Favourites And Fundraising

I’ve had an exciting day last week choosing my favourite 20 etched pictures to make larger for the exhibition from the 162 pictures created in the Malawian workshops. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be because there were so many great pictures created.

My criteria was to enlarge only one version of each base photo (there were 30 original base photos, so 10 wouldn’t be represented), and I wanted to include pictures from each workshop I’d taught.

After a few false starts, I came up with a system that worked. I chose my favourite 2 pictures from each base photo, and lined them up according to which workshop they had been created at. I then placed my absolute favourites at the front of the line, and chose the rest according to which was my favourite from the various themes (eg. football, houses. animals).

The system worked well and I’m really pleased with the diversity and artistic merit of the photographs I chose. I only made one change to the group afterwards, because while I was scanning the pictures in, I saw a picture that lifted my spirits so much I had to include it. It’s not the best executed or the most original idea, but there is an energy about it, and it always makes me smile when I see it.

 

One of the workshops I’m teaching in Scotland is available to anyone during the Auchtermuchty Festival on the 2^nd August 1pm at the community centre. I’d be delighted if you could come along and etch your own picture for the project. The workshops take about 2½ hours and I’m afraid there will have to be a very small charge to cover the cost of hiring the hall. Let me know if you’re interested and I’ll add your name to the list.

Fundraising

So far we have raised over £1,700 for I Love Scolawi! Wow. Well done everybody!

This is a fantastic amount and I’d like to thank each and every one of you for your support in buying raffle tickets, coming to fundraising events, and your generous donations.

Here are a few of the fundraising events still to come:

Muchty Hafla – 12^th July, Auchtermuchty Church Hall

Violet Shears has very kindly organised a hafla for next weekend.

 

 

 

Hafla means party; and this is a gathering of women dancing together for fun. I’ve never been to one, and am really looking forward to finding out more about it. A friend told me that she went to the last hafla that Violet organised with no idea what to expect, and she had a fantastic time, so it should be a great night out.

There will be dancing, drumming, singing and there will be various stalls as well. If you’d like to have an unusual night out doing something completely different then let me know and I can reserve tickets for you.

Collection tin in Café Alfresco, Glenrothes

I’d like to give a huge shout out to Café Alfresco, (situated just outside Rothes Hall in Glenrothes), who have offered to raise funds through their collection tin for I love Scolawi. Thank you so much Alan and Claude, I really appreciate it.

Art Raffle

There are only a few days left before the art raffle is drawn. Among the many fantastic prizes up for grabs is the original hand etched photograph I created to promote I Love Scolawi; and original artwork by many of our local artists including Victoria Scrivener Anderson and Lorraine McKendrick.

You’ve got to be in it to win it, so if you haven’t bought your tickets yet then please use Paypal’s donate button on the right hand side of my blog to buy some asap! All donating artists will be receive five free tickets as a thank you.

Artist’s quiz

 

You might remember that I ran a ‘guess the artist’ quiz recently to raise funds. The quiz was won by Annie Gibson who got an amazing 50/50 right. Well done Annie! She told me last week that she plans to use the prize money towards buying some art or craft. This is an idea I thoroughly approve of, and I hope you find something that lifts your spirits whenever you see it Annie.

The answers to the artist’s quiz can be viewed at http://ilovescolwai.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/quiz-answers_30.html

Other planned fundraising events are:

• a Bingo Tea in early September that my friend Betty has very kindly offered to organise
• an informal slideshow evening in august displaying the photographs I took in Malawi, and talking about my experiences there
• a stall at the St Serf’s Market during the Auchtermuchty Festival
• a crowd funding campaign to cover the workshop and exhibition costs

So, still lots to do, and lots to look forward to. At some point I’ve got to take some time out to etch some pictures myself which I’m really looking forward to.

Quiz Answers

Here are the answers to my 'name the artist' quiz. How many did you get right?

1.      Guernica	Pablo Picasso
2.      Blue Nude	Henri Matisse
3.      The Angel Of The North	Antony Gormley
4.      Water Lilies	Claude Monet
5.      Vitruvian Man	Leonardo Da Vinci
6.      American Gothic	Grant Wood
7.      Christ Of St John Of The Cross	Salvador Dali
8.      Campbell’s Soup Cans	Andy Warhol
9.      The Dance Class	Edgar Degas
10.  The Laughing Cavalier	Frans Hals
11.  Bal Du Moulin De Le Galette	Pierre-Auguste Renoir
12.  No. 5, 1948	Jackson Pollock
13.  The Kiss	Gustav Klimt
14.  The Great Wave Off Kanagawa	Katsushika Hokusai
15.  Still Life with Apples	Paul Cezanne
16.  Black Iris	Georgia O’Keeffe
17.  The Fighting Temeraire	Joseph Turner
18.  Flower Thrower	Banksy
19.  Ambassadors	Hans Holbein The Younger
20.  Self Portrait With Thorn Necklace And Hummingbird	Frida Kahlo
21.  The Son Of Man	Rene Magritte
22.  Wreck Of The Medusa	Theodore Géricault
23.  The Garden Of Earthly Delights	Hieronymus Bosch
24.  My Bed	Tracey Emin
25.  The Physical Impossibility Of Death In The Mind Of Someone Living	Damien Hirst
26.  The Sistine Chapel	Michelangelo
27.  Le Meninas	Diego Velazquez
28.  The Lady Of Shalott	John William Waterhouse
29.  At The Moulin Rouge	Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec
30.  The Scream	Edvard Munch
31.  Sunflower seeds	Ai Weiwei
32.  The Fountain	Marcel Duchamp
33.  The Chinese Girl / The Green Lady	Vladimir Tretchikoff
34.  Balloon Dog	Jeff Koons
35.  Cardsharps	Caravaggio
36.  A Sunny Afternoon On The Island Of La Grande Jatte	Georges Seurat
37.  Mr And Mrs Andrews	Thomas Gainsborough
38.  A Bar At The Folies-Bergère	Edouard Manet
39.  Nighthawks	Edward Hopper
40.  The Singing Butler	Jack Vettriano
41.  Starry Night	Vincent Van Gogh
42.  The Girl With The Pearl Earring	Johannes Vermeer
43.  The Orbit Tower	Anish Kapoor
44.  Whaam!	Roy Lichtenstein
45.  The Night Watch	Rembrandt
46.  Giovanni Arnolfini And His Wife	Jan Van Eyck
47.  Study After Valázquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X	Francis Bacon
48.  I and The Village	Marc Chagall
49.  The Birth Of Venus	Botticelli
50.  The Hay Wain	John Constable

Back home

I'm sorry this update is so late in arriving, but as soon as I got back to Scotland I came down with a cold which set off my asthma, so I had to ignore my responsibilities and concentrate on getting well. I'm now feeling a whole lot better and ready to take on the world again!

 

I taught my first Scottish workshop last Sunday to the Auchtermuchty Cubs, and was slightly disappointed in the participant numbers. Of twenty cubs in the pack, only three came to the workshop. After the enormous enthusiasm for the workshops in Malawi, I was unprepared for this lack of enthusiasm in my own country.

 

Thinking it through, I'm not so surprised. The children have a lot going on in their lives, and many have other clubs and activities on Sunday mornings. The weekends are traditionally family time, and the cubs are going camping next weekend, I'm not surprised that they didn't give up part of this weekend too.

 

The three cubs did fantastic pictures for me and seemed to really enjoy the workshop, so I'm glad I carried on with it.

 

I've learnt from this experience, and will teach the other workshops in the organisation's normal time slots, and teach then when the schools start again in  August and everyone is less busy. I taught workshops to the top two classes of  Auchtermuchty Primary School on Wednesday, where things went much better, and the children produced lots of amazing pictures for me.

 

I've found that I'm missing a lot of things from Malawi. Here are a few:

• I miss the children's enthusiasm at seeing us. At first I found it uncomfortable to be stared at, but when I realised that it was just curiosity, I started to settle into the role of being a curio and enjoyed waving at the kids and saying hello to them.
• I really miss the scenery. Malawi is an incredibly beautiful country, and so unlike what I was expecting. The main part I miss is the drive down from Blantyre to the Shire Valley (pronounced Shear-ee). Blantyre is at 1000m, while the valley is pretty much at sea level, and the drive down to the valley floor takes about 1/2 hour and is spectacular. We drove down three times, once in the early morning clouds, and though I didn't take any photos that time, I took a lot of 'soul' pictures.
• I loved opening our front door at 7am to let the heat of the morning into our apartment. It's something I really miss back here.

One thing that profoundly affected me while I was in Malawi was how much the project meant to the people I met there, especially to the participants and to the people who organise the cultural events in the country. It was a very humbling experience because I know that in Scotland I'm a small time artist running the largest project of my life, while hoping that this project will produce effects on a number of levels both for me and for other people.

We didn't get the media coverage that I'd hoped to get in Malawi because the presidential election and inauguration overtook events, but I'm planning to email the journalist I'm in contact with and see if we can get a mention in the Malawian papers even though I'm no longer there.