These little paper creatures were made at a two hour workshop at Letchworth Art Centre by students aged 7 - 10. There wasn't a set outcome - I simply showed them how to make a bowl shape and the students themselves took the construction and added their natural creativity to it and out came creatures and frogs and rainbow bowls!!

Arts Award Silver students workshop painting to music:Dvorak and Muse

These pictures show some of the work produced in a student lead mini workshop that was about painting to music. The student was heavily influenced by Kandinsky in her work and the whole idea of painting as you hear music. She selected two very different pieces of music to work from...  Dvorak was very fluid with great rising cadences and sounds, whilst Muse was fantastic in its heavy base and rock opera feel. We all got completely absorbed in what we were doing. There was a hum in the room as everyone was in their own little art bubble. It was magical.

This student was studying on the Silver Arts Award course I ran at Letchworth Art Centre from Sept 09-April 2010. All the students on the course passed and gained their Silver Award.

A moral dilemma - the Apache Helicopter commission paper cut

Very occasionally I get an unusual commission to do and the Apache helicopter paper cut commission was one of those. It's only a small piece - a little under A4. I have only seen an Apache fly once and that was when I was down to see my father in Winterslow near Salisbury. I was driving back home, past Wallop and there it was, silhouetted against the blue sky. It must have been on a training flight - it was very low and just hovering! An amazing sight. I was so excited to see it so close. My inner 13 year old tomboy came straight to the surface in the same way it does when I see the super snazzy cars on Top Gear.




But it made me face a moral dilemma......
Making the paper cut was more complex than I expected. Not the design - I had a fairly clear idea of the composition and the feel of the piece - a dominant black silhouette shape with an intimation only of the landscape and the sky. That wasn't the difficulty. As I was cutting one fiddly shapes it struck me hard that these were the missile/bomb holders. I had turned them into decorative shapes. It made me think - what am I doing here? Why am I making this cut - glorifying an object of war? Did cutting the piece and NOT thinking about what is an essentially emotive image make me negate any moral question of whether I should make the piece or not? I thought about it for days. Asked friends and family about what they thought and thought about where the commission had come from -a friend whose husband is an Apache helicopter pilot instructor.

After much pondering I did manage to partially resolve the issue. The Apache is used defensively as well. It's an object that serves this country and its flown by people that I hold in deep respect for their ability, intelligence and professionalism and without these people in the armed forces - where would we be? They actually signed on the dotted line to serve... and that's brave.





So the conclusion? the Apache helicopter cut is a celebration, a symbol for the armed services and not a celebration of the machine for its military hard wear and capabilities for conflict and killing. It's my way of saying I respect you and thank you for doing the job that you do. My way of serving in a tiny, tiny way.