Session #1

I’m not going to lie I felt a bit nervous and out my comfort zone anticipating the first art session at ROC Cafe. My usual clientele are 15 months old not 15 years. And although I’ve worked on plenty of projects with primary school children I’ve not really had a lot of experience teaching groups of teenagers and young adults. All I knew was that I wanted my ROC Cafe sessions to be fresh, messy and a little anarchic. I wanted to build on skills that they’ve learnt at school, yet introduce new art practices they maybe haven’t thought about. I wanted to remind them of the fun of just making stuff, being carefree and experimental, without an audience or pressure of grades. I wanted the activities to integrate the group, have elements of collaboration, or at least be social in the sharing of materials, sitting round a table, having a chat and a laugh. My hope is that by the end of the school year we will not only have made good art but made good memories.

I’ve decided to title these ROC Cafe sessions parkHEADS– with each session linking (maybe loosely) back to the idea of portraiture and place, themes running through my own artwork as Artist-in-Residence. For the first session we made clay model heads- some self-portraits, some imaginary, some of well know Parkhead characters!