Are you interested in exploring art with your children? Are you put off because art is solely in the domain of the ‘highly talented’. The resource below will help you overcome such reserve.
Indian author and educator Nisha Nair has produced a lively and thoughtful book about the teaching of art, and the short film below illustrates the four main misconceptions of art in both education and outcome.
The argument is explored in more depth in her book Art Sparks: ideas. methods. process.
”What do children learn through art, and what is the value of what they’re learning? Exploring these questions seriously for the first time in the Indian educational context, this book guides the interested adult through an engaging and uniquely successful process of art-making with children. The method – based on a workshop model – assumes that an artist is not simply an individual who is born with an innate natural talent, someone who can ‘draw well’’.
The work is published by Tara Books and you can purchase a copy of Nisha’s work from their bookshop here…
Our Partnership is really proud to be supporters of St. Elizabeth’s Hospice in Ipswich.
The team have a fabulous creative project, and fund-raiser of course, in The Big Hoot. There is still time for artists far and wide to submit their creative designs for the owl statues of the Big Hoot art trail being held in Ipswich next summer by St Elizabeth Hospice and Wild in Art…
”As part of the Big Hoot, between June and August next year, 40 ornately decorated owl sculptures, featuring designs celebrating all things Suffolk, will be scattered throughout Ipswich showcasing the wealth of artistic talent of the county and beyond, as part of the biggest free art event in Suffolk which attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors to the town.
In June, the hospice called on artists to submit their creative ideas before 15th October for an expert panel to review, ahead of a special matchmaker event in December which will decide the final designs to decorate the Big Hoot statues for the magical trail in 2022.”
Celia Joseph, Community Relationships Fundraising Manager at St Elizabeth Hospice, said: “We have been thrilled to receive many imaginative designs for our Big Hoot 2022 and are already excited about the creativity and vibrancy the trail will bring to Ipswich.”
Source: Web pages of St. Elizabeth’s Hospice in Ipswich, Suffolk
If you are a creative, keen to take part and support the work of this great team in their work…sign up now.
”…in March 2020, the choirs fell silent. The Voice Project had planned to start rehearsing a new show, Arc of the Sky, inspired by the idea of a bird’s-eye view of Holy Trinity Church, Blythburgh, known as the Cathedral of the Marshes, the landscape it sits in – the Blyth estuary – and the coastline.
Performances were planned there for July. Instead, we made this film with the singers recording and filming themselves. This is the result…”
We thought that these two U.S based projects were delightful examples of how, using remote technology, you can explore both art and place from your armchair.
They are not intended for the casual, under resourced visitor certainly, in terms of expected project outcome. However, they are wonderful case studies of how their subjects can be explored in depth from the laptop.
As well as successfully cultivating a world wide audience. See what you think…they might offer a new template for action in these difficult times?
Yes, this citywide celebration of architecture is happening. (And, yes, things are a bit different this year.)
What will I be able to sign up for and see?
Self-Guided Tours: itineraries for outdoor exploration of an area by foot, by bike, or by boat.
On-Site Video Tours: video walkthroughs of a project with architects, historians, and other experts.
Open Studios: virtual presentations by architects and artists of a single project.
Podcasts: audio recordings about a single site.
Exhibitions: self-guided explorations of digital exhibitions.
Virtual Programs: panels, interactive tours, live Q&As, performances, and more
EDITIONS / ARTISTS’ BOOKS FAIR – New York
OCTOBER 14 – 28, 2020
See more here…
We are thrilled to announce E/AB Fair 2020, fully online, October 14 – 28 on this website.
A world class array of visual art book publishers in a virtual conference hall venue.
“The fair will gather an international community of over 60 publishers and dealers, featuring emerging and mid-career contemporary artists. Each exhibitor will have their own viewing room and, as always, they will be accessible for artwork discussion and special insights.”
For a New York based initiative you can expect to find a vast array of visual art exhibitors from the East Coast of the USA. But there also, in the catalogue, a healthy assortment of non-East Coast based creative centres.
The Edinburgh International Book Festival starts today. Events are free and you can visit the very impressive festival web pages here – https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/
Edinburgh books made tangible: Florencia Viadonna, Creative Commons, Unsplash
Taking place in your web browser from the 15th to the 31st August 2020.
Browse the very comprehensive Festival Bookshop – see more.
What’s happening with the Baillie Gifford Children’s Programme? – see more.
Some highlights for us…
The New York Times Series
‘For the second year running, The New York Times and Edinburgh International Book Festival are collaborating to bring a timely and thought-provoking celebration of writing and ideas to readers around the world’.
Sessions include Women in Politics, live NYT book reviews, Inside the NYT Crossword and Should Capitalism Survive Climate Change? In turbulent times this festival theme will help crystallise your take on the socio-political tensions that wrack the country in 2020. See more.
Outriders Africa
Having supported ten writers to explore and re-imagine the landscape in the US in 2017, the festival this year will send ten writers on journeys across Africa.
‘Outriders will again see ten writers explore a region of the world – this time in Africa. Each pair of writers will embark on an international journey through Africa, meeting writers and communities along their way and engaging in discussions around migration, colonial legacies, inequalities and the impact of globalisation and environmental change. Each of the ten Outriders will create a new work in response to their journey which will be presented at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2021’.
Together, these 17 women—the “Primadonnas”—have worked to create a festival of brilliant writing, borne out of a desire to give prominence to work by women and spotlight authors from the margins—and to create a thoroughly joyous and accessible experience. There will be live music, films and comedy and all sorts of writing represented. ‘ Source: Primadonna web pages.
The dictionary defines a primadonna as a temperamental person, an unpredictable person, a self-important person! However, the event will be characterised by impeccable behaviour and scintillating intellectual challenges, given the stellar line-up of originators above.
The origins of the title are in the 18th Century, in Italy of course, where a literal translation is ‘first lady’. A veritable melange of premier writing and performance talent, we are sure.
E.M. Forster wrote …Beauty ought to look a little surprised: it is the emotion that best suits her face. The beauty who does not look surprised, who accepts her position as her due – she reminds us too much of a primadonna.
We are in for a surprising event, undoubtedly. Packing our tent and weekend bag as we write…
We recently ran an article on our pages about the Cambridge Open Art Exhibition 2018. Well the deadline for the submission of artwork for this year’s event is very close.
We have published the key dates, courtesy of the Open Art team, below. Don’t rush, but safely head towards the deadline at a good speed. Good luck too!
Key Dates for Artists: Artwork entry/image deadline Friday 17th August 2018
Delivery of Artwork to Swavesey Village College:
Thursday 11th October 2018 between 4.30pm and 7pm
Collection of Unsold artwork:
Sunday 14th October 2018 between 4.15pm and 5.30pm
Exhibition Dates:
Preview Friday 12th Oct 6.30-9pm
Saturday 13th Oct 10am-5pm
Sunday 14th Oct 10am-4pm
at Swavesey Village College CB24 4RS
Thirdsectorweb, our community web delivery arm, has been having a bit of a tidy up. We have been cleaning up some of our web assets, some of which, although worthy, now need refreshment.
Seeded and grown by a community interest company called ABMEC, our Partnership has continued to fund and maintain their web site and content.
The CIC Registrar dissolved the company in August 2015. We would now like to add two new categories to the list of featured content – which is being updated again as we write.
We now want to add two new buttons – The Arts and Enterprise/Business to the pages of Supportingcambridgshire.com
Partly to illustrate hope, activities which cast forward and stimulate creativity – as a break from engagement with crisis. We recognise that not all newly arrived residents fit this category, of course.
The Arts can include any welcoming, inclusive creative activity that supports newly arrived or minority community members.
Enterprise/Business can be services, free at the point of delivery, which will add to the enterprise creation expertise and knowledge of our communities of interest.
If you have a group, or project, that welcomes any new arrivals or BME community members in these categories, drop us a line and we’ll add it to our community gazette.
If you write a 100 words or so to tell us what you do, that would be great too. We will support contributors by using our publication skills to develop and promote the work of groups.
Exhibition Dates: 12th to 14th October at Swavesey Village College
Call for entries Open Tuesday 12th June 2018 – see below for details:
# Updated: July 12th, 2018 – ”We had a very fast sign up to this year’s exhibition in October and the exhibition is now full. Many thanks to all artists who have applied this year – we are set for another exciting exhibition.
There are tables still available for selling cards, small gifts and unframed prints on the Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday daytime at £15 per day for exhibiting artists and £25 per day for non exhibiting artists”.
The Cambridge Art Awards, emerging from the exhibition, will give the top twenty artists selected the opportunity to exhibit their work at the Storey’s Field Centre, Cambridge during December 2018.
There will also be a Best in Show Prize available of £300, three runner-up prizes and a Win A Picture draw for visitors, the the value of £150.
“The open art exhibition is owned and run by volunteer artists, to promote art, artists and well being through exhibition, education and participation.
It is a not-for-profit, self-funded organization run by volunteers. Presently the volunteers are assisted by the local Arts Development Manager at Swavesey Village College. We are actively seeking business sponsorship to support the exhibition. We work with a charity partner and are hoping to gain a media partner“.
In 1851 J.W.Hudson, speaking at the opening of the Mechanic’ and Apprentices’ Library in Liverpool, opined that a visit to the library would, for the reader, lead to them ‘…receiving cultivation, not in reading the latest accounts of mis-demeanours and local calamities…but in imbibing instruction and high gratification from the perusal of select and valuable works whether they lead him with the traveller, across the pathless tracts of oceans, or cheer and console him, with moral sketches of human nature’. (Source: Mid-Victorian Britain 1851-75, Geoffrey Best, Fontana Press, 1985, London, p.232)
See more about the Festival here…
Whilst the publicly accessible library, after nearly a century or more of rising literacy in our country would then clearly stir the intellectual interest of Everyman (and Everywoman and Everychild too – Ed.) the message is still clarion today, stimulating the autodidact to seize the high ground of undiscovered knowledge and learning.
The adult, or child reader, will today find a mesmerising range of interests available at their local library that carries the long echo from that opening event in mid-nineteenth century Liverpool. Experience is still to be garnered for the mind, in the face of closures, funding cuts and, perhaps, even a topical turn away from the intellect towards ‘accounts of mis-demeanours and local calamities‘.
Suffolk Libraries, during June 2018, are teaming up with Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds to host five performances as part of the ‘Once Upon A Festival’ children’s arts festival.
The Suffolk Libraries festival programme looks like this:
‘When the Pied Piper plays his flute the rats run, the greedy mayor rubs his hands and the children dance… Norwich Puppet Theatre’s humorous and irresistible one-person show combines a skillful mix of puppetry, foot-tapping music and storytelling and will have audiences young and old entranced’.
‘The Children in the Moon is a wonderfully visual and original take on centuries old children’s verse, packed with puppetry and live music this is an ideal show for all the family. Tickets for this show are £1 per child’.
‘Join Mr Junkman and discover the sonic delight of everyday objects rescued from the urban wasteland. Learn how to build your own mini junk orchestra at home or in class. Experience and discover music from the twilight zone to foot stomping fun’.
‘6 strings, 8 dancing feet and 4 voices with 1 aim: to make classical music wickedly funny and fantastically exhilarating for everyone, young and old. Graffiti Classics burst the elitist boundaries of the traditional string quartet with their hilarious all-singing, all-dancing musical comedy show’.
‘Join Mr Junkman and discover the sonic delight of everyday objects rescued from the urban wasteland. Learn how to build your own mini junk orchestra at home or in class. Experience and discover music from the twilight zone to foot stomping fun’.
Use the Suffolk Library links to check out these gems of ‘library performance’ and kick-start the 7 to 13 year old auto-didact in your family today.
Context and Editor Notes:
Libraries and the Arts are deeply embedded in our culture and history. By the 1680’s, in England, libraries were growing more common, from the large installation in the affluent country house, to ‘the more modest bookshelf in the yeoman’s farm‘. Public libraries, as we might understand the term, were extremely rare outside Oxford and Cambridge.
In 1684, the Rector of St. Martin’s in the Fields, working with Christopher Wren, set out to build a library ‘for public use’. The Rector and Wren built a large house in the grounds of the churchyard, using the upper story as an accessible library and the downstairs as a ‘workroom for the poor’.
Thus beginning, arguably, the long tradition of the library as a multi-use space, feeding the individual mind, raising community social capital and road-mapping the way to the intellectual horizon.
Everything we might want today.
(Source: English Social History – Chaucer to Queen Victoria, G.M.Trevelyan, Penguin Books, London, 1978, p. 279)
Once Upon A Festival is now in its fourth year and aims to make performance art more accessible in theatres, schools and communities by taking the performances to children in their school or community. For more information visit www.onceuponafestival.co.uk
Melissa Matthews, Suffolk Libraries Art Programme Co-ordinator, says: “We’re delighted to host these events. Once Upon A Festival delivers high quality dynamic performances from a variety of companies and libraries are a great place to host exciting events like this in the community. We want to deliver more events like this as part of our Arts programme to open up new and accessible arts experiences for children and young people.”
(Source: Suffolk Libraries Press Release, June 2018 – https://www.suffolklibraries.co.uk/news/once-upon-a-festival/ )
See
Bury St Edmunds Library