I have just received a letter to tell me that I have been nominated to receive one of the annual Action for Children’s Arts Members’ Awards in recognition of the contribution my work makes to the enrichment of children’s lives through the arts.

The ceremony will be held at BAFTA, Piccadilly, London on 20th October 2012.

I am thrilled and honoured to have been chosen for this award. Thank you to all the children who have worked with me over the years, this is for you, too.

Dylan and Seren drawing movement with the video projection

The performance of 3D at Ruthin Craft Centre with NEW Dance on 20 July 2012 went really well. I will post more images soon, but here is one for now.

3D @ Ruthin Craft Centre

projecting onto the window

3D – dance, art and music collaboration at Ruthin Craft Centre with NEW Dance, Maria Hayes and Daniel Weaver.

Over three days, the artists facilitate a group of young people to make a dance, art and music performance piece in response to the current exhibition of work by Wendy Ramshaw and Richard La Trobe-Bateman.

The performance is on 20 July 2012 at 7pm.

Seal Soul

The seals sing my soul home.

Down in the harbour they mourn and keen
As if their hearts have been broken as fatally as mine.
What do I do with the aching gap where I should be?

When I think of all the years of living still to do
I can hardly stand the weight of it.
This burden is grown into me, a part of me I cannot accept.

Shame and rage storm together
Lodged between my skin and my soul

Separating me from myself.

But down in the harbour the seals sing my soul home.

They call me to swim for my life
To submerge and emerge
To wash away what sits between my skin and my soul.

With no gaps I connect
With connection I feel
With feeling I cry and the salt from within

Sings my soul home.

Cath Sherrell (Aberystwyth Arts Centre) and I attended the Big Draw Awards ceremony on Thursday 17 May 2012 at Courtauld Institute of Art and were presented with a certificate designed by Quentin Blake.

All the Energy Gift Exchange workshops for the Big Draw took place at the School of Art Gallery, Aberyswyth University.

Follow this link for more information.

Drawing Inspiration Award certificate by Quentin Blake

Here is my talk I should have given this week at Engedi – but was cancelled due to adverse weather – snow and gales!

Anyway, hope it makes sense and if you have any questions please contact me. Thanks.

Professor John Harvey added the news of my Big Draw Award to his blog.

Performing Arts students from Coleg Ceredigion performing the Energy Gift Exchange

Since it’s launch in 2000, October sees ‘Big Draw’ events take place all over the UK and Internationally to encourage drawing. Participating venues are encouraged to document their projects and submit them for one of twelve prestigious Drawing Inspiration Awards. Sponsored by the Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust, the judges look for innovative and engaging events.

A unique collaboration between Maria Hayes, the School of Art (Aberystwyth University) and Aberystwyth Arts Centre presented ‘Energy Gift Exchange’ workshops as part of Hayes’s exhibition ‘Shedding Skins’ for the ‘Big Draw’. Sue Grayson Ford (Director Campaign for Drawing) and Bryony Matthewman (Drawing Inspiration Awards Coordinator) contacted Cath Sherrell, Education Officer at Aberystwyth Arts Centre to announce

’You are a winner! Yours was one of the best entries we received.’

For 12 days the ‘Energy Gift Exchange’ workshops offered a rolling programme of performers, storytellers, musicians and dancers to be drawn in the video projection space in exchange for a drawing of their movement.  In addition there were Energy Gift Exchanges between members of visiting groups.

The Award ceremony takes place at the Courtauld Institute of Art on 17 May.

Performing Arts students from Coelg Ceredigion performing the Energy Gift Exchange

digital projection drawing on rock

I will be showing ‘Rock’ at the Engedi Easter Exhibition in Colwyn Bay.

You are invited to the Preview on Friday 30 March 2012

7-9pm

visit www.engediarts.com for more information.

The last day of the Energy Gift Exchange was busy and varied.

The first group were from Coleg Ceredigion, adults with mild learning difficulties. Most of the group were happy to participate and worked in a focused and concentrated manner. Although not everyone had a go at the easel working with the hand in the projection, everyone drew. One member of the group had been in a previous workshop. He gently asserted himself as the ‘expert’ in the group and encouraged some of the shyer members to participate.

Writer and performer Amanda Rackstraw arrived in the middle of the day to work with me. Amanda had prepared a mixture of traditional stories and poems including some of her own work. We warmed up with poems, then she told two longer stories, one about the Finn Folk and the other, a transformational tale called ‘The Skeleton Woman’.

The final group to come in to the gallery for a workshop were students, also from Coleg Ceredigion. These lively young people are taught Performing Arts by Louise Ritchie, who is also doing a practice based PhD. I did an initial demonstration exchange with one of the students performing while I drew his movements. The process of performative projection drawing intrigued them. The students took over the exchange taking turns at drawing and performing. Students not in the projection activity practiced drawing-from-observation-but-not-looking-at-the-paper with materials provided by Aberystwyth Arts Centre for The Big Draw.

The students and Louise discussed how this method could be used as a form of choreographic scoring both to document and generate movement. They were communicative throughout the drawing process.

One of the last exercises involved two performers working with Mike Pearson’s ‘In All Languages’ movement vocabulary, which Louise has taught the students – and two artists, assigned to draw a performer each. As the four worked together an intense focus developed culminating in a tangible buzz of energy at the completion of the piece. They speculated on further possible applications of this performative approach and were stimulated by working across art forms. I look forward to seeing how they develop their ideas.

The Energy Gift Exchange is now complete.