Not just getting by
GEM SMITH, CREATIVE EDUCATION DIRECTOR

As we just ended the school year, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank the schools that I have been working with, particularly over the last 16 months.  Via Take A Part I’ve had many opportunities to collaborate with schools and to connect with creative projects and develop programmes that enable children and their families to try new things, be together, build confidence and to be seen and heard.
 

Covid decimated opportunities, depleted energies and squashed enthusiasm as, rightly so, the focus was on just getting by.
 

And yet, despite a global pandemic, a handful of primary schools that I have been working with in Plymouth have pushed on to find ways to work with external partners and artists, to send home opportunities and push for responses, to welcome in artists and continue to teach creatively, and collaborate to grow new relationships, learning and programmes that continue to explore creativity and offer up ways to be creative for their children, families and staff.

I’ve seen artists taking lateral flow tests and mask up to be able to be on the ground and delivering.  Children discovering sculptural techniques, portraiture, perspective and shading.  Projects working with cardboard, watercolour, pastel, chalk, charcoal, inks and prints to enable children to express themselves and respond creatively to their curriculum.  Teachers learning how they can collaborate with artists to develop their practice.  It has been inspiring, and exhausting, no more so than for those teachers and senior leaders that have enabled these things to take place.  Schools that value the arts and understand its relevance, place and value within what they do day to day.

This blog isn’t specific to any one school or staff member or child but is a thankyou and gratitude to all that have been, and continue to be, engaged in creativity within their school community.

I wanted to write this piece to celebrate the ongoing tenacity of schools, particularly those that I’ve been working with in Plymouth over the last 16 months.  These are schools that, despite a global pandemic, have still said yes and embraced the opportunity to connect with their families and communities, to be creative, to go above and beyond.  I’m in awe of their energy and commitment to Creative Education and it’s this ethos that sees them where they are right now, here’s to much more (after a well overdue summer break)

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Call out for artists: From Devon With Love
From Devon With Love are relaunching their festival as a Devon-wide scheme to extend performance opportunities into rural communities.  They want to hear from artists making original performance work, including theatre, music, dance, circus, storytelling, spoken word, puppetry, and poetry. Your project should be in the mid to late stages of development, ready for sharing with a test audience. Successful applicants will be invited to perform at the From Devon With Love festival this September.  You can read more about the festival and the opportunity here.

Comic Art Masterclass, Kev F Sutherland: The Arts institute
The Arts Institute are hosting this online workshop offering the opportunity to make a comic in a morning with artist Kev F Sutherland, writer and artist from Beano and Marvel comics.  All you’ll need is a few sheets of A4 paper, pencils, and pens if you’ve got them.  At the end of the session everyone will finish with a caricature drawn by Kev, and comic cover designed together with Kev and sent to you. You’ll also learn to create your very own character and draw a page of comics.  To find out more follow this link.

Light Up School Learning Artist Recruitment: Travelling Light Theatre
Travelling Light is looking for artists for its new project: Light Up School Learning: An arts-based inquiry supported by Paul Hamlyn Foundation Teacher Development Fund.  From Sept 2021-July 2023 they will be working closely with five Bristol primary schools to support teachers in exploring how drama-based learning can develop communication and support pupil wellbeing and ability to express emotion. Artists and teachers will work together to create an exciting drama curriculum offer and expand teachers’ practice - embedding drama into the wider curriculum. Alongside strengthening relationships with teachers and building confidence, we want to create a collaborative, co-learning environment, where artists will be on board as co-creators and learners.  You may be interested in this role if you have experience and passion for working in the arts (drama, music, movement) and facilitating with young people.  You will be supported in your learning by Travelling Light's Creative Learning Officer and by being part of a cohort of other artists.  Find out more about the opportunity, and how to apply, here.

#WhoseFuture, Stand Up For Your Rights: Rising Arts Agency
Following the success of last year’s Whose Future campaign, Rising Arts Agency are supporting more young and emerging artists to take up space across Bristol, creating pieces that reflect issues that are important to them in Whose Future 2.  This online in-conversation style event, with Rising Arts Agency's own Eli Lower, and representatives from collective action and memberships groups, will delve into the benefits of collective action and what is can mean for you and the communities you're apart of.  You can book by clicking here.

Freelance Participation Producer: RISE Youth Dance
RISE Youth Dance are looking for a Participation Producer to help deliver a new project which aims to increase participation in contemporary dance in Bristol by providing quality and inspiring dance experiences for more young people.  The participation producer will research and reach out to community organisations who work with young people aged 7 - 14, in areas of poverty and low engagement. Examples may include youth clubs, after school clubs and young carers groups in settings such as Barton Hill Settlement.  For full details follow this link.

All Alone Online Launch: Meadow Arts
Join Meadow Arts for an introduction to the work of the five artists in their new exhibition, All Alone, and a discussion about what aloneness means to them, to launch new on-site and online exhibition All Alone, in partnership with National Trust's Croft Castle & Parkland (Herefordshire).  Through the work of Adam Chodzko, David Bethell, Edie Jo Murray, ...kruse and Simon Roberts, All Alone proposes a creative re-examination of the human condition of aloneness, a topic that has known many interpretations over the centuries, but has recently, through the Covid-19 crisis, been brought sharply to the forefront of our collective consciousness. Beyond the physical pressures of being isolated, lockdown is/was a communal experience, but each individual experience is unique, which is isolating in itself. The title, All Alone, reflects on the paradoxical commonality of aloneness.  Info and booking is available here.

Good Afternoons @ The Burton: Annabel Hill - Print and Pattern Designer
This online event is one in a series of talks with artists and craftspeople from North Devon, held at The Burton at Bideford Art Gallery and Museum.  In this talk Annabel will discuss her background and influences as well as the various printmaking techniques she uses and her experience of selling in galleries. She’ll give an overview of fabric printmaking and a demo of the lino block printing process. Inspired by nature, she’ll talk about her work with environmental charities in London and her obsession with pattern and the macro environment. Studio through which she teaches print and pattern design.  You can book a ticket here and read more about the full series of talks here too.