We caught up with Kitty after her talk to find out more about her practice and her future.

Tell us about how you got involved with Plymouth Arts Centre…

I met Plymouth Arts Centre Assistant Curator Lucy Rollins at one of Visual Arts Plymouth’s artist workshops, and she was really encouraging and positive about young people getting more involved in Plymouth’s art scene.  She later approached me about working with Plymouth Arts Centre on the PAC To The Future project.

What involvement have you had with the Finding Fanon exhibition before your talk?

I spent two days helping to install the exhibition and learning about how curators work, and I was also able to meet and interview the artists, Larry Achiampong and David Blandy.  I then prepared my talk and led people on a tour around the exhibition.

How did you prepare for giving the talk?

Once I had interviewed the artists I went through my interview notes a lot.  I also visited the exhibition several times and went to PAC Artistic Director Ben Borthwick’s talk about it which was a few weeks before my own, and I studied the artists’ websites.  I also spent a morning with Lucy, who helped me go through my notes and ask myself new questions.

On the day, what was the biggest challenge?

The biggest challenge for me was my anxiety right before giving the talk!  I was afraid I’d mess up and say something wrong and embarrass myself.  I can be quite shy and quiet and it was a big step for me to lead a talk.  I prepared myself really well by having my talk all printed out, but then I worried that reading it straight off the paper wouldn’t really be engaging with the people there.

What’s your favourite part of the exhibition?

I like Finding Fanon 2 the most because it is like the artists are on a journey in a game world.  Using machinima to make art is really exciting and I’ve never seen it used that way.  I’ve seen other machinima like Minecraft music videos before but this has made me look at them in a different way.  Machinima is quite popular with young people who play games so I think that Larry and David’s project could be really inspiring to them.

What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned from the experience?

It has been really interesting learning about Larry and David’s exploration into their family backgrounds and their thoughts on that.  I hadn’t thought that much about colonialism and its impact on pop culture before but now I have been thinking and learning about it a lot and it is opening my eyes to the pop culture I enjoy and to history.

I hadn’t even heard of minstrel shows before Larry told me about them and I was really shocked that people made them or watched them.  I’ve started looking at how different people are portrayed and how much representation they get.  I have always been aware of how differently girls and women are treated in pop culture especially games but Finding Fanon has made me start thinking about race and how people from different cultures are represented.

Tell us about your practice!

I am an illustrator working in zinemaking, posters, and comic and game art.  I am really into character creation but I am trying to tell more stories, and I like to create female characters who are fun and have realistic body shapes, personalities and regular clothes instead of over sexualised clothing which is really common in comics and games unfortunately.

A lot of my influences are from comics like Squirrel Girl, Lumberjanes, and Giant Days which are based around female characters I can relate to.  I used to draw in more of a manga style but I have been trying to break away from that and develop my own style because I want my work to be more authentic and personal to me, although I still love and read lots of manga!  I mainly work in pencil and ink then scan to digital to clean up for printing using Photoshop or Clip Studio Paint.

I do use colour with Promarkers and watercolour paints (I use a Sakura Koi set) but I am restricted in what I can afford to print so I have been working a lot with just black ink and crosshatching to achieve different shades and textures.  The items I use every day are my Pentel brush pen, some Kuretake Mangaka brush pens, and Uni Kuru Toga mechanical pencils.

What’s next for you?

I am starting college in September at PCA doing an extended diploma in Graphics Illustration and Game Arts (GIGA).  I have always been home educated so this will be a complete change for me and I am a little bit nervous about it, but excited too.  I am part of a group of young artists called YEA Plymouth and we have some projects coming up, including a zine that we are producing for Plymouth Art Weekender 2017.

I have been organising regular zine workshops which I hope to continue, and I am working on my own zine Gurt Noodle, which I plan to have ready for DevCon this Autumn.  I also write a blog about art and local events.  I have lots of plans, I just need to focus on fitting it all in!

Kitty McEwan is a student artist living and working in Plymouth.

The post PAC To The Future: Q&A with Kitty appeared first on Plymouth Arts Cinema | Independent Cinema for Everyone | located at Arts University Plymouth..

A group of students from Stoke Damerel Community College have attended a screening of the Oscar-nominated film Selma as part of the Day of Difference project.

Fourteen students – from Years 7 to 10 – went to see the film at Plymouth Arts Centre on 24 March 2015.

Day of Difference is the Barbican Theatre’s project all about diversity which puts racial intolerance and discrimination under the microscope by encouraging young people to examine their values, attitudes and beliefs.

The workshop on 18 March 2015 was attended by all Year 7 students.

“The film explores how the revered leader and visionary Martin Luther King led a campaign to secure equal rights during the battle for black civil rights,” explained Media Studies teacher Mrs Hardie.

“It was fantastic to support young people engaging and learning through the art of film rather than just consuming it for entertainment.”

The film was used as a springboard for some “quite intense” learning about an important period of history said Mrs Hardie.

“Students were invited to the screening to follow on from an excellent piece of drama they had constructed and performed about the impact of casual racism.

They were also able to invite a friend to accompany them to reinforce the importance of positive relationships and shared experiences.

“It was a real eye-opener to see the segregation and overt racism of the past brought to life on the big screen,” she said.

“It was a very emotional screening which triggered a valuable and, for some, personal exploration of the sacrifices made by a few for the many.”

Student thoughts:

“The film made me cry – it was heartbreaking and devastating.”

“The film opened my eyes to racism – it is not a laughing matter.”

“I learned that everyone is equal.”

“It made me think.”

“I think that everyone should watch it.”

Thank you to Stoke Damerel Community College for writing this blog post.

 News from Stoke Damerel: Archive 2014/15

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Having exhibited in Plymouth Arts Centre almost a year ago it made sense that Bob & Roberta Smith’s Art Party would take place here as well. Uniquely the arts centre was the only venue for this year’s event in the Southwest. It started with a joyous afternoon of badge making, drawings of politicians and a barbecue, followed by a screening in the cinema of the Art Party movie, which attracted a good and enthusiastic audience. The wonderful docufiction gave a humorous account of last year’s art party at Scarborough and was able to draw people in with the surreal story of Gove’s transformation into an ardent art lover who finally seems to disappear in the North Sea. Surely Bob & Roberta Smith could not have predicted the film’s self-fulfilling prophecy. Gove, as we know, indeed ‘disappeared’. Only to make place however for secretary of education Nicky Morgan who seems to do her best to follow closely in his footsteps. Art Party 2015 should therefore really be in the making.

It inspired Vickie Fear, programme assistant at Plymouth Arts Centre, to organise a so-called ‘after after’ party in the PAC Home space, the centre’s network for artists, curators and writers who live in Plymouth and the wider region. Complete with soapbox, local artists were inspired to read out Bob and Roberta Smith’s recent letter to Nicky Morgan, which was happily done by amongst others Vickie Fear and Steven Paige. The evening was concluded with a good conversation about the current state of art education and created enough gusto to carry on art partying and writing letters. Art Makes Children Powerful as one of the badges made earlier that afternoon read. It makes them critical and therefore potentially ‘dangerous’ to some people, but that is exactly what is needed. Given today’s world maybe even more now than ever.

Edith Doove

Curator, writer and arts consultant at BUREAU DOOVE. Twitter: @edoove1

The post Art Makes Children Powerful: Art Party Review appeared first on Plymouth Arts Cinema | Independent Cinema for Everyone | located at Arts University Plymouth..

This week is Children’s Art Week, so it’s a good time to tell you that this summer at Plymouth Arts Centre we are running our Ignite! Arts Award course for 11-15 year olds.

Join us for two days of exciting, creative and challenging sessions, which involve experimenting with materials, learning new skills and making new friends. Find out how you can be involved here: https://www.plymouthartscinema.org/eventsandeducati/live/2014/ignite-arts-award.html

All 8 of our young people who entered into our Bronze Arts Award in 2013 passed their moderation – congratulations! Here’s a little bit from three of the students about their experience last summer: Anna Hale: Last summer (2013) in the school holidays I took part in the ‘Ignite Arts Award’ sessions at Plymouth Arts Centre. Even though I was 10 years old at the time, the lovely team of artists, Kathy, Sue, Hannah & Tabitha at the Arts Centre inspired and supported me and my friend James to work towards our Bronze Award, a national arts award qualification!

I really enjoyed this experience – I got to visit Plymouth Museum, I looked at and sketched the model of the Whinstanley and handled precious old artifacts. I created some pieces of art work, and made my own ‘ideas’ book. I looked at Bob and Roberta Smith’s Letter to Michael Gove art work and researched and presented my work on my art hero Salvador Dali. And, this June Hannah informed me that I have achieved the Bronze qualification! I am now thinking of working towards the Silver Arts Award.

I would say to any children my age or older to have a go – it’s great fun, you learn to look at art differently get the chance to be creative and work towards an art qualification!!!

Cait Thomas-Dodd: I really enjoyed my arty experience being a part of the bronze arts award group. The teachers were lovely and really helped to guide me in the right direction. Although I was one of the younger ones I was immediately made to feel part of the group. I definitely learned a lot and feel I have gained confidence along the way. I would recommend it for older children who love a challenge and the chance to be creative. The whole experience has broadened my outlook and I now see lots of things in a completely different way. I can’t wait to start my silver award in the summer.

The post Get an Arts Award this Summer Holidays! appeared first on Plymouth Arts Cinema | Independent Cinema for Everyone | located at Arts University Plymouth..

Please make a donation to our Creativity in the Community fundraising campaign.

With just three weeks to go before the end of May, we are asking you to dig deep into your pockets and make a donation to help us support disadvantaged families to bond and have confidence to play together through creative activities.

We launched a fundraising campaign at the end of March and asked our audience to make a donation so that we could extend the popular Creative Play activities that we currently run here and take them out into the community including areas of Efford, Barne Barton, Stonehouse and Devonport – communities that might not otherwise have this opportunity.

The value of messy play for children is something no-one doubts – evidence proves that it’s not only fun, but also supports learning and brain development. Importantly, taking part in these activities together strengthens the all-important bond between parent and child.

Each session costs £225 to run and can take up to 20 children and their parents or carers and our aim was to raise a minimum of £900 which would enable us to run at least four workshops in the community. As at today’s date, we have raised £741 which means that we only have to raise another £159 to meet our target, so please, if you can, make a donation

This date is important because in the next three weeks any donation we receive is effectively doubled because we can claim match-funding of 100% from Arts Council England. After this date, we can claim, but only at a rate of 50%.

You can donate online at www.plymouthartscinema.org  through Paypal or Fundrazr, or in person, but if you can donate, please do it before the end of May.

Thank you

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