reflection

Having come to the end of Unit X and my placement at Start in Salford I think I have definitely been able to improve my existing skills in helping and teaching as well as learning new ones.

This has affected my practice I think because instead of wanting to be an independent practitioner/artist, I’d like to be like an artist in residence – rather than producing my own work independently, I think I would work best in an organisation rather like Start, using my own skills as a practitioner and designer to help others to learn and work with their own skills. What I love about Start is that art is used as a type of therapy, the organisation’s main aim is to help people with difficulties and personal issues to become more involved and open members of society, and I have seen this throughout my six weeks placement there. An example of this is that many of the volunteers there were once members, they started off as the people advised to attend by their doctors, and with Start’s help have been able to use their own experiences to help new members there. I enjoyed my time there so much that I'm going to continue volunteering over the summer, which will build my relationship with the centre even more, and gaining this type of experience is invaluable if I wish to continue this line of work after university.
I think if I was to redo this Unit X I would do some more reading around the topic of art therapy - as much as I have gained from personal experience with the subject, it would be good also to learn about the ideas and thoughts behind art therapy from others.

My own confidence has grown too. At the beginning of the unit I was quite nervous to get up and present my ideas to my peer group, but through working with the external organisations and with our presentations I think I've been able to improve my articulation skills and also learnt how to adapt how I speak and help others depending on their personal circumstances. 

workshop proposals

As part of my work with Start in Salford I wanted to plan a workshop or series of workshops to hold for the members I am working with. I think this workshop would work best with the Visual Arts group, as it is an environment that is very open, and the members can drop in anytime they like to continue the work they are doing as part of the classes.

Materials:

Baby books with some/all of the top layers of plasticised paper torn off

Magazines, newspapers, wrapping papers, wallpapers etc

Photographs

Stickers

Glue

Paints, pencils, crayons, inks

Scissors, craft knives

The idea behind my workshop is for participants to produce personalised books, using collage, drawing, painting and any other medium they like. In this particular workshop I would provide the participants with the cardboard children’s books that can be easily and cheaply sourced from bookshops and charity shops. These will provide a base for people to work on that is tactile and durable.

Many of the members at Start aren’t particularly artistic so by providing things for collage and painting this allows them to still produce beautiful and interesting books even if they aren’t confident with their drawing or writing skills. If this workshop was to go ahead I would let the participants know the week prior so they would be able to bring in personal things like photographs, images they like, meaningful words/lyrics/poetry etc so that the books can be made even more personal.

However a lot of the members are quite private and not particularly forthcoming with feelings and personal things, so I have also provided the opportunity for less personal but still interesting books to be made by providing things like patterned papers, wall papers etc. I think it’s important that the participants be comfortable with how personal or impersonal this workshop allows them to be, I don’t want people to feel forced into making something too open, so this workshop will just give them an option of how open they want to be.

What I like about books is that it creates a more personal relationship between artist and audience. While looking at a painting or sculpture is still very enjoyable and interesting, when you open and look at a book you interact with the work, taking time to go through the pages and reading into it, into the artists mind. This can make the book precious and treasured.

In this particular workshop, the books already exist and it’s more a case of personalising and decorating it. This workshop could be expanded to a series of classes, with each session being different ways to create books. The reason I chose to provide existing books to work on is that some of the people I work with at Start aren’t very confident in their making skills, so this provides a base for them to work on. As the weeks progress though, I reckon I could help build the members’ confidence in their skills. 

My proposal got a good response when I presented it to my peers. Because the other students are around the age of some of the younger members at Start it felt appropriate to show it to them how I’d present to the people at Start that would participate in it as they could relate easily to what I want to teach. I say this, because when some of the other groups that are doing their placements at Venture Arts and some of the care homes, we had to put ourselves in their members’ shoes so we could understand how the workshops would really be for them. This was interesting so we could really see how different it is when working with various groups and types of people and how their different skill sets and physical disabilities will affect the teaching methods and how adaptable we ourselves need to be as teachers.

whitworth project

As part of the collaboration with external organisations in Unit X, we were set a brief by the Whitworth Art Gallery to come up with a proposal for ideas for their Gallery in the Park extension, and how we think it can be improved by students and the public:

www.mcconstruction.co.uk

I recently visited the gallery and took my time walking round all the rooms and galleries available. Previously when we had our group from MMU a tour of the building there were so many more rooms that aren’t open to the general public – I think this is a shame as some of these rooms are so interesting as they are quite old and beautiful and would be great to explore.

I understand that there are opportunities to see the Tactile Textiles exhibits if organised prior to visiting. However, if I had not come as a student from MMU I would have had no idea that this was a possibility, I think it’s very important for this to be better advertised to people as a lot of the public that don’t attend uni would still relish the opportunity to see these gorgeous textile works.

Another thing is that I don’t think that the Whitworth is using advertising to its full potential in the surrounding areas of Rusholme and Moss Side. When I was living in halls in first year I was living just across the park from the gallery. While living here all sorts of flyers and leaflets were put through my door for many different events/clubs/restaurants etc, and I think the Whitworth may be missing a trick here by not doing the same. There are at least four halls of residence very close to the gallery that could be advertised to easily, as well as a dense population of students round Rusholme and Moss Side.

I’ve seen that there are several opportunities for families and children to interact with the Whitworth, mostly weekly sessions and classes for young children and toddlers. I think that an area that is perhaps open to kids all the time or at least for a period of time each day would be great, with classes and workshops that children can drop in and out of. I think it’s also important for older children and young teens to get involved with the gallery. The Manchester Academy School is just round the corner, I don’t know if the Whitworth already work with these students, but it’d be great if they get involved.

As part of this course I am doing six weeks of work experience in Salford at a centre called Start, a place for the teaching and practicing of the Arts for people suffering or at risk from suffering from mental health issues. They work with the Lowry Gallery in Salford quite closely, and I know that some of their pottery and clay work even gets sold in the gallery. I think that The Whitworth could start working with organisations such as Start; it’s another great way of becoming involved with another part of the community.

my own practice

During second year of studying Textiles in Practice at MMU, most of my work has been in the digital print making area. I use a lot of my own hand drawings and sketches and bring them into the digital side, creating prints for textiles in the home.

examples from my sketchbook work 

some of my designs created in Photoshop and Illustrator

beginning to think how I fit into Start...

My placement work at Start continued much like the previous weeks. I now feel I know most of the members I work with pretty well, so am able to understand their individual needs so I can adapt how I work with each person differently. I’ve also began to think of what my proposed workshop at Start could be, I know I need to consider that people here are different with how they express themselves, some people I’ve met are very open and don’t mind getting personal and are talkative, others can be shy or embarrassed, or just unwilling to really open up in the classes. My workshop would need to be adaptable to how different people can be. It also needs to be accessible and enjoyable for the people that aren’t as confident artistically as some.

workshops in MMU

During Unit X we have been attending workshops with Kirsteen Aubrey that help us to understand different ways we can design and run our own workshops. These have included group activities and solo tasks, which really demonstrate how different people are better or worse at different things. They also help us with thinking about timings within workshops; some people need longer than others for certain tasks. As a lot of the placements take place in care homes and centres for people with learning difficulties we have been taught to consider that some people may have disabilities that mean it’s more difficult for them to do things than ourselves.

Examples of the activities we did in the workshops; working both individually and as part of a team

second week at Start

This week I feel I’ve been a bit more involved on my placement at Start in Salford. I’m starting to get to know the members a bit more, which is helping me to learn how I can help them better. The morning class of visual arts was similar to last week, just talking to the members, helping where I can with their work and offering encouragement. The afternoon class of Photography was fun. We took the small class down to Salford Quays, where we visited the Lowry Art centre. The architecture is brilliant there, with many curved lines and interesting colours which is perfect for taking some fantastic photos. As well as taking my own photos, I also posed in a few of the members’ shots, and again encouraged and suggested to people how they could take some good photos. I think my own confidence is growing as I work with people at the centre, I’m really enjoying the feeling of being an active and helpful part of the community too.

beginning at Start

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This week was the beginning of my placement with Start in Salford. Ben, the head of the charity organisation, took mine and the other students working on placement here’s skills and art disciplines into consideration and placed us in different classes in the centre. As I have worked a lot this year with digital print making I am very competent with using Illustrator and Photoshop, so I have been put in a photography workshop and can help with any needs they have with computers and digital manipulation etc. I also love drawing and painting, so am happy to have been put with the Core Project, a workshop that works with people with long and enduring mental health issues, in the Visual arts group.

In the induction session Ben showed us round the entire centre, which is in a converted church and is a very welcoming and friendly place. I met the staff I’ll be working with for the next six weeks, they seem lovely.

My first day was interesting. In the visual arts class I acted almost as another member! It was a very quiet class of about six members, so there was little to do apart from help people set up their work spaces, and really just give them encouragement, which helps build up confidence and self esteem. Most people in the class are doing their entry level qualification in visual arts, so at the moment are getting work done for their portfolios. It is a twenty week project that began in January, so everyone is well into their work, already working on their preferred methods of working, and looking at artists that can relate to their own work.

In the afternoon was the photography class. It was a much smaller class, so I worked one to one with a bloke on Photoshop, helping him to manipulate his photography from a previous class. This helped me to hone my teaching skills, I enjoyed helping him to produce work he was proud of!

unit X - weeks 1 and 2

Visiting Stockport studios was the kick off of Unit X, College One. I was introduced to the staff we’ll be working with as well as viewing the space I could be working in. The first two weeks were made up of lectures and workshops from the MMU staff working on the project and also from the organisations we could potentially work with for the duration of Unit X.

Lynn, my personal tutor, gave a talk and held a workshop to give us ideas on how to run our own workshops in our chosen placements. We worked with materials like plastic and paper to create group pieces of artwork. It made me consider how learning new skills can be faster or slower depending on who I am teaching, and how I can adapt certain methods of teaching for different skill levels.

First we visited Venture Arts, an centre in Manchester that holds classes and workshops for people of all ages with learning difficulties. It was good to meet the staff and some of the members, and hear about the projects they work on. I was surprised by the level of professionalism in the members’ work, most of it was brilliant!

We also had talks from the Zion Arts centre, The Ideas Foundation and a couple of schools. I enjoyed hearing what projects the organisations were working on. But the organisations that caught my eye the most were Arts for Health and Start in Salford. The arts for health option were offering placements to those who wanted to work with people in care homes with dementia and Start had opportunities to work with people suffering from mental health issues. I think these two organisations most interested me as they use art as a method of therapy almost. Art is often seen as a “doss” subject, overlooked by people as something used for fun and not given much merit, but here Art is important in opening people’s minds, building confidence and freedom that translates into other aspects of their lives, and often  (as with Start) about getting people qualifications. Start also feels quite close to my heart as I come from a family with some mental health issues like long term depression and bipolar disorder.

I think my skill set will help with working with my chosen placement at Start in Salford. I feel I’m a good listener and am able to adapt to working with various types of people. I feel this will allow me to help with teaching all sorts of personalities and ages.