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.