My collab with all abilities Australia
I just completed an artwork that is a collaboration between myself and participants and staff at All Abilities Australia. This piece will be auctioned at their upcoming fundraising gala.
In this episode I share the process (what a journey!) and some insights I gained about creativity.
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Transcript
Well, hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the joyful Creative. Today's episode is a little out of the norm. It's a bit of an off the cuff I hadn't really planned, but I just finished an artwork like hours ago, and I thought it'd be really nice to talk about it because it really does relate to creativity being for everyone. So I have a friend who works as a dance therapist with an organization called All Abilities Australia. And, they run a program where people who have varying levels of, physical and mental abilities can come along. It’s a day program where they learn life skills, exercise, join in community mindfulness, lots of great things for these adults who are past school age. Where they can come along and still engage in enriching activities during the day. And they’re currently fundraising to purchase a big van, a maxi van people mover to be able to transport the participants around town, on excursions and to really enrich their lives with various experiences. So that's their fundraising effort. They have a big gala coming up this Friday night. And my friend asked me if I would be able to, along with participants, create an artwork that could then be auctioned off to help raise the funds to go towards this van. And she's one of these people who is.. her energy is just infectious. And it's very hard to say no to my friend.
There definitely was something in it for me, because even though I'm doing this on a volunteer basis, have been developing a mindful creativity workshop which is to help people to drop into a beautiful, mindful flow state without having to use any particular artistic techniques like brush strokes, or drawing shading or anything like that. So, what I normally do in these workshops is some doodling, and then we go into dropping ink on a page and rolling it around on paper.
It's a beautifully relaxing activity for all people and I really wanted to see whether these participants at All Abilities Australia would also benefit from this kind of activity. So this project gave me an opportunity to do a bit of research on this process. So I went in and I've had three sessions with these people and we've had so much fun.
They were really interested in getting involved. The first day I used pipettes like an eyedropper. And, their motor skills are at varying levels. And so some of them had some assistance from the staff. And myself. But to see them even really drop into this flow state and really just enjoy seeing the colors rolling around the page through the water.
And what they achieved during that session is really not dissimilar to what I achieve when I'm doing the same technique, which really proved that this technique is really for everybody. I mean, it's not hard. You just get a piece of paper, you drop some water. You drip some ink, or we had actually poster paint that was thinned down because we were using what they had, so it's thinned down to a runny watery consistency. And they dropped that on the page. A couple of colors that mixed together, a little bit of shimmer color, and gosh, the results were really beautiful. So that was the first day.
The next day I came in and what I knew I was going to do with his artwork was to have a big canvas that had a painted background and then make collage from the paper pieces with the ink markings on it. So I brought in some canvases and dropped acrylic paint directly onto the canvas and with gloves on the participants just with their hands, not even with brushes, just mixed the colors onto the canvas.
We had a couple of different layers. So gosh, the results there were really beautiful because they're not preoccupied with perfection. Nobody was trying to make it smooth and even. What I really wanted was to have a background that had some character in it. And in this sampling session, they really achieved that where I've got canvases that have got some really wacky kind of backgrounds on it. So I knew that that would also work for the final work.
So then the last time I went in, I brought a great big canvas in, and we did the same technique with the canvas. I dropped some acrylic paint on, better quality paint, better quality canvas. And the participants again, just mixed the paint, had a beautiful time getting their hands dirty and spreading the paint across the canvas. Mixing colors, but again, what they achieved with the background was this gorgeous sense of depth. And just sort of leaving some, some colors, untouched. and then after that was done, a few of them came along and put their hand prints in it, which was a lovely touch. Those hand prints are a little bit hidden now, but, but they're there and it's lovely that their hands are on this piece. Actually visibly.
So then with the collage pieces, what I realized is that to just have some little abstract shapes, ink running around a page, which ends up being quite noodley. I quite like the visual effect there, but I thought it would be appropriate to have some sort of connection with the participants and the piece. So thinking about what they all have in common and why they come to all the abilities Australia every week. Every day they dance. One of the things that’s sort of foundational about the organization is that they dance every day. They all love it. They put on music and they have little routines that they do. And when you see their faces light up, you realize that dancing is just such a beautiful, creative thing to do. They move their bodies. They express themselves. So dance is a big thing.
So, what I thought would be a lovely thing to do is to end up with a whole lot of little paper figures that were kind of like people dancing. So for this session, I took some better quality mixed media paper. I painted on just with water, some figures that really just, I didn't even know how they were going to turn out. And then each participant then drops and colored ink. I admit that I pretty tightly curated the color palette they cause. If I had asked everybody what color they wanted, it'd be probably a little bit outrageous.
So I kept it to a red and blue ink. Mixing together. So some of them are still in their primary form, but for some of the participants, they ended up mixing the colors beautifully so that they've ended up with some lovely sort of purpley tones. And then on most of those pieces, I dropped a pure drop of yellow which actually just kind of brings the whole thing to life. So, what we've ended up with was 20 little figures that seem to have this Kooky, Odd, but joyously, exuberant vibe I guess. Um, and then it was my job to cut them all out. Uh, arrange them on the background. So, um, so you're probably wondering what this all looks like, but so the background ended up being sort of purple mauve colors, quite a light background. It's almost a neutral, but it's got a mauvey tone.
And then if you can imagine these primary toned with a little bit of purple and bright yellow toned figures as a collage mixed media arranged around the piece. There's already heaps of photos of this final piece on my social media. So if you're curious to know what it actually looks like then go ahead and check it out. So just to describe again, it's a very large canvas. Neutral light mauvey background, and then these weird, funny joyful looking figures in primary colors, but with some purple mixed in, carefully arranged around the canvas.
So getting the placement, right for all these little figures was quite a lengthy process. A bit of trial and error, went back and forth a little bit. Um, but what I wanted was to portray a sense of connection, but then also some independence because these participants, they March to the beat of their own drum. They're actually quite independent and they're usually quite communicative if they don't want to participate or they only want to do a little bit, or they don't want to dance so I felt that the independence of their personalities would be a good thing to express in the placement. But I also wanted them to look like they were, having a bit of a dance party and just really having a great time. So I think I've achieved that.
So then it was a matter of pasting all those pieces down. And then, then I thought, well, I really needed something to add to the background. And this was a lot of trial and error. I did some wing, like sketchy things in oil pastel. I also did some in gold gold paint, which the gold paint looked quite good. Cause it was pretty subtle. But the oil pastel sketching… I did too much of that. Then I decided to outline all the figures. And it just wasn't working. So I thought, well, maybe I can blend out the outline. I can sort of soften it a little bit. So I got my finger and I was rubbing around and rubbing around and it still, just wasn't really working. Um, and then I thought I'd really stuffed it up. But then I realized that actually I could just wash it all off. So I did that. When I think of how much time I'd spent on work that I did to it, that I ended up removing it’d probably be a couple of hours.
But what I realized is that you know, this process is something I've not done before. And normally when an artist does an art work. They do a lot of experimenting and a lot of sampling. And when they end up working on the final piece it's a culmination of hours and hours of sampling and they know that it's going to work. Now. I'm a person that gets asked to do something. And I think it's a good idea. And I say yes before I've even realized that maybe I don't really know how to do it. So I said, yes, and I have really not done much on canvases before. There were elements of this that does relate to all the work that I have done before. But this is just something that was a bit new. And, uh, yeah, luckily I was able to remove the bits that I didn't like.
And I finally come up with a composition of the background that I thought was harmonious and didn't detract from these joyful figures, but connected them in some way. So, what I've ended up with is the gold paint and also some bronzy colored metallic paint with a much finer paintbrush making a little bit more subtle marks around the negative space. So after all of that, I finished it off with a coat of the gel medium, which is the pasty stuff that I stuck the figures down with. It's a good thing to go over the top as well. And I thought that was appropriate. It's not necessary on a canvas, but I thought it was appropriate to put over these bits of paper, which had endured a little bit of rubbing and scrubbing with all the the removing and the back and forth that I had done with them. And I I'm just really delighted with how it's turned out. It's still yet to be known how it goes in the auction, but yes, I will report on that at some point. The auction is this Friday. So by the next time I record another episode, I will have the figures of what happened there.
But look, the point of this whole story is a couple of things and one is about my own creative process. And just trusting that I did have enough knowledge and enough experience in my well 15 years of making art of some type of medium. And also the power of YouTube and the internet to find out how to do things and whether other things are possible. . And to trust my instincts about what was going to work and when it didn't look like it was going to work, to pivot. And do what was necessary to make this piece harmonious. There was a lot riding on it and it wasn't just me making a piece of art for myself. I feel very responsible for how beautiful this piece is and how it's received, and whether it can make some money for All Abilities Australia to go towards their, their big van. So. Yeah, my creative process was really challenged in this, but I've found it a beautiful challenge. And I do think that sometimes when you push yourself out of a comfort zone and end up using some media or some techniques that you haven't used before, You learn so much and you learn what not to do in the future.
And the other part of this creative story is really just about how creativity is for everyone. It was so beautiful for me to teach this technique to people of all abilities. And to see how they took to the processes and how some of those people actually push through some barriers about making a mess or whether they thought they were able to do it. And giving them that encouragement and seeing them achieve something that even, they thought they couldn't achieve. And seeing how much they had a great time doing it was so rewarding for me. And I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be involved in this and. Yeah. Um, I'm still on a high, I've got to say. It's just been such a, a beautiful thing for me to go through and to see them go through..
And yeah, I guess the last part of all of this is just how great it is to do creativity with people. As a community. There's definitely something special about it. I mean, I tend to be a bit of a hermit when I'm creating, I really love to just lock myself away in my studio space and spend hours and hours. And I think about a project and I obsess about it and I can't wait to get to it. And the hours spent doing it. I really enjoy on my own, because I'm a bit of an introvert/extrovert. That's the introvert part of me.
But doing this piece, with other people and for other people, its just something really, really special. And you can do this with anybody. You can do it online. But it is nice to do in person… if you have anybody who wants to come over for a Crafternoon or play music together, or dance in the park together to some music. It's a beautiful thing doing creativity with others as a community.
So if this is something that you already do, I would love to hear about it. Send me a message and yeah, let's get some ideas flowing about how we can be creative as a community. And yeah, make this a much more beautiful and creative, joyful world. So on that note until next time, keep creative and I'll see you in the next episode.
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