Sunday 24 November 2013

The Order of Things...

Apologies for the virtual silence, its been a hectic few days gathering evaluation and press cuttings together for my activity report (that I really need to complete!)

I thought I would provide you with a visual tour through the event last week, so you feel like you were there I guess.

One thing I will say is that, (and friends of mine who are also artists agree with this), it is so hard to gather support and get people to come to art events when you're an emerging artist.

Even if something has had a lot of money and advertising pumped into it, it is still difficult to get people to support. A case I'm thinking about is a very high profile art/music/creative event that was on in this city of Liverpool the day after my event, and I happened to notice on a famous social networking site that one of the event musicians/performers performing only had about 10 people attend their performance.

Honestly, this made me feel disappointment for that person and event, but also that maybe I hadn't 'failed' as much as I had thought through the attendance of 34 people at my event.

Sometimes it doesn't matter how much advertising and marketing is done, you just can't get the support and I really don't know why this is, other than to say that the weather could have a lot to do with it and that people are genuinely too busy to support. I'm not complaining, its just a struggle that has prompted me to think about what direction this audience development side of my practice must go in.

Anyway….back to the pics, taken by the wonderful Liverpool based photographer, Justyna Czasnowicz.

Jackie, the (funky) art technician, pegs out the animation
cells in prep for the event.

Pulling my weight.
Fancy footwork…



     
…and more fancy flamenco steps
And over to Carmen..

  


             
     
Then Clare….    

Allie begins the performance...














Ole!






Wednesday 20 November 2013

For Me, Carmen & Gillian….





'Self Portrait as Me, Carmen & Gillian' (2013)



On Reflection...

So, as I promised, I will report on the event yesterday.

Now I am rested (sort of!), I can update you on yesterdays events.

The way I work when I'm setting up a show or an event is that I can never really plan what is going to go where until I am in the space and working directly with it.

Last week, I was told that I would have to use a different space to the one I thought I was going to use in the school for the celebration event, so I had absolutely no time or access to the two dance studios where I was going to be presenting the work, and therefore, absolutely no idea as to what I would be dealing with in terms of what my original installation ideas would be for the animation cells that I wanted to hang.

Equally, I was short on prep time yesterday, as I could only have the art technician's help from 12:15 and then I couldn't get access to the actual rooms until 1:15pm.

So faced with this, I just continued with the idea of hanging the animation cells on fishing wire with small pegs and started preparing them with the help of Jackie, the art technician. My outlook was that, however many we got to hang in the time we had was OK for me. It didn't have to be the entire 1300 plus cells that myself and the students had traced, though if there had of been the time to do that, that would have been so beautiful.

For me, I feel very fortunate in that everything always seems to work out as it should when I get into a space. I know we can't always rely on fluke's, but again, its only when I see a space, almost on the day of an install, that I get an idea of what I want and how the work can be shown.

So anyway, for some reason I was only aware of the one dance studio that I'd gone into yesterday to start planning where things where going and being hung etc.

The only decent space I could see to hang the cells was from one iron post at one far end of the room, crossing diagonally to a post near the front left of the room.

Now, there was only really room for 4 rows of the animation cells with this kind of set-up, but mystically, the first set of cells from the first 118 frames were the cells showing the hand-traced close ups of my feet. I remember laughing to myself because this was perfect for the event as Carmen Amaya  was known specifically for her fast and furious footwork. Perfecto, no?

So what happened next was an absolute gift from the universe really, as the caretaker came and opened up the partition door that opened the gateway to the other dance studio that I previously couldn't open and there was the state of the art white board projector that I had requested (after I was informed that the rear projector I really wanted wasn't available).

Things were unfolding nicely as I set that up and then put the information boards on easels as the connection to art and dance was made.

Jackie and I finished in time for the project participants and the first guests to arrive.

Only one of the parents of the main art club participants showed up, I expect because of work and childcare and it turns out that the family live in the same road as me, so this is real community work going on here.

After the event I heard that this parent had said that her child had never engaged with art before this project and that he had enjoyed it - which I was delighted to hear.

Then there was a guy from Liverpool Cultural Champions who had written a piece about me online
here: http://liverpoolculturalchampions.com/author/andreolchowski/

I though that this was great because he talked about me being someone who lives my dreams and goes for what I want. Thats what I was trying to inspire the young people to do, never hold back and never give up. But I must learn not to do that myself before trying to inspire others I suppose?

So after most of the guests arrived (around 34 people on the monitoring form!) I did a little thank-you speech and explained a bit about how much this project meant to me, how tough the last 3 months have been and that in essence, this project is about raising confidence in young people in Halewood, through creativity.

I have to say I did get a bit blubbery and emotional because I have worked so so hard on this project to make it work. I think maybe too hard sometimes in that its become a slight obsession that it had to be the most grandiose project, when really, on reflection, it didn't need a massive event (or that much effort for the event maybe?) as what matters is the impact its had on the students participating. Not a great big show. The sentiment is in what the students have gained from this project over the last 6 sessions.

What was important though was to illustrate what I meant about raising confidence through creativity and the relationship between these two things.

I had read an article featuring the famous jazz musician Wayne Shorter which actually summed up what I was trying to achieve. He said in this article:

"Its a funny thing, the state the world is in today with the economy and no jobs. This is the perfect setting for a relationship of courage and creativity to manifest within many walks of life. It is a time for great creativity." (SGI Quarterly, January 2012)

I shared this with people in the hope that they may understand what I meant and then, then came the Flamenco!

As part of the event I hired Flamenco dancer, Allie Herrmann from Manchester, who was totally amazing in spellbinding the audience, really warming up the cold November evening with her hearty
Flamenco dancing and workshop, in which 2 of the young male participants got up and joined her on the floor to have a go at a few steps.

The reason Allie was so great, not just because of her very well trained moves, was because she managed the audience so well and also because, after my speech she could see how emotional and passionate I was about the project. She explained to everyone how Flamenco is about that confidence that I'm trying to pass on to the young people, and I think they took it in, because everyone was, in their  own individual way of responding, reacted very positively to the performance and workshop.

She also explained how Flamenco is not about celebrity culture. It is a dance of passion and of struggle. there are famous dancers, she explained, but its not about becoming famous. Carmen Amaya was  self-taught and danced for herself and her own pleasure. It was her strength, passion and unique style that catapulted her into the limelight and to becoming a leading figure of Flamenco and Catalan culture.

Again, that was so good for the younger attendees to hear, as all too often these days the culture of celebrity is rammed down their throat and they're given the message that to be famous is to be someone and we should all strive for the 'material'.

Joining in with some of the steps that had become so familiar to me during my month in Barcelona, really re-ignited my desire to start Flamenco again. I just haven't had the time to do any since being back and thats really regretful, but the fire is very much still there, and I haven't hung up my nail capped zapatos yet!



Allie Herrmann puts her best foot forward at last nights event
Photograph: Justyna Czasnowizc

After the performance / workshop, everyone was free to watch our film / animation again, though this was interrupted by the participants taking to the floor to thank me, which was so lovely and appreciated (even followed by my own fan club chant of 'we love you Clare, we do!' the shame!)

I will be posting a separate blog about the work produced from this project as I didn't get to show the more personal piece of work I 'created' out of the Flamenco training process. 

                                       
                                     Still from ' Bewitched Triptych', the collaborative animation.

So, all in all, though many people didn't turn up (even those I thought would come who had supported the project!), on reflection I felt it was a success and the reason was this. Even if I have inspired one young person who participated or attended the event or even one older person there last night, even if I have inspired them to use creativity or art to gain confidence in some area of their life, is that not positive?

There were 3 young women at the event last night who were students at the Academy and they were brilliant in that they stuck around and got involved in the Flamenco moves because they had an interest in dance. Sadly I did;n't get a feedback form from them (doh!) but the fact that they were there is amazing - and they stayed for the whole event - because at the beginning when I was setting up they were asking, who is the famous dancer that they'll be watching, so when I told them that 50 years ago she died aged 50, they were shocked and still hung around to see what was going on.

After the event, I heard the lead teacher for the school on the project talking to another teacher from another local school and they were talking about how they'd love to do a school art trip to Barcelona.

That other teacher had also said to me that she had never though of inviting animators into school to work on projects, she had always gone for fine artists to engage her students.

Also, another of the parents of one of the project participants who arrived a bit later told me something really encouraging that her daughter had said, which was, did she think that I would do another art project at the school?

That to me was just one of the bigger victories of this project and is to be celebrated as though there were a thousand people at last nights event.

So, now that party is over, (and its so funny how quickly everything flies by despite the weeks of planning), today I have down the last bits of press hoping for some retrospective coverage out of the project and then its on to evaluation, evaluation, evaluation!

In the meantime, here is the final animation piece I showed at the event.



Result? Victory!



Tuesday 19 November 2013

Victoria! (as in Victory. Well, sort of!)

So I have news to report that the Celebration Event went ahead successfully today.

There were about 20+ attendees, which, on a wintry November eve like tonight is OK, I guess.

Right now I feel as though a huge weight is off my shoulders and that I can relax, but of course there is a lot of follow up work to complete.

At the moment, its been such a tiring few weeks, months even, and such a tiring day that I will escribe pronto, this chica is so exhausted, in a good way.

I've drawn so much out of this event alone. I will enlighten you more tomorrow, but I did a good thing in my community.

For you Carmen. Muchas gracias.

As has been the case for such a large part of this project, Estoy canasta. Again. Time for bed, there is still much work to do tomorrow, reflection, evaluation etc etc…a whole report on today and hopefully some pics as well!

Hasta maƱana, when I write more.

Buenos noches x

Celebration!

Well, I am just about on my way to the school to install the animation (called 'Bewitched Triptych') and other bits and bobs for the Celebration Event tonight.

This is a victory as I've been letting fear get the better of me all week, all month, all project!

I've learnt soooo much about myself during this process, namely that I tend to take on too much myself!

Feeling excited and nervous about tonight, don't know who to expect!

I tried my best in every way and will post more about the final works later or tomorrow, when I've rested!

Thinking of Carmen as today is the 50th Anniversary of her passing.

One groundbreaking woman to another. Thank you Carmen. Your spirit lives on, even outside Catalonia. Ole!






Sunday 17 November 2013

No Entiendo!

So, I realise there have been no posts from me for some days now, largely due to the fact that I've been quite busy with completing the final animation for the celebration event on Tuesday and also because there has been so much confusion about the space I'm using at the school.

Essentially, or one reason or another there has been a bit of a break down in communication about the event, something that over the last few days I have de-briefed myself on, reflected on and learnt from!

I really should have checked that in the school everything was being communicated to the people that needed to know, from Day 1. This could have saved a lot of pain and time, for me particularly, but as long as I have learnt from this (and know I am not entirely at fault here!), then its all good.

I just want the event to be great for the students. So I get the film done today, do some final bits of marketing for the event and then get the final preps on place tomorrow.

I thought I didn't understand why there were problems occurring with the event preparation, but now I can see that its all just a huge learning curve and I have to respect the environment I'm going into and no assume I can just do the things I need to do.

Its all down to communication and understanding at the end of the day and I have learnt so much, particularly in the collaboration part of this project.

All is not lost. I just hope the event goes as well as I want it to so that the students have a sense of pride in their work.

And so to complete that work.....

Wednesday 13 November 2013

Exhaustion.

Thats all I can say right now….6 days of very hard work ensue. Looking forward to it, but need to keep my energy up. Hence the early night right now.

Many ideas about the event all in my head ready to spill out but first, rest.

Buenos Noches.

Tuesday 12 November 2013

Terminar 2

So after completing the last of the rostrum photography for the animation cells yesterday, and starting to number, crop and paint-bucket the remaining cells ready for the edit later this week, today was the last workshop session at the school.

Only 4 of my participants could make it today so I went through the journey of the project with them in an iPhoto slideshow, to show them how far we had come.

Then we looked around the Atrium space to recce it and come up with ideas about what we needed for the Event next Tuesday.

They were a very chatty bunch today, so slightly hard for me to manage at this crucial stage!

Nevertheless there were some pretty great ideas about what we needed to have on the event day.

The participants were suggesting that I run a split screen video of the original footage with the animated footage. Then they suggested that each person who comes should have a raffle ticket on the way in and go to sit at that table with their number on it and then draw a raffle so that people win gifts.

One of them even suggested that I do my flamenco routine as well as the dancer who is booked. I feel a bit nervous about the thought of that, with a recovering back injury at the moment and having to organise the whole thing as well, there's just no real time to rehearse….

Another idea was on the back of the feedback form, there should be a picture for younger attendees to colour in …. all great ideas but I'm unsure that there's really time for them at this stage now.

So we got on with typing up the credits and the thank-you's whilst one of the participants researched some information about Carmen Amaya and another designed an audience feedback form.

I also decided to do the final project evaluation today as it could be difficult to secure time with the participants once the event has passed.

The feedback I got from the participants as usual was glowing. I think the've really enjoyed it and I have as well. There's still a lot to do for Tuesday, though, starting with a meeting tomorrow morning with the teacher and the technician to sort out the practicalities of the event and what equipment and set up I'll need next week, but I look forward to getting that sorted so I can concentrate on pushing the event and actually completing the work for it!


Working away on the event prep earlier today.




Sunday 10 November 2013

Playing Catch Up!

So hello! I haven't written in quite a few days due to sheer lack of energy, definitely not lack of enthusiasm!

I have been rostruming, workshopping, flying etc etc…..

My penultimate session with the students at Halewood Academy was last Thursday 7th November and it was a decent workshop, continuing with the photoshopping / paint-bucketing exercise and I have to say it was a girl who was the best and quickest at the exercise and it was just interesting to see how the students picked up the learning of the task.

I had one student show me an alternative way of making the background black and the figure and feet white….though I've forgotten now how he did it.

Still enthusiasm abounded in the session with one girl asking if I could go in the following day to continue the session and one boy asking if I would be doing the activity / project next year. So I think they like this project!

Tomorrow is (supposedly) my last rostrum photography day at LJMU, though I am getting very confused with the order and sections of the animation cells that I've completed…..it will be fine I hope!

As far as the event is concerned, I know that some local councillors from Halewood may be attending the event and I have booked the flamenco dancer so this week, in terms of time is crucial to finish everything on time to install for Monday and show on Tuesday.

In the meantime, I've said it many times before….estoy canasta.

Buenos Noches, amigos x

Tuesday 5 November 2013

And then there were...

Five! My five core participants showed for the 4th art workshop session today, which I was pleased with as this made the session much more manageable as they were very excitable today!

The activity I set them was to paint bucket in Photoshop all of the frames I had photographed and cropped yesterday, so that the inside of the drawn figures were white, and the outside of the drawn figures were chequered, so that they would be black when imported into the editing software, which was 'sick' according to one of the group.

I think maybe because this was a more focused, sit and concentrate activity, it wasn't as popular as the outlining or inking. Not that this group aren't capable of focussing, I think it being bonfire night they must have been a bit more excited and using the Macs in the library space also made them livelier for some reason.

Still it was an interesting session. I had set the group 30 images each to paint bucket, trying not to underestimate their capabilities like with the outlining exercise. But this exercise does take patience and also getting used to Photoshop and the particular functions I was asking them to use.....

One of the group is very talented at animation and it seems to have captured his imagination. In fact, he showed me in Powerpoint how to make the whole of the background black with just the white outline of the drawings remaining, kind of reversing the image we started with. I didn't even know you could animate in Powerpoint. More learning for me.

The group are happy to continue the task on Thursday, the penultimate session. I think they want to see an outcome soon.....I will show them a taster of what the amended, paint bucketed frames look like in the editing software on Thursday if there's time.

Finished the session by handing out the flyers for the event which I'm happy we've now got and will discuss with the Teacher on Thursday about the exact proceedings for the event and what help I'll need.

Despite a slightly unsettled session on the Macs, the participants still said they enjoyed the session in the evaluation forms. I just didn't have time to take many pictures of the process and anyway, only 2 of the group have brought their photo consent forms back so don't want to compromise that!

Finally, I can't believe I have finished stapling the remaining 600 odd cells ready to outline tomorrow. I don't think I'll get them all done but hope I will in time for another rostrum session later this week.

Funny how quick I've become at stapling the tracing paper to the print outs of the cells and the realisations I've had about the project and my process and how this is about my continued learning as much as the young artists.  Its also amazing how the project is constantly evolving and the themes that are surfacing, particularly the idea of contrasts for example, from learning something quick / in a short space of time (flamenco) compared to carrying out a very labour intensive process of traditional rotascoping. This fits in well with my research about process and outcomes and I look forward to sharing this within the final displayed work.

Project participant paint-bucketing a frame 

Our event flyer!






Monday 4 November 2013

Taking my time...

Today has been one of absolute ups and downs. Had a great day in LJMU Digital Imaging Department taking rostrum pictures of half of the 1348 frames needed for the animation, so only around another 648 to staple, trace and photograph!

It was a really fun and different way of working in the studio at the Uni, a lovely working learning environment.

I was quite nervous at photographing each frame, but it turned out to be a very quick process.

I was using a Nikon DSLR, which was lovely to use and I made sure I marked up where the frames had been sitting on the rostrum so that when I go back in later this week to complete the exercise, all of the remaining frames will be in the right place.

Andy and Carlos the technicians were so helpful in there and I even made it onto Andy's blog which can be found at interactive-lead.tumblr.com

Picked up around 700 sheets of tracing paper for the rest of the cell tracing that I need to do, so that will keep me busy for a few days!

The rest of the day has been spent batch cropping the images photographed today, ready to take some into the school session tomorrow and completing the event flyer which will be going to print tomorrow - ready for distribution and emailing as an invite. This has taken some time to do as it involves a very bold and bright Catalan flag!

And so to bed....I'm enjoying this process but its tiring!

Saludo!




Sunday 3 November 2013

In the right place...

Hey, blogspot! I have missed you, but what an exciting few days filled with workshop Session 3 (Thursday), testing out the rostrum technique and finishing a draft version of the celebration event flyer (Friday) and general printing out and tracing of frames (Saturday and today!)

I shall start with Thursday's 3rd session, which was 'Awesome' as many of the participants put it. We completed more tracings and we had a guest artist in to help the participants to design a flyer.

It was another great session and actually I feel that we're all in the right place as I wanted to try and teach an element of patience to the participants through the tracing exercise and also to try and address team-working outcomes through the art work and the process of this animation creation, so we'll see how it goes on in the next few sessions.

A couple of students also worked with Sam Hatton, an animation artist who is also great at graphics, so she came in to support the creation of the celebration event flyer / invite.

I had previously met with Debbie Rose of Knowsley MBC before this session. Debbie is a Leisure & Culture Development Officer with a particular remit for Halewood Academy and we spoke about the event and the meaning behind the work and she put me in the right direction for getting contacts etc to invite to the event on the 19th, so I was able to talk to Liz, the teacher I'm working with at the Academy and we managed to get the ball rolling on a bit of planning of the event on Thursday which was great.

A great session was had by all that day with the young people really enjoying the tracing exercise and as it was Halloween, I gave them some souvenirs I had brought back from Barcelona for them and for their hard work so far!

Friday was another great day, I managed to get into a local University to use their rostrum facilities starting tomorrow. Its very modern and up to date, but first I went to my friend Sam's who has an older version to test out what I'll be doing and the result was really good, though in retrospect, when I'm looking at the tracings of the figure, I should have told the participants to traces the outer section of my outline, as there are just a few inconsistencies, but its all a learning curve, so never mind!

The flyer is also almost done for the celebration event, based upon the ideas the young lads in the session had on Thursday. I just need to get this approved before it goes to print.

Saturday and Sunday have been quite mad busy too.....lots of printing of the cells to be traced - I'm halfway through now so I just need to pick up the rest of the tracing paper tomorrow to finish that off and today I have been prepping for the rostrum session tomorrow, separating the traced cells from the original printed ones so I can photograph them.

Its all go, but I'm happy in my work and in all of the learning that I've done in this phase of the project.

More to come on that, but the last few days, it's been awesome!

More tracing.....

And more.....

And more....!

Artist Sam Hatton working on a flyer with students

Rostrum Test / Exercise....