July Studio Blog: Ventnor Fringe Fest
My workshop didn't exactly go to plan and here is why that's okay.
This month my Arts Council funded “DYCP” year came to an end, culminating with an exhibition and art workshop at the Ventnor Fringe Festival. Developing Your Creative Practice or “DYCP” is a funding grant that allows creatives to experiment with their art form and push their practice to new heights without financial burden. I was so lucky to be awarded a grant on my first application as it’s highly competitive. It’s been an amazing year and I really can’t believe how far my creative practice has come!
My free workshop was targeted towards families, I wanted to introduce parents and children to six true stories of women in Isle of Wight History. I did this by setting up a backdrop stand with strips of white sheets cut into lengths to resemble newspaper clippings. Each strip had a story written by me ironed onto it. Running along next to it held up by criss-crossing lengths of twine were my “artefacts”, photographs, printed quotes on transparent sheets and my illustrations. In front of this mini exhibition were two long tables and benches full of free art materials, pens, glue and scissors.
I had a vision for my workshop to be a drop-in where families could come and go, ask questions and make collages. I had hoped that this would be allow for greater foot traffic and allow me to speak to a lot of people -which it did. However, in hindsight, I don’t feel it was the right format for the outcome I wanted. I had hoped to share information, tell stories and encourage visitors to make collages in response to them. What actually ended up happening was the children ran wild with pens and glue sticks making whatever came to mind. It was more of a free craft drop-in than a workshop and the story sharing element got lost. This was mainly because I couldn’t be everywhere at once, there were lots of people and children and it was hard to give my attention to everyone in 1:1 conversations.
Although it didn’t go as I had hoped, and there is a lot of room for improvement, I was really glad that I did it. This is exactly the kind of experimentation that the DYCP grant is for. I tested out my idea and now I know what I would do differently in the future. That’s the thing with being a creative, you have to learn to let go of perfectionism. If I had done this a few years ago I would have felt very guilty that it didn’t go plan and I would have felt like I had been awarded all this funding for nothing (talk about catastrophizing). But, that’s the wrong way to look at it. Sometimes as a creative you have to throw a lot of stuff at the wall and see what sticks. The process of doing it is where you find out how to improve.
Also at the Ventnor Fringe Festival this year testing out something new was my sister (and fellow podcast host) Jodie. She made her Fringe debut by taking part in the Maker’s Market on both weekends. Selling her artwork at fairs and markets is a new venture for her and personally I think she smashed it. She can be a bit of an over-achiever at times…but this stall was so perfectly branded! We’ll be delving into the world of Market’s Markets later this year on the Art of the Side Gig Podcast where Jodie will give you her best tips on how to kill it at those Christmas Craft Fairs!
I plan to go into much more detail here on Substack on the topic of Arts Funding. I’ve applied for several different grants over the years and I have been successful in most of them…I think I have tips that you will want to hear! So, why not subscribe to be the first to hear them?
