URBAN III…Keep Thinking

What a crazy 10 days! URBAN III was a project developed by Together, for which I was the English leader. As team leader one of my responsibilities was to find 4 ‘motivated’ graffiti artists. I’m sure you are all familiar with the expression “never work with children or animals”…well im going to add graffiti artist in to that mix. It was totally impossible to tie them down to anything, let alone actually booking a ticket to Metz, where the project was taking place. Finally however (despite a fine line in excellent excuses including ’I have broken my toe, so I guess I wont be able to come to france any longer’ 3 days before we were due to leave) I and 4 others left for Metz!

During the APV in April, I and the four other leaders had planned workshops based on Graffiti Techniques, Communications and Documenting, Graffiti Animation and Graphic Design. I was in charge of the Communications and Documenting workshop, which I was to say the least a little nervous about, having NEVER made a film in my life. However in my group there were 3 very lovely girls who shared my work ethic and worker their absolute socks off! We spent the first few days exploring techniques which we were going to use, like time-lapse (a particular favourite of everyone’s), developing SLR photography skills and exploring the software we would use to make the film. It was a very steep learning curve for me having never made a film before, and having to teach others how to do so. I had to put in a lot of extra time in order to work out glitches. the next 4 days were spent interviewing people about graffiti and its role in society and taking photographs and film of people making graffiti, as well as discussing between ourselves how we could show these opinions in a visually exciting way.

It was amazing for me seeing how the participants had developed since the first day, and how they had taken on board what I had taught them about how to take good photos by using the right iso, shutterspeed and aperture, as well as thinking about the frame before they shot the image!

Finally we began to put the video together, this is where all our hard work paid off! Very quickly we began to see great results, just by setting videos or pictures to music it made them come alive! We realised that the music was very important to get right in order to make the video flow, so we spent a lot of time picking the right tracks for the right images.  The last part was the hardest and most boring…getting everything PERFECT! It took so much tweaking and extending of slide times, deleting miliseconds of videos, and adjusting subtitle entry and exit times in order to make it fit perfectly. However once it was all finished we were all very excited…but EXHAUSTED!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85QIw3A1Z4c 

I was so pleased with what we had created together, especially as somehow I had managed to make the workshop which I had planned and developed actually work. I was so happy that the girls enjoyed themselfs whilst making the video, and had learnt so much from doing so. There was a lot of talk about their next projects which made me even more excited at the idea that I has sparked some creative talent within them!  

Another success of the project was one of the participants.  To start with I was very worried about them, they didn’t want to be in Metz, and definitely didn’t want to work together with the other graffiti artists, which of course was the entire point of Urban III. However slowly, and with quite a lot of encouragement they started to come out of their shell, and to begin enjoying themself! What really struck me was when they said, “I’m amazed that everyone has just excepted me like they have”, The idea that anyone would not accept someone they know nothing about made me really sad.  The negative perception that they had of themself was holding them back. By then end of the week they were clearly enjoying themselves no end!: organising energisers in their free time and asking when they could come back and be part of another project. For me this participant was the reason why it is important to do residential projects over a longer period of time. They needed time to let down their defences and learn something about other people, and therefore about themselves, something they never would have done if they had not been taken outside their comfort zone for an extended period of time….however, taking them out of their comfort zone showed them that actually it really wasnt that comfortable!

As a result of me participating on Urban III I have been asked by Luc (the President of Together) to do Service Civic for Together for a year. I’m moving to France at the begging of August. I would like to take this rather public opportunity to say thank you to Liz and Helen and OYAP Trust who indirectly have given me this opportunity. Heaven knows what I would be doing now if it wasn’t for OYAP and the Young Creative Leadership Training! SO THANK YOU!

Art CAN’T make a difference if people DON’T want to take part!

A couple of weeks ago I had a bit of a break down, and told my mentor that I didn’t think it was possible to achieve the things that I want to achieve through art…for me actually this isn’t a bit of a break down it’s a massive break down. Everything I have been working towards for the last 3 years would have been a great big roundabout, with me just shooting round and round for 3 years, unable to get off!

However with a bit of hindsight, a sensible ear to listen to my rant, and some interest being shown in projects I have developed I’m back on track, and hopefully soon will be off the roundabout and shooting my way down the M1!

I think this disillusionment was mainly down to a lack of enthusiasm about a few projects that I have been arranging. How was I meant to use art to change the world if people didn’t want to change the world, or try on new things, or meet new people?

I never realised how icy a reception I would receive to certain projects, especially those which offers young people the chance to visit Europe! I suppose on paper, projects look a lot more official and a lot less fun, but how are we ever going to secure funding for projects if they sound like participants are going to have the time of their lives (which NATURALLY they will!)

I think motivation to participate is something that England struggles with! We have so many options and chances in today’s society that it is impossible  to decide which to choose…which will help us and which won’t?…so we just don’t chose at all! Working with Together showed me how willing young people from other counties are to get involved with projects in their community and that there isn’t always a stigma attached to taking part in extra curricular activities; But this stigma definitely exists for british young people!

I’m not sure what we can do about this stigma…but we need to do something! There are so many chances for young people to get involved with life changing activities, but they just shun them!

If you have any ideas…PLEASE LET ME KNOW!

Numero dos:Gender Equality

We had a really interesting session on gender equality in society on Sunday. We started by discussing the positive and negative aspects of the roles of women in society. Sadly came up with a lot more negatives than positives. Eric spoke of the women in Guatemala being forced to do much of the work, not just in the home but also paid work to support their family’s. He said often they were forced to take on this role as

their husbands or fathers did nothing but drink and smoke; yet they still did not gain any respect within society.  As I am learning this is of course the case not just in Guatemala but can be seen all over the world.

In order to discuss this further and to create a visual campaign, we split in to groups and created 5 photographs which portrayed both the negative and positive roles of women. We portrayed sexual, domestic and pay equality, the maternal figure in society and women as educator to improve the future.  The latter point it was clear everyone considered the most important during the discussion afterwards. If change is going to occur women needed to be empowered. By educating them and showing them that gender equality and freedom from repression is their right will give them the strength to educate their children. If this happened the children would grow up surround by positive images of both men and women; Therefore would create a  world where both genders are treated as equals.  However it is inevitable that change will be slow.

In the western world. One issue which was raised was that feminism has gone too far! I think that sometimes it is expected of women to assume the role that men have in Europe especially in regard to mother hood and returning back to work before they are necessarily ready to do so. this damages their relationship with their children and therefore damages their children, which damages society! There is also the debate where women reject social eticate between men and women as they consider this to be discrimination against women, and suggesting that women can not adequately look after them selfs. However i am of the opinion that Chivalry is not dead!

The Miracle Project

It’s been a while since I last blogged, and A LOT has changed!

By chance some miracle happened and Emma, Alice and I stuck gold with an idea for a project whilst thinking about fundraising and budgeting. We were given funding criteria and had to pitch an idea for a proposal to Liz and Helen including the budget (which slightly got left behind because the actual concept of the project took over in our priorities!)

Our project concepts aim is to enhance cultural cohesion and awareness of other cultures between different sections of the oxford community. Through the project we hope to celebrate and honour diversity and cross cultural interaction. At the moment the project is in the VERY early stages of development.

Were hoping to have some preliminary meetings with possible partners in early March once our idea is more concrete and we have had a few consultations with possible participants.

Time is ticking on, at a quite horrific speed, and our project is slowly picking up momentum, so I will keep you up to date with developments more regularly from now on!

“Give ‘em tea”…Leadership and Self Employment

Another crazy two days at OYAP thinking and learning about partnership working and self employment. Schedual D, QR Barcodes, intellectual Property, preconceptions, idea development and a lot about social networking online (which I have gone to town with…possibly a little early)

CRUMBS! Again a lot to take in and made me terrified about attributing everything correctly and also wary of where I put work of my own. (I have recently received an email from a friend threatening to take me to court over a photo of her that I put on Facebook after I told her about the need to attribute everything and the possibility of people using your work without permission or claiming it as their own. hopefully she will not follow her threat through!)

I’m also beginning to think about USP’s which seems to be a crazy concept. I hate the idea of having to sell myself to people. the only way I can sum up how hard I’m going to find this particular must is a sentence I wrote on the train home from Bicester; “what the FLIPPOS are my USP’s…I cannot even BEGIN to imagine what makes me unique from anyone else???” clearly this is something I’m going to have to work on, and I think it’s probaly something which will become clear as I become more confident in myself and my ideas! – Reputation and a recognisable profile will be the work of the next few years!

On to partnership now. which seems like an EXCELLENT strategy for excelling and achieving great things for all those involved! And the beginning of a good partnership begins apparently with a cup of tea. VERY true! You can never have enough tea.

What struck me most about the session on partnership was when Maddy, Emma and I planned an idea for an Art project that we could do with young people. The final concept that we came up with was OUTRAGEOUSLY flawed but very different to anything I would have ever come up with by myself, and therefore probably much more succinct and rounded and also achievable! It proved for me how important it is to work with other people so you have a broarder spectrum of Ideas and concepts which can lead to a much  more refined and therefore successful final project.

Free Lancing

So today we had a session with  Juliet Brain who is an art consultant. It was really nice to meet her she was very helpful. My blog for today will be what I wrote in our speedwriting exercise. I think it pretty much sums up my feelings of the day. Here it goes:

I figure I need to think very seriously about freelance work. I want to make a living working in the music world, as a performer but also as a song writer or even concert manager or something of the sort. I want to be successful without losing a sense of what my passion is but at the same time be at peace if things don’t work out. OYAP is giving me a great opportunity + sense of focus and I am very grateful. I must use this experience as well as I possibly can for my own benefit so I can become who I want to be. That is all.

So that’s what I came up with in 120 seconds.

Week 1 at OYAP

What a busy week!

First, meeting everyone. I was more worried about being late than about meeting everyone. Probably because I was SO late for my interview (I got very lost…). Liz and Helen were so nice about it though, so I was really comfortable about seeing them again. I was just hoping that everyone else would be just as nice. From what I can tell so far, they are! Yep, it’s very exciting to be part of a group which seems so inspired and motivated to start something new, something big, something awesome.

The induction went well, we spent two days going over what the programme entailed. What was expected of us and what we should expect to get out of this experience. We did a bit of dreaming and thought of potential project ideas. I must say, at the end of the second day I felt like my brain was going to explode. I did have a bit of an ‘information overload’! It was a lot to take in but it was really good to ask questions and have a clearer idea of what is about to happen. Over the two days I heard the word JOURNEY repeated several times. I liked the fact Helen and Liz were using that word to describe what we were about to start. Everything I do I take it as being part of my journey here. I could really relate to that and it made me feel more comfortable about this whole thing. My plan is to take it as it comes and do the best I possibly can. After the two days of induction I felt tired but totally inspired and REALLY excited. All the other young leaders are so friendly I’m really looking forward to getting to know them better. There’s 9 of us so far and we might end up with a 10th person? Not sure but we will see.

On Thursday 18th Nov some of us went to the “Vicious Youth” premiere. I loved it. It was so much fun to see young people be so proud of something they created. They were loving the red carpet

On Friday 19th Nov we had a tour of Modern Art Oxford. Sarah Mossop – Head of Education, showed us around. We saw their offices, their library and got to meet one of the artists that had some of his work up, Jon Lockhart. It was a great experience. Sarah Mossop was very helpful and answered all our questions. Jon Lockhart was more than happy to tell us about his art, his practice and the ins and outs of being an artist. It was SO interesting. It really makes you think and challenge what you already think you know. I got lots of ideas just by walking around and listening to all the discussions. I loved every minute and felt very privilege to get a different insight of the art world. Being a musician, I did wonder how much I’d get from the visit but I got a lot out of it. The discussion wasn’t necessarily around the art itself but more around the how, why and experience in the arts rather than the particular art form.

I have a lot to think about and a lot to take in. If I had to describe this first week in just a few words I would describe it as: Inspiring, Fun and New!

I look forward to much much more

The journey has now begun…

First blog…scary stuff!

So a week has now passed since our first two  training sessions, (which were insane!) Two days of much information cramming and brainstorming and chatting about youth arts…By tuesday afternoon we were all a little exhausted and over excited and coming up with some not very inspiring ideas about evaluation; but very comfortable with each other and also being at OYAP!

There are 10 of us altogether, and I cannot belive how well we all seemed to get on. It’s quite bizarre being in the same room with such a big group of young people who all have similar aims and ideas to my own, but also very inspiring and exciting!

I have a feeling that this next year is going to be a tough and a very steep learning curve, but I can not wait to get started now.  Seeing the Vicious Youth Premier on Thursday night made me even more excited about what I have somehow managed to get my self into. I just hope I can live up to my own expectations of my self!

A Perfect Day June 2010

A Perfect Day project brought together the members of Bicester Resource Centre and local pupils from Kings Meadow School to create a graffiti mural. The mural is hanging on the dinning room wall at Bicester Resource centre and is much loved.

To see the photos of this project see the link bellow.

http://beccart.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/a-perfect-day-in-action/

Success is the result of perspiration not

inspiration.

There I am, sitting down to lunch with my mentor for our last session. I have just sat on my first interviewing panel and been commented as peer to my patron Helen Le Brocq. I think that the latter was a little generous. My mentor wanted to treat me for working so hard over the past year. All my questions for my mentor made me feel just as far off being professional as at the beginning of the year but perhaps from a slightly higher stand point.

The session got me to take stock of things. Stand back and see the bigger picture. Address the smaller issue so that I can move on which, I may add, I couldn’t have done without her.

As I mulled things over this past week, I couldn’t stop thinking about how I was in that interview room. I honed in on the ends that didn’t meet. I saw people’s problems and personal insecurities. I felt as if I had met each of those personally (aside for perhaps a couple). I felt harsh and critical. People who know me well tell me that I am too hard on myself. I can’t help that part of my personality. I push myself to be the best possible. My performance isn’t right if it is not flawless.

I wasn’t seeking perfection in that interview room. I was looking out for those people. I wanted to make sure that they were making the right choice at the right point. The course requires a lot of get-up-and-go. I believe that being on the course at the wrong time or for the wrong reason could be detrimental. I didn’t want that for them or for the others.

The other thing that surprised me in that room was meeting the with the ideas again. The drive to achieve amazing outcomes in the community, for people. Sometimes, it is so hard to just stay afloat that you lose sight of what it is that you are trying to achieve or want to achieve. I suppose for me it was always more about just achieving great things for people. That and the creative idea is what excites me. I met the excitement face-to-face in that room.

When you talk to people who have made it, it is often after many years of gruelling work. Only sometimes would you get to see that excitement that drove them on in the first instances. A glimmer here and there. My peers in that room oozed an almost sickening mixture of fear and excitement. The – I don’t dare to dream I could but what if.

I was flicking through the paper the other morning. I rarely do this. A lady had been honoured with a degree for her achievements. I roared with laughter when I read her line about success. You don’t get there by having good dreams. You get there by sweating it out. Taking the heat, doing the leg work and doing it all over again. Spot on girl.

Out of the last week I have two hopes:

I hope that my hard work does not leave me being too harsh.

I hope that my hard work does not kill my inspiration. In the meal of success I would rather have the option of inspiration as a side order than non-existent.

I am really looking forward to the months ahead in my work and with the 2011 Young Creative Leaders on the horizon.

Comments welcome.