Nenagh Art Classes

Children's Art - Saturday Afternoon
Explore a range of craft and art based activities. Children are encouraged to discover their own creativity and interests. We will be using a range of meduims and also looking at the work of well known artists.
Ages 5 to 7 yrs @ 2pm, Ages 8 to 12 @ 3pm.
Eight weeks, cost €85, Starts 1st October

Adults Art Workshops - Thursday Evenings
Get in touch with your iner artist and find your own inspirations. Open to all abilities for a relaxing and social evening.
Eight weeks, Thursdays 7.30 to 9pm
Starts September 29th, Cost €110

To book a place call Olivia ph: 087 6380201 or email olivia@creativehouse.ie. All materials included, cost can be paid in full or by installment.

New Art Classes

Clay Mask -

Creative House are now running art classes in the recently opened Nenagh Arts Centre. I am really excited about this. The new centre currently don't have any ongoing visual arts program and I am hoping that I can carve a place there for our courses. With the new baby I will be bringing in some help with the wonderfully creative Aisling Finucane  running the start of the children's classes. We are going to explore a range of mediums and craft projects. As always I will be bringing in ideas from well known artists but also encouraging the kids to find their own inspirations. Some of the art work will be displayed here and I will also post some tutorials so you can do the classes with your own kids.

The adults workshops will focus on helping people to get in touch with their creativity. I often find when working with adults who don't paint at home, they have a reluctance to let go and allow what ever is inside to come out. They can often spend a lot of time trying to get something 'right' and be 'good'. I suppose if the last time you did art was in school if can be very hard to shake that internal teacher. I hope to make the class a relaxing place where people are happy to explore and experiment without the inner critic.

I am looking forward to getting my hands messy.

Community Sculpture - Update



My Wabi Sabi Sphere



I have been very busy of late, our baby was born three weeks ago so my motivation to update the blog has been taken away by a very cute little girl. I was unable to get the sculpture into the cathedral for July so I am hoping to have it in for October. I did however have it displayed in the local gallery during the festival, where it got a great response.

To be honest I had my doubts, doubts in buckets. I wasn't sure if anyone would quite get what I was trying to do or what the Wabi Sabi Sphere meant. I also was worried that no one would turn up to the workshops. But most of all I didn't know how I was going to pull it off in the end. What was it going to look like? After a short little meltdown in a room full of styrofoam painted balls and 30 metres of tangled wire, I called in my ever helpful husband and two designer friends for consultation. Once I got my head in the right place I was able to pull it all together in a very short time. The result is the long intertwining piece that can be hung in different places and manipulated into different forms. I must say I felt very proud when it was hung in the gallery.

Below are some images from the workshops and gallery.

Community Workshop

Children's Workshop

Jess the Artist

If anyone is interested in how I made the sculpture drop me a line and I will give you all the details and list of materials.

My Viking Experience

Last week I went into my daughters school to deliver a workshop in papier mache. I had spoken to her teacher months earlier explaining that I was a community artist and would be happy to deliver a workshop in the classroom. Artists coming into the classrom is a relatively new idea but something that has great merit. The Artist in Schools Scheme has been running for a number of years in Ireland and it gives schools an opportunity to work with an artist around the curriculum. There has been a big debate in recent years that primary teachers are overloaded with expectations to know how to teach academics, sport, art, music, drama and whatever else can be fit into to the day. There is also increasing evidence that using creativity within the curriculum makes learning more successful as it reaches out to those kids who may not favour academic learning. I have worked with a wonderful artist Jole Bortoli who has worked in an educationally disadvantaged school in North Dublin City. Fortunately the principal had the openness to facilitate the running of the Junior Certificate through art. Jole explained how this approach transformed the kids attitude to education and even themselves. The constant challenges of creativity and learning gave them a confidence and sense of themselves that they wouldn't have had before. It also kept that them coming back to class each day, which in itself was a success.

I have worked in schools before using art, however it was with the aim of integration. In West Tallaght in Dublin there is a large population of non Irish, mainly African children. The teachers in a local school recognised that the boys would often integrate and mix better by playing sports, however the girls didn't seem to gel as wel and there was an obvious divide. I designed a series of workshops where a group of girls from both nationalities worked on creating their own dresses and had a fashion show at the end. It was a great success and highlighted how effective using creativity can be in bringing people together.

This time however my mission wasn't quite so grand. My brief was papier mache and Vikings, and with the help of my daughter we came up with the idea of a ship. I took the shortcut of googling 'papier mache boat' and came across such a simple and sweet boat that I couldn't resist (Ann Wood and her wonderful creations). We made a mock up before class and altered the design to suit. I went to the class and was happy that we hit on something good. However when I delivered the workshop the kids were more than pleased with the process and outcome. The teacher was so accommodating and helped push the learning with the creativity. We all chatted about Vikings and what type of Vikings the each child's ship (the skull and cross or pretty flowers gave the clues)  would carry. When they were all dry and finished the teacher displayed them outside the classroom giving much pride to the creators.

My daughter has written a summary of the class;

Hi my name is Ella, I am nine years old. My mum came into my class and did art. We made Viking Ships. We used hessian for the sails and cereal boxes for the boat. We dipped sugar paper into PVA glue and water to coat it all. And we used skewers for hanging the sail on and a small pin to hold it on. It was a papier mache boat. We used so much glue that you could knock on the boat. Loads of us got glue stuck on our fingers. During the class we were talking about Vikings and our teacher was asking us about Viking facts. We learned what they did and what they stole and how they lived. We hung them in the hall and put up a blue backdrop and they looked really cool. We got loads of compliments from the other teachers.

*****

To read up more on Jole Bortoli and her wonderful approach to children and arts click here.

I also came across a fantastic new site for kids to display their work, The National Children's Gallery of Ireland is a new site that promotes young kids work, click here to see the future artists of Ireland.

If you are involved in any creative work with children let me know and I can post it on the site.

The Arts Banquet

The launch of the new Arts Banquet took place last night last in the heritage town of Killaloe / Ballina Co. Clare. This new arts festival is about opening the doors on the art world and making audiences participants. The festival hopes to bring a feast of arts to all who are interested or who wish to be the musicians, artists, poets and writers that they always knew they were.

The Community Sculpture "My Wabi Sabi Sphere" will start it's workshops tomorrow, 25th June in St Annes Community College @ 2pm. For those interested in getting their hands messy and having the title of 'sculptor' come and join in.

Community Sculpture & Children's Parade Family Workshops,

at St. Annes Community College, Killaloe,Saturday 25th June 2 to 4pm

(Parade workshops starts at 11)

Youth Workshop, Friday 1st July, Kincora Hotel

Active Age, Friday 1st July, Kincora Hotel

Open for all, Saturday 2nd July, Pop Up Playhouse, Cathedral Quay

The sculpture can be viewed by the public on Sat 2nd July, 8pm Quay Arts and for all of July in the Killaloe Cathedral from 3rd July

The following are a list of Arts Banquet events that will take place during the the next week.

Wednesday 29th June

Killaloe Writers Group - Readings & Selected Poetry, 8.30pm, Il Ponte Vecchio, Killaloe

Thursday 30th June

Music in the Glen Strings Summer Concert, 5pm, Pop Up Playhouse

The Hunt Museum Lecture, 6pm, Il Ponte Vecchio

Killaloe/ Ballina Youth Theatre Club Final Year Show, Pop Up Playhouse

Quay Arts Theatre Nights, 8pm, Quay Arts, Ballina

Friday 1st July

Sharing Stories - Children's Workshops, 2 to 4pm, Killaloe Library

Quay Arts Theatre Nights, 8pm, Quay Arts, Ballina

Lola Montez Theatrical Caberet, 9.30pm, Pop Up Playhouse

Saturday, 2nd July

'A Day in the Life', visual arts, all day event, Quay Arts

Killaloe/ Ballina Community Orchestra, 4.30pm, Pop Up Playhouse

The Great Big Boru Gig, 8.30pm, Pop Up Playhouse

For full details on all events and locations click on

http://www.feilebrianboru.killaloe.ie/index.htm

http://www.musicintheglen.ie/

http://www.quayarts.ie/

My Wabi-Sabi Sphere

As part of the Arts Banquet Festival (local arts festival) I am creating a community sculpture. The theme of the festival is 'Transition, Transience and Change'. I love the idea of engaging with a community to create a single piece that represents each person in it.  Last year for the Brian Boru Festival I did something similar using a tree. It was a community tree and each flower and leaf on it represented someone who helped create it. It was very simple and easy to do yet it inspired a lot of questions and comments.

This year I have upped the ante. My interpretation of the theme is the 'Wabi-Sabi Sphere' sculpture. Sounds very odd and arty. I have however tried to simplify it for people to understand. I am running workshops with school kids, families, teenagers and an active age group. I will also have much of the work coming from myself.

I came across the idea of Wabi Sabi a few months ago and it hit a nerve with me. It is a Japanese philosophy which is centred around the acceptance of transience. It is a beauty that is imperfect, impermanent and incomplete. It has three underlying aspects, nothing lasts, nothing is finished and nothing is perfect. This all really resonated with me. So often I am restricted by a need to be perfect and held up on the goal to finish. So much so that it often ruins the enjoyment of doing something or causes me to put things on the long finger for fear of doing it 'wrong' or stressing out that it 'needs' to be finished yesterday. The idea of Wabi Sabi allows me a breathing space. When I think of it I realise that I will never be finished and nothing will ever be perfect and there is beauty in that.

When I heard that the theme was 'Transition, Transience and Change' I knew I had to bring in the idea of Wabi Sabi into it some how. The idea for a sphere came about as I knew that we could use the local cathedral to exhibit and that excited me. I wanted to create something that would contrast with the space. A  simple form in vibrant colours to contrast with the dark ancient structure.

To create the sculpture each person who participates will paint a sphere to reflect where they are in their life, this could be something as simple as a colour. I felt that as an individual the sphere can be a symbol of something that is a perfect whole and complete, yet because it is a sphere it is always moving and changing or has the potential to move and change. Therefore My Wabi Sabi Sphere is a representation of that person and where they are in their life, even when they are in a state of change, transformation or transience they are still perfect, whole and a thing of beauty. I will then create a sculpture using all the spheres.

I will post up the photos of the sculpture in progress and the finished piece over the next few weeks. In the meantime you can read up about Wabi Sabi on the web.

http://nobleharbor.com/tea/chado/WhatIsWabi-Sabi.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabi-sabi

Try to remember Wabi Sabi next time you are caught up in perfectionism.

Feeling Blue

Original Artwork by E. F.

I have finished working with the day care centre for the summer. The group of women (older people, elderly, active age, retired! not sure which term is p.c.) are all so different in their abilities, creativity and approach to art. However the one thread for me with them all is the need to help them see themselves with fresh eyes. I often think that my work is not to inspire, guide or teach, but to help people unlearn beliefs about themselves or about art that serve no value to them.

Above is a painting by one of the women who I find a big challenge on some days.  And those days are always the ones when she feels low. She lost her husband recently and comes to the centre for company and to get out of the house. I can't imagine what it would be like to spend your life with someone, share all your memories, raise children together grow old, make plans and then to wake up one morning and that person is gone. With all the years ahead to re imagine as a single person.

She claims to be no good at painting or drawing and only comes for the company. However each day she turns up beautifully dressed. She chooses her outfits to balance perfectly with tones and textures matching or contrasting and always a stunning piece of jewelry. If I try to tell her she is very artistic she won't believe me. She is also the one person who works so fluidly. Sometimes I put a still life composition in front of her and she uses it only as a starting point. The end result never looks anything like what is on the table, yet it is always so creative and unique. Everything she looks at she interprets but when she finishes she sees this as a minus not a plus and is always so critical of her work. If artists just plainly copied what was in front of them art would be so boring and bland. Interpretation is what makes it individual and creative.

When I return after the summer my focus is going to be on individual inspiration and developing  creative confidence. I hope I can make E.F. she her value and use art to help her feel inspired and revived and not something more to feel blue about.

*********

As promised I have been looking around for art that has a purpose other than hanging in a gallery (even though I love art that hangs in a gallery.)
I came across a really interesting blog site...

http://www.postsecret.com/

It is full of homemade postcards where people share their secrets. Some are funny and some are quite sad but it is all so interesting. Let me know what you think?





I am for an art.......

I have been reading up a little on Claes Oldenburg. His sculptures were so clever and funny, they really can put a smile on your face. I can imagine walking down the street and seeing an ice-cream cone on top of a building. I thought I would share the rest of the quote I used in my last entry. I wont include the full writings as it is very long, but I am sure you will get the gist of it.

Claes Oldenburg (b. 1929) from Documents from The Store

I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on it's ass in a museum.

I am for an art that grows up not knowing it is art at all, an art given the chance of having a starting point of zero.

I am for an art that embroils itself with the everyday crap and & still comes out on top.

I am for an art that imitates the human, that is comic, if necessary, or violent, or whatever is necessary.

I am for an art that takes it's forms from the lines of life itself, that twists and extends and accumulates and spits and drips, and is heavy and coarse and blunt and sweet and stupid as life itself.

I am for an artist who vanishes, turning up in a white cap and painting signs or highways.

I am for an art that comes out of a chimney like black hair and scatters in the sky.

I am for an art that spills out of an old man's purse when he is bounced off a passing fender.

I am for a art out of a doggy's mouth, falling five stories from the roof.

I am for an art that a kid licks, after peeling away the wrapper.

I am for an art that joggles like everyones knees, when the bus traverses an excavation.

I am for an art that is smoked like a cigarette, smells, like a pair of shoes.

I am for an art that flaps like a flag, or helps blow noses, like a handkerchief.

I am for the art of conversation between the sidewalk and a blind man's metal stick.

...........

What sort of art are you for?

Art & Social Commentary

I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on it's ass in a museum.

Claes Oldenburg

I clearly remember the moment when I realised that art could be political. I always knew it was personal. I painted in that way. I used art as a way to express myself. My paintings were generally abstract and full of movement and colour and I could use the process of painting to deal with something, disregarding the outcome. When I went to work in community development I found myself using art in a social way. It was a tool I used when working in groups. I found it opened people up and could tackle issues with such ease and so effectively. When I went to college to study community art it blew my mind to realise the potential that art had for bigger issues.

It seems so obvious now, probably the first cave paintings were pro-democracy messages. Even crafts like quilting were used by women to highlight the need for equal rights. Advertisers, more than likely, stole their trade from artists with a social conscience. Today I know very few artists who use art to share a message. I don't know if this is because I am not that aware of them and have my head in the clouds or because art isn't been used that much for purposes outside the gallery. It is such a shame that art is so hidden in galleries.

I rarely work with others artists. Most of my work is with people who never use or view art. I try to emphasise creativity over 'art' as it has become such a scary word and has connotations of high values and intellect. And who wants to associate with 'high values' or 'intellect'? I am going on a search for artwork that speaks value. Art that offers a social critique or a political message (political is also a word that has lost the run of itself, running far away from everyday people, which is where it squarely belongs).

I came across a Chinese artist awhile ago, called Ai Weiwei, who had an exhibition in the Tate Modern in London. His work was called 'Sunflower Seeds'.It was more then one hundred million individually made and hand painted porcelain seeds. Visitors were encouraged to walk over, touch and experience the seeds. It was in an attempt for people to contemplate mass consumption among other things. It was refreshing to see this and realise that artists doing this work are being recognised.

Above is the first image I ever did that was related to my view on society. The drawing is of a magpie dropping the central bank (Irish building) into his nest alongside a ring.  The bank  was to represent what was going on in Ireland at that time, cheap money available to anyone, and the ring was representing what we were doing with the money, buying 'bling'. I wanted to show the insignificance of it all with the predominance of nature.  As a society we value cash and status more than nature, yet nature really has more power over us than we think.

Let me know if you find any artists using their art for more than just sitting "on it's ass in a museum".

www.aiweiwei.com

www.tate.org.uk

My Womb

I am currently six and a half months pregnant and it has got me thinking about the whole process of creation. Art work or any creative project has the same process as the creative process of nature, e.g. babies. First there is the idea (conception), then the actual making or growing (gestation) and finally the birth. However I think the process for babies can be simpler.

Creating babies has a clearly defined beginning, middle and end.  I am not negating the complexity and joy of bringing a baby into the world but I just find some creative projects just so damn hard to give birth to.  And with art projects I am often unclear of what I am trying to do until it is done. 

Above is a painting I did during my last pregnancy.  It is part of a series and related to the embroidery I showed last week.  The project is called 'My Head, My Heart, My Womb'.  It is based on my hospital stay in antenatal care during my last pregnancy. The paintings and ideas behind it were used as a brief or a starting point for work I do each week with women in maternal care in the Maternity Hospital. 

The idea came to me with such ease, the paintings painted themselves and I was offered the job to work with these women with open arms.  I have spent nine months (coincidence) working with pregnant women, most have never painted before, producing beautiful images relating to there pregnancy and how they are feeling at the time. All of them are in hospital because of complications, some more serious then others.

During this time so many ideas of exhibitions and books were discussed and promised and all fell through.  I collected all the images, many of the stories and evaluated some of the women's response to the project.  However it hasn't been birthed. I don't know where to go now or what to do. I don't want to lose all this valuable work. 

So often projects, paintings, novels get lost in the womb. Perpetual gestation. So what is it about growing babies that I can learn from to bring this project somewhere? First, everyone is clear what you get at the end. Second, there is labour before the birth, and there is no avoiding that part.Thirdly, you have prepared yourself for the nine months of what is to come and allowed for space in your life to accept it. I think I will sit with these ideas of what exactly do I want and what sort of work is needed to achieve that. In the meantime I will start sharing some of those images and stories so they don't get lost in my womb, with the real baby.

Creating Space for Creativity

I have recently realised that I spend my week encouraging people to be creative and to use art to express themselves. However I do not practice what I preach. I find that my life has been so busy and that I spend so much of my energy trying to organise my work, my home and my relationships in a way that gives me more space and makes my life easier to negotiate.  As a mother of two with a third on it's way I was really searching for ways to be able take care of the family as best I could but to not lose myself in the process.  Being creative is what I do, in work I am referred to as 'The Art Lady' but lately I really have being feeling like a fraud.

Then I stumbled across some blogs about minimalism.  I have for a long time being interested in simple living but was never really able to feel committed to it.  Minimalism has much the same values but gave me a more practical way to incorporate it into my life.  Basically you pare down your life to what is of real value and importance to you.  It generally starts with the material clutter that you surround yourself with.  Over the last month I have reduced my wardrobe, the kids toys, household things and paperwork by about 60 per cent.  The was psychological impact was amazing.  I felt clearer in my head.  There wasn't so much to do. Even the everyday chores were easier.

Even though it is a process and I have more to do, I have finally found a way to create some space to be creative. The above picture is an embroidery piece that is part of a larger project I have been working on. It has sat in a box for months waiting to be completed.  There is not that much left to do, but there was never time or space to do it.  Tonight I am sitting down to finish it off.  I am also beginning real, tangible work on an arts festival that I co-created, and am getting excited about a sculpture I am doing, instead of feeling that it was another item on a to-do list.

Below are a list of minimalist sites that might spark something.

www.mnmlist.com

www.theminimalists.com

www.becomingminimalist.com

www.rowdykittens.com

Bring on the space and clarity, let us create.

Exploring Frida

Every week I work with a group of older women in a local day care centre. Most of the women have had no previous experience of art and many didn't even get to experience it in school.  For them to be "good" means to be able to reproduce something that is right in front of them.  I have introduced them to different mediums and subject matter, delved into the imagination and examined other artists work.  During the month of May we have a national arts festival for older people called Bealtaine, http://bealtaine.com/ which is to celebrate creativity in older people.  For this festival the group had an exhibition of their work in a local library.  Local dignitaries were invited and a well known artist opened it.  It was the first time that I felt that my work with them was going somewhere.  Each week when I propose something to do they all claim it is too hard and they couldn't do that, my challenge is to give them confidence and encouragement to do it and also to appreciate their work.  At the day of the opening I could see they were finally beginning to see themselves as artists and appreciate their own creativity.

In two weeks I am bringing them to see the Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera exhibition in IMMA.  I am so excited myself to see the work as Kahlo is one of my favourite artists.  I hope the visit will inspire them and help them to view art as something other than painting a vase of flowers.  What I love about Kahlo is her honesty in her paintings and how she used her work and creativity as a way of dealing with and expressing what was going on in her life.  Art shouldn't be just done for the viewer, often I forget this myself and become paralysed by the audience who have yet to exist.  I am looking forward to how the women interpret Kahlo's work.

http://www.imma.ie/

New Journey

This is my first blog ever, I have only just began the journey into blog world and by stumbling across other sites realised how useful they are.  I work for myself as a community artist and always wanted an outlet for my work to be shown to others.  My philosophy in life & work is that we are all artists, we often just need the encouragement, support or inspiration to bring creativity into our life.  Often the journey is about trust and confidence in your own in abilities and sometimes it is more about finding motivation or space to create. I hope to offer readers some inspiration and nurture their own confidence by showing what I do and what the wonderful artists I work with do.

Enjoy