More Good News

Last week we received $2200.00 dollars from the Dartmouth Community Health Board - Community Development Fund to deliver the CREATIVE START WORKSHOP for youth with disabilities living in Dartmouth Nova Scotia. We are still in the planning stage and have not secured a location for the program. With this said, however we are hoping to begin the program in February 2008.

Creative Start Workshop Fall 2007

Well the very first CREATIVE START WORKSHOP offered for youth with disabilities finished with a public exhibition of the four participants artworks. This workshop was as much a learning experience for as it was for the participants. Much of the learning came not from the teaching but the administration of the program. Here are some images created by the participants of the CREATIVE START WORKSHOP.

CREATIVE ST(ART) WORKSHOP UPDATE

The images presented here are a small sample of the artworks created by the CREATIVE START WORKSHOP participants.

A thought

WE SHOULD BE EDUCATING EVERYONE FOR THE UNKNOWN BECAUSE THE UNKNOWN IS WHERE THE ART IS.

UPDATE

We have received news from the Canada Council for the Arts regarding funding for the In Our Voice: An Oral History Video Project. Unfortunately we were not successful in securing the funds to produce this video.

EXCITING NEWS

We have received funding from the Capital District Health Authority, Cobequid Community Health Board to offer the Creative St(art) Workshop. The workshop has been developed for youth with disabilities 17 – 21 years old. We will post the artwork here on this blog after the workshop. The dates for the workshop have not been determined as such, but will be will be held September 2007 to December 2007.

New Gallery

Veith Street Gallery Studio has a new satellite gallery called the Pedway Picture Gallery. The Pedway Picture Gallery is located in Dartmouth Nova Scotia on the Alderney Landing pedway. For more information about the gallery call 446-6010

UPDATE

Here is an update on The Visual Connections Project.

Veith Street Gallery Studio, The Visual Connections Project is pursuing funding for a video project in partnership with the Canadian Mental Health Association, Halifax-Dartmouth Branch. The video is entitled In Our Voice: An Oral History Video Project. The video will profile older mental health consumers telling their stories of how they survive their mental illness. If The Visual Connections Project and Canadian Mental Health Association, Halifax-Dartmouth Branch partnership is successful in acquiring the funds for the video project, the production for the video will begin in September 2007 and completed June 2008. My role will be that of Creative Director / Instructor working with individuals who have very limited, if no experiences working with video.

A New Visual Connection

The Visual Connections Project is always interested in connecting with groups and organizations whose goals are to provide a space where anyone no matter what their abilities can make and promote art. The following images come from the Halfax ATC Group, ATC (Artist Trading Card) Jam. An ATC Jam is when everyone in the group collectively creates ATC's.

New Program Structure

There are changes coming to The Visual Connections Project. The Visual Connections Project will now offer two routes to learning through the Community Education Programs and the Professional Development Programs. The Community Education Programs consists of The CREATIVE START DAY PROGRAM and THE VISUAL CONNECTIONS INSTITUTE. The Professional Development Programs consists of The ARTWORKS Seminar Series, SHIFT: Developing Communities of Practice through the Creative Visual Arts, and the Creative Process Facilitation.

COMMUNITY EDUCATION PROGRAMS

CREATIVE ST(ART) DAY PROGRAM (Workshop)

THE VISUAL CONNECTIONS INSTITUTE


PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS

The ARTWORKS Seminar Series

SHIFT: Developing Communities of Practice
through the Creative Visual Arts

Creative Process Facilitation

Broken Lines: Dealing with Conflict

The images profiled here come from an exercise that I facilitated with members of Nova Scotia chapter of the Canadian Society for Training and Development. The exercise was called Broken Lines.

Through this, interactive exercise I invited the participants to engage in an arts based alternative process for dealing with conflict. This exercise only scratched the surface of a more holistic approach to dealing with conflict. I should also say that this process works best with a party or group who have already established a working relationship or rapport with one another.

I asked the group to move and mix about, so people who may know each other are not working with one another. This I felt will ensure a more authentic experience.
I asked the participants to reflect on a past or recent conflict they have been involved with, either as someone in conflict, or as a mediator.

Then in complete silence, using the black pens and white card stock provided, I asked the participants to represent this conflict through drawing. (I asked the part
-icipants to respect this silence, Because the vocalization process utilizes a different part of the brain than visualization and drawing, talking would become not only distracting to other participants but also yourself). I asked the participants to draw what this conflict felt like as they where going through it, or are still dealing with it.

participants spent two minutes on the drawing. I then signaled the participants to pass their drawing to the person on their left. I then asked the participants to spend some time with this drawing reflecting on the essance of the conflict in the drawing, and then add to the drawing. This process continued until everyone in the group had spent two minutes working on each drawing.

This exercise became a real example of a visual connection. The participants communicated through images instead of words, and as you can see the visual dialogue became very rich.