Stirchley Art Room - Blog

Stirchley Art Clubbers United

2/5/2023

Back in March, we had a stall at the spring Stirchley Community Market selling work made by participants of Stirchley Art Club. We had also done this at the Christmas market in December, when we were thrilled that lots of members of our little markers collective sold work!

Our second market stall was equally successful, and included a wide range of arts and crafts made by our art clubbers, from books and original paintings to embroidery and other textiles.

We hope to make this a regular thing, along with participation again this year in Birmingham Open Studios. Making and selling work as a collective of artists is something we've been discussing for a few years so it's great to be able to do it, even at this quite small scale!

Happy Birthday Stirchley Art Room!

25/4/2021

A little over two years ago, Sarah & I were sitting in the cafe at the Mac. We had arranged to meet up on our shared day off from the school we both work at as art teachers, to do some planning for a forthcoming community art project we were organising for school. We had been fortunate enough to have found several opportunities in the previous couple of years to help our students engage with artists and the community around them, though Longbridge Public Art Project and other organisations.

Over the next few weeks we met lots of people from organisations around Stirchley. We felt it was the place to be - so much going on already within an established creative scene. We chatted to Johnny from Artefact, Cassie from Sweetmeat, Denise and David at the library, and basically popped in to say hello to as many of the shops and organisations as we could, also on the lookout for a possible base for our future exploits.
We started applying for funding and teamed up with the lovely Friends of Stirchley Library to do various family art activities. And then later that summer we made the first of several successful funding bids to support our community art aims - Book Arts at Stirchley Library, funded by Arts Council England.

We look forward with optimism to the next 12 months - and beyond - getting back to ‘normal’, getting back into the Library, making progress with our plans to establish a permanent base for Stirchley Art Room, and a variety of other exciting projects!

Onwards and upwards. More Art Not Less!

With huge thanks to all of our friends, partners and supporters, and to our funders:
Arts Council England
Unltd
Postcode Community Trust
National Lottery Communities Fund
Birmingham City Council
DCMS / National Lottery Local Connections Fund

Nicki

Both of us hugely enjoyed these experiences. Both of us wished that we could do more to take our experience and knowledge as art teachers to a community setting, independent of the restrictions of school life.
And just like that, almost on a whim, Stirchley Art Room came into being. We registered a twitter handle there and then, and started to plan.

Two years and many projects later, we feel proud of what we have achieved, and so appreciative of the supportive and collaborative relationships we have with organisations and individuals in Stirchley and further afield.

Of course, the past 12 months have not panned out exactly as we would have hoped. The pandemic curtailed some of our projects and has delayed others, but also led to new and interesting ways of delivering on our aims, in the form of the three postal art projects we have run over the past year. The resulting books of artworks made by members of our community are beautiful and unique records of these very unusual times.

A Close up View from our Quarantine Art Clubbers...

12/6/2020

Here's some more fantastic work from our People's Postcode Trust funded postal art club. These are responses to the theme 'A Close Up View'. Aren't they amazing!
Thanks to Alison, Jo and Chris, and also to Sally for the stunning photographic submissions!

Quarantine Art Club - Keep 'em coming!

2/6/2020

We're really enjoying seeing all of the Quarantine Art Club pieces arrive through the post - it's such a joy seeing the results of your creative endeavours... thanks to our artists Bethany, Ruth & Leah for these treasures.

More beautiful pieces from our Quarantine Art Club Artists...

22/5/2020

Getting these fabulous little artworks back through the post is such a treat!
Huge thanks to our artists Joanne, Noelle, Cheryl, Chris, & Ruth for this selection of loveliness.

Quarantine Art Club Inspiration - Layer it!

2/5/2020

Hello Quarantine Art Clubbers (QACCERS? quackers?!)
We've seen some lovely examples of artwork already, responding to the theme of 'Here Comes the Sun'. The second theme we have asked you to explore is 'Layer it' - so here are some more images and ideas to get you thinking...

Maud Vantour works with paper to create richly coloured graphical layered images that almost look like openings or deep holes.

This theme is a little bit more open ended than the first one - we are suggesting experiments with materials and techniques rather than a particular image - this may make it more of a challenge for you or it might make it more straight forward!

Perhaps similar to Maud Vantour in lots of ways - this illustration by Eiko Ojala incorporates a repeated shape to create a sense of rhythm.

This collage by Andy Jenkins may not be as colourful but the neutral tones draw attention to the geometric structure of the image.

Hopefully these images have given you more to think about. Do share any more images or ideas you have though social media and comments here - and we look forward to seeing the artwork you produce!

A beautiful and very delicate woven collage by Hollie Chastain.

Tracey Algar is a landscape artist from South Africa who creates these gorgeous layered images with collage and paint. They look quite abstract but are actually organised and planned in quite a structured way...

In the pack you received you will have found all sorts of interesting materials of varying levels of translucence. You can of course combine these with anything else you have around the house - like clingfilm, baking paper, plastic envelope window inserts, found images and so on...

A really interesting layering of text from different sources by American artist Randel Plowman.

How about creating a sense of layers by cutting holes through the materials you are using? This stitched and collaged surface is by Deidre Adams.

Here are some more beautiful Quarantine Art Club sunbursts...

1/5/2020

We've just received these beauties from members of our Quarantine Art Club - aren't they lovely!
Perfect for a grey day like today. Many thanks to Chris, Jenni and Jo.

Quarantine Art Club is up and running...

28/4/2020

...and below you can see some of the first artworks to come back to us! - thanks to Ruth and Alison for these.
The first theme we have asked participants to think about is 'Here Comes the Sun', which up until today has been quite apt! The packages we sent out - full of interesting paper bits and other materials for collage - were a little delayed in the post but got there eventually (please do let us know if you haven't had yours ASAP).
Don't forget postal people - we would like you to send 2 A5 artworks for each theme... they will all be hand bound into very special one-off zine / artists books for participants to keep. We are also scanning them so we have digital copies of everything produced.
We can't wait to see more!
Thanks again to the wonderful Postocde Community Trust for allowing us to change the way we are using our funding in these unusual times.

Friday Art Club goes postal!

28/3/2020

A lot of the organisations who fund our various initiatives have been working hard to support projects like ours at the moment, including the Postcode Lottery Trust, who have said that we can re-direct the funding we received for the Friday Art Club to something more 'deliverable' in these challenging times.
We are currently planning a postal art club that will take the place of the art club at the library. It will involve us sending out a monthly pack of materials and prompts to the people who sign up. Participants will produce a piece of artwork on a postcard sized piece of paper, and send those back to us every fortnight. At the end of the project, postcards from all participants will be bound into a set of very special limited edition zines, which will be given back to project participants!
Interested? Please email us at [email protected] ... and we'll keep you posted!

Art in unusual times...

17/3/2020

'Unusual times' - probably a bit of an understatement!
As you may have seen we have taken the decision to postpone all of Stirchley Art Room's various activities at the library for the time being, to protect the health of everyone we work with. When things have settled down we will publish new dates for both Change a Book and the Art Club, as well as other exciting future projects we are currently planning.
In the meantime, we intend to continue offering art learning opportunities for the community, somehow, by offering project ideas, tutorials & links to artists and information online.
We would welcome your thoughts on how we might do this and what sorts of things you would like us to do! Please email us at [email protected] or message us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook (@ArtStirchley) if you have any suggestions.
Take care folks! ...and watch this space.

Nicki