Rebecca Strain in Community and Education

Be Yourself

2011-02-13T11:06:00.000-08:00

Once you put it down on paper it's a message that can be read by others or passed around in secret but it's out there now, expressed ink on paper whether you meant it or not.

I was in Bradford when the BNP had organised a demonstration. Just outside the city centre I was working at Toller Youth Cafe and we were talking about protest and human rights. On my way there I saw groups of men in balaclavas and police everywhere. It was rather unsettling and I wondered how I could have a conversation with these young people about respect for other cultures when the adults around them were behaving so badly.

Most of the young people had booked themselves on a coach to visit Old Trafford for the day so when I got there it was just a handful of them waiting around to get all the relevant paperwork signed off. While they were waiting I showed them some of Gillian Wearings "Signs that say what you want them to say and not signs that say what someone else wants you to say" and also some work by FREEE.

Inspired by this newly reconfirmed right to freedom of speech the young guys came up with some of their own signs. One of which was "Be Yourself, Cos no one else can". I was really impressed with this as often when I work with young people they just want to write their own name or the name of an Xbox game, but these guys said something. It doesn't fit into Wearings classification of signs, nor is it on the scale of FREEE's work but it's there, an honest and confident response to an otherwise appalling day for freedom of expression.

BCEP (Bradford Community Envionment Project) Allotments Project

2009-11-25T15:32:00.000-08:00

From September to November 2009 artist Larna Campbell and I worked with BCEP who were working with school children on an allotment near their school.

Larna and I ran visual arts workshops on the allotment to encourage a wider range of children to get involved in using the space. We focused on making hand made paper. We used weeds collected from the allotment to make paper pulp and berries to dye paper. We experimented with sheet forming and then began to use sculptural techniques to make the paper into vessels and forms.

The process of collecting, search for suitable materials was also part of the fun as you can see here the children made pictures of fruit and vegetables from coloured leaves found around the allotment space.

From more info on BCEP go to www.bcep.org.uk

Mums group at Midland Road

2009-10-27T13:29:00.000-07:00

I'm working with Larna Campbell for Artworks Creative Communities on a project with a group of parents at Midland Road Nursery. The aim is to make a mosaic to promote health including emotional well-being general health and a specific health issue identified by the group.

To get our creative muscles loosened up I've been running some taster sessions to get us all geared up for designing the mosaic. Here's how it's going so far:

We had a look through some health leaflets, divided them into those that were relevant and those that weren't. We took the relevant ones home to read and the others we made jewelry from.

The following week we did some creative mapping, drawing our movements for a day or in a week or all the places we go at present.

Here's one participants 'last Wednesday' she visits two schools, family, shopping, home, and attends classes then does the journey again to pick every one up again.

We know ho good fruit is for us, but last week we found out how good drawing is for us.

We had a little exhibition of our work at the end. It's just in the kitchen but it looks good. We have a break now for half term, when we go back we have to plan a day out and then we need to focus on designing and making the mosaic for the center.

YOT Session at St Peter's House

2009-10-01T12:50:00.000-07:00

Today I worked with the YOT team. Two young people, three support staff and a volunteer form Kala Sangam. We had a two hour art session. I'd been to the Manchester Art Fair on Sunday with Louise and Inbal( Louise Atkinson, artist Leeds, and Inbal Druval, artist Israel). It was a good research trip. I spoke to some artist led space and curator led spaces. I noticed a contrast in the kind of work they promoted and how they promoted it. So I showed some of the post cards and magazines I'd picked up to the group.

After a brief discussion about the work. Then we put that aside for a bit and then we looked at Gillian Wearings signs. They went down well. Immediately a young person announced they had the prefect sign, but they were keeping it a secret until we started making.

I'd brought with me a collage I'd done when I was 16 or so. I wanted to make an image that joined the Gillian Wearings signs and my collage of a 2 Unlimited flyer. In other words join a professional practice onto that of a young persons.

So we started with some words I'd cut from the Youth Information website. We attempted to make sentences of our own. They were surreal to say the least. We then chose images from a 2009 calendar as a base and assembled them with these sentences.

Here's what we came up with:

The Law

Disabilies in different cultures.

I don't want your money I just want change.

Finding my niche.

M A N U F A C T U R

Cottingley Cornerstone Center

2009-08-20T14:19:00.000-07:00

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This was a great project through Kala Sangam. It was a group of ladies who were doing art for fun. I showed them how to make paper and they totally loved it. One of the ladies was so good at it she showed the rest of the group who came on the second week. Over four weeks we did marbling, making paper jewelry, printing and based it all around making our own paper.

3D graphic scores

2009-08-10T13:05:00.000-07:00

At an event with Art in the Park Sheffield I facilitated a session on making sculptures that described the sounds we could hear in our environment.

Here's some images of what we made.

We started by listening carefully to the sounds around us.

Then we made marks to represent these shapes.

Then we used materials like pipe cleaners and paper to make these marks into forms.

We hung some outside as well.

Teddy Bear's Picnic

2009-08-04T06:35:00.000-07:00

At Lister Park with Annie Berrington and Artworks such a fun day, playing with twigs and leaves. Andy Goldsworthy must have a great life!

12 Week Residency at The Bolsover School

2009-08-04T05:28:00.002-07:00

Papermaking at The Bolsover School

2009-08-04T05:23:00.000-07:00

Starting to weave The Bolsover School

2009-08-04T05:17:00.001-07:00

More images from The Bolsover School

2009-06-02T15:31:00.000-07:00

Above; paper folding inspired by Janpanese textile artists

constructing with wire

paper frames drying after a days work

Creative Partnerships at The Bolsover School

2009-05-18T03:05:00.001-07:00

After Easter I started a residency at The Bolsover School. We are working on five wall hangings to go in the new school. Alongside this we are exploring handmade paper and constructed textiles. The Bolsover is a specialist enterprise school so we hope to use the paper to make products for the school to sell.
In these first four weeks we have been doing some research into methods of textile construction. We've looked in books and had group discussions to decide what ideas we would like to try out ourselves. Then we've tried out different methods with materials.

tapestry with a cartoon
shading
colour gradation
origami
constructing with wire and recycled fabric
constructing with paper
making paper sheets from recycled paper
collecting plants and flowers from around the schools to make paper
laminating
paper bowls
dying paper with poster paint
exploring natural form
dying fabric
ikat dying
tye dying
drawing

All of our work is dcumented in 'The book of this project' which is a working title.

Artist Carousel

2009-04-03T06:43:00.000-07:00

Year 10 at Benton Park, image by Sue Dixon

Year 8's at Roundhay School, image by David Lindsay

Year 10's Benton Park, image Rebecca Strain

Year 8's at Roundhay School, image David Lindsay

image David Lindsay

This year I took part in the Artist Carousel programme run by Education Leeds and ArtForms. Nine artist and nine schools were chosen to take part. The aim of the project was to introduce artists and secondary schools. Artists were asked to share the way they work with pupils at the schools.
The topic of my sessions were 'Communication in Contemporary Art Practice'. I wanted the students to think about what they are trying to communicate visually through their work and also to share with them ways to come up with and then develop thier ideas.

I used Clare Charnley's Coversation of Things as an example of visual communication. I specifically chose this artist as she lives locally and had been short listed for the prestigous Northern Art Prize.

The pupils from year 7 to year 13 worked in small groups and created there own conversations using things from the classroom and things I had brought to the session. We then discussed our experiences and shared our converstaions. It was important for the pupils to work outside their sketchbook and not to be afraid of 'making mistakes' or getting it wrong. Feedback from pupils was excellent. 'It made me think opener about art', said one pupil form Brighshaw High School. Other schools I worked with were Horsforth School, Benton Park, Roundhay and Priesthope.

Accident Prevention Workshop

2008-06-26T10:05:00.000-07:00

Lead by artist Dawn Sharkey, this workshop with year 3 pupils from Leeds, focused on raising awareness about safety whilst using the road and whilst swimming in the sea. There were four artists involved in facilitating this fun and informative workshop.

There were four groups facilitated by Dawn Sharkey, Larna Campbell, Louise Atkinson and myself. After introduction games we discussed the aims of the workshop which was to create images for banners that would tell young people how to stay safe. The banners would then be displayed in Bradford Bulls Stadium.

First we made people like us to walk on the footpath from card shapes so that the images could be seen clearly.

Next we made cars and placed these on the road. Dawn had made templates of traffic lights, zebra crossings and as you see above traffic islands.

The young people learned how to use the digital camera to take pictures of the different ways to cross the road. Above is people crossing using a subway. We took a photograph of each scene and on our worksheets we did a drawing and wrote what we did.

Next we cut out some letters from what we had written on our worksheets and arranged these on the road scene.We had a great morning it was so much fun. This is what some of the kids said about it:
'It was brilliant today xx'
'I like the teachers so much!'
'I learnt how to be as safe as possible'
'I think it was a fantastic day'

World Environment Day 6th June

2008-06-07T09:49:00.000-07:00

Oh this was sooo much fun! I worked with Louise Atkinson to make a shanty town with pupils from six primary schools in Leeds. Whinmoor, Crossgates, Seacroft Grange, Swarcliffe, and Grimes Dyke.

We gathered up all the things that were lying around our homes and local area that were not in use and created some beautiful artwork in the grounds of Temple Newsom. Below are some pictures of what we did.

We worked in teams of 3-5 and designed and built our own building.

There were lots of decisions to be made about shape, colour, decoration etc.

We all worked together to make it work.

We painted the outside and made curtains and chimneys.

This is how it looked when we put them all together - we even built a bridge!! And at the end of the day the whole town was recycled and made back into new card, paper and plastic for us to use again.

Bangladeshi mature ladies goup

2008-06-01T12:03:00.000-07:00

I am volunteering on a project run by Artworks, Creative Communities, Bradford who are delivering a project focusing on healthly eating with a group of mature ladies from Bangladesh who meet regularly at BEAP in Manningham in Bradford.

When the lead artist Sarah McHenry and I met to discuss the ten week project we agreed that I would do a session on papermaking. I suggested using herbal tea to introduce this to the ladies in and informal way. After a series of sessions where the ladies used dried foods to make patterns, then draw from these patterns we decided that would be a good point to bring in the paper making session.

Some of the ladies were aware of the process and were really looking forward to giving it a go. I allowed them to lead and they encouraged the others in the group to take part. A problem that we face with this group is that many of the ladies don't speak much English. This session was very visual and I found it easy to demonstrate and facilitate with limited verbal communication.

The ladies all loved this process and were delighted when their sheet came out. They used herbal tea to dye the sheets and plants and dried food to decorate. Here are some images of the process.

Arts for Hearts, Year 3

2008-04-02T11:04:00.000-07:00

Year three (7-8 year olds)

After lunch I worked with the year three children. This group seemed much more advanced so I adapted the session accordingly. We started with a discussion about health- foods, drinks, activities, sports, staying clean, etc. This group had a good concept of how to be healthy and where able to discuss this confidently in a group.

I decided to give them more ownership over the banner they would create and I split the class into team of 3 and 4 to come up with designs using the themes we had discussed. This worked really well. I called the class back to the floor after 15 minutes of drawing to discuss what they had come up with. I then explained that we had various colours of large squares of felt and that they must decide in their group what colour would be best for their designs. This was a great opportunity to develop their decision-making and negotiating skills whilst in a team. They responded very well and although some team picked the same colour, they were able to come up with solutions that worked for everybody.

The next challenge for the teams was to decide how each person in their team would contribute to the design on the felt square. Each team took an individual approach to this. Some took it turns to do their own picture, some clearly divided up the square into four of three, some gathered around and all drew at the same time, and some where happy to instruct the others in the group and not take part in the actual drawing themselves.

After some time I demonstrated how to cut a hole in the felt to attached it to the banner and called on a volunteer to demonstrate it also and after they had completed this we decided on the layout of the banner by voting and some of the group helped to attach the squares to the banner.

Feedback: ‘That was good’

Arts for Hearts, year 1

2008-04-02T10:43:00.000-07:00

Year one (5-6 year olds):
The children in year one were very excited about the activity they would be doing today. After an initial introduction I played a game with them inspired by a games called nonsense poem to encourage them to think in images about health. The tables were set out with paper and pencils and the children walked around the table until I said a word, such as healthy food, whereupon they would draw the first thing that came into their heads. After a minute or two I would ask them to continue walking and then say another phrase, such as staying active or keeping clean until we had covered a range of health topics. This worked well for some children and not so well with others as they were more comfortable sitting and spending time over a drawing. So after this I let them spend some time drawing their own images of health foods, drinks and activities. I encouraged them to use the images from the big sheets and swapped these from table to table to share the information.
About 15 minutes before their break I demonstrated using the fabric paints which they were going o use to decorate their felt square before it went on their banner. Because of the nature of this technique this would be done table by table so that they could wear aprons and cover the table. The children really enjoyed using the paints as there was a wide variety of colours to use. I was a little concerned about using fabric paints and some of the children found using them quite challenging. Some found it difficult to wait their turn to paint whereas others really enjoyed having more time to draw or play with jigsaws.
After each child had decorated a square of felt I then put these together on the banner. Some of the children helped me with this and others decorated the lettering, which said ‘Healthy and Happy’.

Feedback
Children: ‘I liked painting’, ‘That was fun’
Teacher ‘I think they really enjoyed this process’

Arts for Hearts at St Stephens Primary School

2008-04-02T10:22:00.000-07:00

St Stephen's Primary School in Bradford and Kala Sangam, Bradford commisioned four artists to work with eight year groups to create artwork around the theme of healthly living. I was asked to work with year 1 and year 3 using constructed textiles. Above are some images of the planning stages.

Aims: To create a semi permanent piece of art work using the theme of healthy eating and exercise with each class to be completed and ready for display by the end of the day

Objectives: Each group will be given the opportunity to discuss what they understand about healthy living
Each group will be involved in creative activity, which looks at aspects of healthy living
Each child will have the opportunity to contribute to a class banner to be displayed at the end of the day in school assembly

Outline of workshop: The workshop is to last for two hours for each class. At the beginning of each session there will be an open discussion about health followed by drawing and then a demonstration of the materials that the children will use to create the banner. The technique I will be using is taken from appliqué. Usually in appliqué the shapes are sewn onto the backing fabric. As we are constrained by time and skills I will be using an open mesh fabric as the backing cloth so that the shapes can be tied on at the corners.

March 2008, International Women's Day - A better world in your Hands'

2008-03-10T19:53:00.001-07:00

Participants were provided with materials with which to decorate with their plastic bag Hands with words or images of what they have learned about positive effects hey can have on their environment. The Hands would then be displayed with other Hands made by participants symbolising that our personal efforts combine to make a big difference. There was an opportunity at this point for participants to reflect on the creative experience and add to a feedback tree.

International Womens Day 2008

2008-03-10T19:40:00.000-07:00

Images from Workshop at Bradford Cathedral.
Clients Bradford Womens Forum and Kala Sangam

The title of the workshop was be 'A better world in your hands'. The Hands symbolise something universal yet personal. We invited participants to make there own hand from the plastic bags they have brought with them. By using recycled plastic bags we hoped to encourage participants to think about reusing as a way of cutting down waste and in turn reduce their carbon footprint.