The Castle Summer Camp

I have just started promoting my new summer camp. I teamed up with a local music organisation Music in the Glen. They run most of the music events in the town and also the local kids arts festival, Feile Eile. I must say it was a lot of fun coming up with the ideas for it. We let our imagination have free reign. The concept is all about Magical Realms. We are resurrecting a local castle that is in ruins under the lake. Inside an inflatable tent there will be workshops run in music, art, historical warrior llike games to name a few of them. There is even talk of building forts and racing goats. I know I will have as much fun coming up with the ideas for the workshops as the kids will have doing them. I suppose the key to working with kids is to always have your inner child close by at all times. If your interested in the camp details go to www.musicintheglen.ie I can't get my images online at the moment so it will give you a chance to see the cute Brian Boru I painted!

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.

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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?