at the end of January/beginning of February, possibly South London – I’ve trying to investigate the Bow Arts project space at our site down there, but I’ve nothing tangible to report just yet.
– An exhibition in East London during school half term (18-22nd Feb) with workshops for local children.
– Concluding with an exhibition and auction in West London, possibly a Bolivian Embassy building (week beginning 24th Feb).
