Children back to school tomorrow.
So what does that mean for the textile artist?
Many artists these days teach their art form to others.
There will be many varied reasons for doing so but in the main they are for the satisfaction of sowing the seeds of their craft in someone new be they young or old but the reality is that most teach for some sort of a regular income to supplement the seasonal changes of income from what they make.
I do it for both these reasons but also to 'get out there'. Working as an artist can isolate you for the rest of the world. The flip side is that it can also insulate you from the rest of the world.
So why would I choose to do a project such as Holocaust Memorial day with not one but 4 primary schools?
I hope to take you on a voyage of discovery in the next month, to give you an insight into the life of a rural textile artist.
Do I know what I am letting myself into? A big yes, I have done this event with both primary and secondary schools last year and challenging as it was , the rewards were wonderful. Sorry for those who think the life of an artist is a simplistic way of living and you make loads of money...the honest truth of that is -you don't but rewards are so often not monetary.
This is a photo of one of the pieces created by very talented S2's last year.
Such an evocative issue to not just research as an artist for inspiration and ideas but then breaking down the ideas and softening the imagery to allow Primary children (p5-p7 ) to explore the subject themselves and use textile art as the medium to do that with. Couple that with the fact you get the group for a total of two days and all the work needs to be exhibited together with the other artists working with this project in Ayrshire.
Oh and all that by 25th of this month....
I have always risen to a challenge.
So to date possibly a full weeks work has gone into research of the event and this years theme, four different projects for each school and the trials to make sure these ideas will work in reality.
Contact with each school and liaise with each head of school re dates times and outline of projects . Matching school skills, age group and class numbers with the best project for them.
Paperwork done and copied to the funders it's time to work through each idea and order/create the materials needed for the workshop right down to the hand cut labels for each child to label their creations for each workshop day. The boxes are stacked and numbered and the first two schools are ready.
Ah yes! requests for CPU ( teachers fun time after school ) another box to pack and notes to print out. I think personally it is very important if I go to a school even for one day that there is some staff training. Without it the day has not got the potential to plant and grow the flower of creation using feltmaking as the base medium. I love nothing better than to revisit a school to find many of the teacher gaining the confidence to use felt as an artistic medium.
Minor difficulty in all this arranging?
Yes the fact that this was all set up some time before I left Ayrshire and now I live 2-3 hours away!!!
Lovely fellow felting friends are always willing to help...a bed arranged for 3 nights and a list of things to fit in while back in the 'old country' , now it is just the family here to sort out ...
Doing the workshop is the easy part!!!!!
Come back and follow how this weeks workshops go.
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