Our Summer Programme for City of Wolverhampton Council We had a great experience over the 6 weeks summer holidays, delivering our "Summer Art Activities" programme for City of Wolverhampton Council's #WVHolidaySquad and #YES -Youth Engagement Strategy. We designed and delivered a wide variety of art and craft activities for young people 10-16 and were totally blown away by the quality of work. A few photos...Our programme was delivered in two Covid 19 secure venues: 2 weeks at The Workspace, All Saints and 4 weeks at The Way Youth Zone. We observed the government guidelines for performing arts which also covers art groups like ours and are pleased to report no cases of Covid 19. This includes providing separate resource packs so there is no sharing of resources, social distancing and frequent hand washing among other things. Credit has to go to the young people who worked with enthusiasm throughout and were very sensible in observing these measures.
We reached many young people who were referred via Strengthening Families Hubs throughout the city. These young people were from different ethnic backgrounds; White British, Asian, Pakistani, Arab, Eastern European and Black Afro Caribbean. A few more photos...! We delivered some British Sign Language training along the way - in a fun and accessible way - WITH PRIZES!! Your New Normal. My Normal When we heard about the Common Ground project called “Your New Normal, My Normal”, organised by Changing Our Lives and funded by the Co-Op Foundation, about tackling loneliness in young people we did a couple of workshops with the young people and entered some of their work for the project. A judging panel chose not one but FOUR pieces of work by the young people which is currently in an online exhibition at Wolverhampton Art Gallery. We think exhibitions are a great way to celebrate the successes of people and go some way to building confidence in skills knowing that there is an audience for their work. Here is the link to the exhibition; https://www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk/changingourlives/ Pom-Poms 4 Loneliness
We were delighted to link up with Pom-Poms 4 Loneliness during this project. Pom-Poms 4 Loneliness is dedicated to the distribution of home made pom poms in and around the Black Country. Each pom-pom represents a lonely or isolated person and by 'Pom-Bombing' they raise awareness about the situation that can face anyone. Our young people spent a day making pom-poms which they donated to the cause! Yet more pics....!FeedbackWe think they have all did incredibly well and have had the opportunity to try many different art forms and find their 'niche'. We received some lovely feedback:
We’d like to thank Wolverhampton City Council for funding this project and OnBoard Corrugated for donating cardboard for our group to use. Special thanks to our volunteers Wayne, Sarah, Rachel, Sandra and Olivia who made this all possible, and our BSL interpreters Mad and Jemma  Here’s just a few of the things we did:
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 2019 has seen us working with a wide range of ages already. We love to hear the stories from adults and also enjoy when they take ownership of their own work. Some examples of our work with the older generation are here. Greetings Cards at BID Services: Gary led on this session at Deaf Cultural Centre in Birmingham. The artists used traditional card making techniques such as decoupage and collage as well as new technology – typesetting and sourcing images online which can be printed off during the session to create truly bespoke cards for loved ones. Presentation to ZEBRA ACCESS Coffee morning at Lighthouse Media Centre. We made a Wish Tree and Deaf people wrote on tags what they’d like from a potential Art Club. We also encouraged them to make small drawings which were hung on the tree. Despite many protestations of ‘I can’t draw’ I think you’ll agree the results beg to differ. It was really encouraging to see such imaginative work and watch this space to see if we get to produce more work with the Zebra Access group. Card making at Pensnett and Brierley Hill Active Retirement. Similar to the session at BID Services, this time we met a secret poet. A 92 year old gentleman wrote and recited his own poem about the pros and cons of drinking spirits! It went down a bomb with everyone – a real tonic!
We've enjoyed delivering the HeadStart Wolverhampton art club on Friday evenings at Low Hill Hub. The video above gives a nice snapshot of the work we've done. The programme runs until Friday 14th December 2018 - so there is still time for young people (10-16) to come along for free, 4-6pm. We've done so much great work: Cardboard Wolves in Wolves, Poppy crafting for Remembrance, Halloween crafts, Wild Animal art, 5 Ways to Well-being posters, song-writing, Pop Up Art Gallery, British Sign Language and so much more. Thanks to HeadStart for supporting, we hope we can work together again in 2019  We were delighted to be asked to deliver the art sessions for HeadStart Wolverhampton Summer Activities in Low Hill + The Scotlands areas.  RAW is all about ‘Giving People a Creative Voice’. That is achieved through providing a platform for people to use the Arts to express themselves; break down barriers; build confidence; encourage team work; have fun; try something new and learn new skills.  We are aware of the work HeadStart does in supporting the mental wellbeing of young people and wanted our activities to reflect that. We designed a varied programme which included – Honesty Portraits - inspired by a series of postcards created by a teenager dealing with her own mental health issues. Young people were encouraged to draw and paint what makes them happy / unhappy and use innovative ways of expressing that, including collage and use of text / vocabulary. They designed masks on paper first and then painted on plain masks mounted onto canvas. These were then photographed and made into postcards. Here are a few examples of their work: This was the messiest art work we’ve done! (Cofi) I felt happy (Nicole) The Tree Of Hope- decorated with print outs of artwork they’d created previously, ‘wish tags’ - written tags about a general wish they have for the world and drawings and statements about their hopes and aspirations for the future. British Sign Language and Deaf Awareness- led by RAW team member Gary, who is profoundly Deaf. This included the 'Numberplate Game' to test the young people had learnt fingerspelling and numbers in BSL. I found it really interesting – learning sign language and about blind and deaf people. It was good creating the images for the posters. (Emma) It’s really good and I enjoyed learning sign language (Brinley) Performing the HeadStart song in Sign LanguageThe young put their newly found sign language skills to good use and produced a video of them signing along to the HeadStart song which was written by young people in association with Rock School Music. The song is all about the worries some young people feel when they leave primary education and start 'big school'. I enjoyed all of it. I was kind of nervous seeing myself on the video (doing sign language to the HeadStart song) but my confidence is growing. (Keira) Portrait drawing in proportionAlex demonstrated a quick way to divide a 'headspace' to get the features in the right positions. 'The 5 Ways To Wellbeing': pledges and poster designsWe used the NHS '5 ways to wellbeing' as a starting point for young people to think how they could 1. Connect; 2. Give; 3. Keep Learning; 4. Take Notice and 5. Keep Active. We have been very pleased with the work created and hope that the young people have something they will feel proud of and remember for years to come. Alex Vann and Gary O’Dowd. Feedback from the young people who took part"I like doing art because I don’t get to do painting at home" (Corey)
"I found it really fun because I can finally have a chance to paint to my full potential" (Theo) "I really enjoyed the art session" (Isabelle) "It’s really good and I enjoyed learning sign language" (Brinley) "It’s really fun to try new things and make friends, and understand what art is all about" (Nnedimma) "I found it really interesting – learning sign language and about blind and deaf people. It was good creating the images for the posters." (Emma) "I enjoyed all of it. I was kind of nervous seeing myself on the video (doing sign language to the HeadStart song) but my confidence is growing." (Keira) "I enjoyed the art – I’ve always done art and love to express myself that way." (Demi) "This was the messiest art work we’ve done!" (Cofi) Mine is about anti-bullying.(Madison) My painting shows good things at the top and bad at the bottom. (Lexi) I felt happy (Nicole) NB: Copyright in all of the original work shown here is owned by the originator(s) including the young people, and has been used with permission. All other artwork, photographs and video are © 2018 Real Arts Workshops. |
AuthorReal Arts Workshops is an independent arts company based in the Black Country, providing bespoke workshops for various organisations and groups. Archives
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