We are at a busy time of year with promoting the apprenticeships and internships in the Creative Employment Programme, starting a new Exchanges 2 group for young adult carers, working with children and parents up to end of March on Artbase, helping young people in Lowestoft to make music in Phonic, doing arts, crafts and singing lesions with Carers and Cared For in Culture Club, turning memories into animations as part of the intergenerational project Suffolk At Play, alleviating the stress of being at hospital for children with our Clown Round doctors, running JumpstART courses for people with learning difficulties in Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds.

For more information here is a quick description of our projects and the creative employment opportunities.

artbase

Artbase

In Lowestoft we are working on Artbase – it’s a creative arts project for school children and their parents. We run it at Poplars Community Primary School, giving parents a chance to come in to the school and spend valuable one-to-one time with their child (the school provides a crèche for other siblings). So far, we’ve painted a huge wall canvas (check it out at http://poplars.schoolblogs.org/time-lapse-painting/) and narrowly avoided painting the floor at the same time. We’re working with Year 1 children – so they’re about 5 and 6 years old – and we’ll be there up to the end of March.

 

Creative Employment Programme

More arts organisations have joined up to the Suffolk County Council’s Creative Employment Programme of apprenticeships and internships for unemployed young people and some of the ones who had already signed up are about to interview candidates.

There are regularly new apprenticeships and internships being added but to give you an idea of what opportunities there are for young unemployed people here is the list from 4th February 2014:

New Wolsey Theatre – Administration and Marketing Apprentice

Smiths Row (Bury St Edmunds Art Gallery Trust) – Gallery and Craft Shop Apprentice

Dance East – Artistic Programme Apprentice

Dance East – Communication and Development Apprentice

Eastern Angles – Technical Assistant Apprentice

Pacitti Company – Trainee Marketing Assistant

Pacitti Company – Trainee Producer

Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds – Marketing and Communication Assistant

Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds – Production and Programming Assistant

Offshoot Films – Creative Assistant / Facilitator

Neon Street – Music Business Assistant

The Poetry Trust – General Assistant

 

For more information about how to apply and to see current opportunities see our website http://www.suffolkartlink.org.uk/cep/

CLownDoctors

Clown Round

Dr Misschief, Doctor Fidget and Doctor Haystack have returned to the children’s wards in Colchester, Great Yarmouth and Ipswich after the Christmas break.

 

Culture Club

Culture Club has been working with a group of Carers and Cared for in Halesworth delivering Arts & Crafts and Singing sessions. We started sessions with a group of older adults in Barningham; they have been print-making and creating work with cold wax and dye. We have run taster sessions at Gainsborough library with their Top Time group running print-making sessions. We are also planning to run creative activities with 10 other groups in Suffolk in the next few months, these will be with Wellbeing Centres, Sheltered Housing, Synergy Café’s, Day Centres, groups of Carers and Cared for and other community groups.

 

Exchanges 2

Exchanges 2 in Ipswich launched on 24 January 2014 and will run until March. It gives young adult carers the opportunity to explore their creative potential by helping to create high quality art alongside two professional artists within the School of Art and Humanities at UCS.

The scheme, called ‘Exchanges 2’, is part of TESTBED – a creative programme of participatory pilot projects run by Suffolk Artlink and funded by Arts Council England Grants for the Arts which was set up to ensure that more people engage in excellent, inspirational arts activity.

Jenny Holland, Suffolk Artlink’s Project Development Officer, said: “Last year we succeeded on so many levels with the young adult carers and the dance artist, Shane Shambhu, who they had chosen to work with.  It helped the young carers develop their creativity, grow as people, to feel good about themselves and helped them to tackle underlying fears that were holding them back in their daily lives. We are sure that this year’s participants will benefit in the same way.”

This year’s professional artists are Colchester based Lisa Temple-Cox and Natasha Carsberg.

jumpstartheader3

JumpstART

Both JumpstART in Bury St Edmunds and JumpstART in Lowestoft are about to enter their new terms. JumpstART Bury St Edmunds is doing a dance module with artist Kayla St Claire and JumpstART Lowestoft are doing an illustaration and character art module with Joel Millerchip.

Basic CMYKPhonic

Also in Lowestoft, on a Wednesday evening you will find us working alongside two musicians at a senior youth club in south Lowestoft. We supply all the instruments – from electric drum kit to keyboards and electric guitars – and also bring in beat boxers and music technology tutors to work with the young people. This month we’ve done impromptu performances to one another, and some of the group have written their own songs. It’s loud, but it’s brilliant.

Suffolk at Play

Suffolk At Play

Back in Bury St Edmunds we’re working on Suffolk at Play. This is an intergenerational reminiscence project, involving students from Howard Middle School and members of the local Over 60’s Club. We’ve already run some training sessions in reminiscence work with the children and this month we’ve worked with the poet Dean Parkin to do creative writing around the subject of childhood games. The group (there’s about 22 in all) have also just started to make their own animations based on their memories and stories of games they played. Check it out at http://suffolkartlink.primaryblogger.co.uk/

 Suffolk Artlink www.suffolkartlink.org.uk

 

ASD Consultants, Engineering, Architecture, Surveying