During the Summer of 2021 we had the opportunity to occupy a vacant commercial property and ran our first pop up artists residency. This was an exciting step for us as a charity as this has been the main goal for us from the start to connect artists with local communities and make art activities more accessible to more people but due to the pandemic we struggled to find the perfect venues. As part of the residency, we platformed artist Madeleine Duflot a French artist who is now based in London with an MA Interior and Spatial Design from Chelsea College of Arts.
Over several weeks she used the space as a studio.
As a part of our residency we require artists to have some form of interaction with members of the public. Madeleine ran several workshops in the course of the residency titled " Woven Stories" She started these sessions with group reflection on memories and stories, then selecting different words to correlate to chosen colours which attendees matched to develop creations of abstract woven pieces using pipe cleaners. When Madeleine wasn't teaching the interesting cross of creative writing and weaving she was using the space for her own creative practice. During this time Madeleine had stated making rugs using a tufting machine.
As the space we provided was larger then her current studio it allowed her to work on a larger scale which was exciting to watch.
Here are a few words from Madeleine from her time during the residency "I really enjoyed having such a spacious studio for a couple of weeks, it enabled me to work on several large scale projects simultaneously which was a very stimulating way of working. Being able to have the work laid out the whole time created a different relationship to them and between them. It was a rare and precious opportunity for me!"
If you want to see more of Madeleine Duflot's work please feel free to check out her website www.madeleineduflot.com As well as our artist in residence we love to encourage guest artists that aren't taking part in the residency to also teach classes, this often helps artists gain experience interacting with members of the public who aran't normally involved in art activities .
Over the course of the residency guest artist Taylor Jack-Smith an Essex-based Artist taught a 'basics of drawing workshop' where he worked with the group to draw from observation then applying these skills to drawing the human body.
At the end of these sessions there was a group critique where everyone placed their work out on the floor to evaluate where they could improve their drawings and which drawings had turned out successfully. A really important skill to improve your art work is being able to do these self assessments and we had amazing feedback from attendees
If you want to see more of Taylor Jack-Smith's work feel free to check out his website www.taylorjacksmith.com