Arts Alive: Creative Opportunities for All Ages

In the summer of 2011, Arts Alive worked at Vintage Vision in Abergavenny on a ‘Green Fashion’ project. Weekly sessions at Lion Street offered women the opportunity to learn new skills and get creative with textiles, writing and photography.

The creative team led a series of garment creation or customisation textile workshops incorporating photography and writing to explore the significance of specific items of clothing, their social and practical functions, their value, and the memories and narratives they transmit as they are passed down within families and communities. The project also encouraged the participants to think about body image and how this…

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Green Fire, is a project cycle that began in Autumn 2009. It aims to promote creativity and wellbeing by inspiring individuals and communities to respond creatively to their environment and explore sustainable ways of living.  

Now in its second year, Green Fire II: ’Thrive and Survive’ is a creative exploration of basic human needs.  It explores the idea that the arts and creativity are as fundamental and essential to our wellbeing  as food, shelter, water and clothing.  

We are working in Talgarth, Abergavenny, Brecon and at our studio in Crickhowell. 

Tân Gwyrdd yw’r prosiect sy’n bwriadu ysgogi unigolion a chymunedau i ymateb yn greadigol i’w hamgylchedd ac archwilio ffyrdd cynaliadwy o fyw. Mae ei…

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Arts Alive worked for the first time in Talgarth, using new collaborations between artists, wildlife educators and craftspeople to bring the different parts of the community together and to build stronger awareness of its unique and precious natural resources.

• Tree Dressing
• Lanterns Procession
• Stone Carving

Talgarth was highlighted in the local and national nation news with the renovation of the Talgarth Mill Project as an innovative model for community enterprise and a springboard for local regeneration.

Arts Alive has been supporting the Mill Project working with families and  Talgarth Youth Club engaging them in traditional crafts, celebratory arts projects…

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In winter 2010/11, Arts Alive Wales worked in partnership with Wye Valley AONB to deliver a pilot project at Whitestone Forestry Commission site near Llandogo, Monmouthshire as part of the ‘Inside Out’ programme.

Whitestone was the second stage of a Wye Valley AONB project which began at Bracelands, Forest of Dean in 2009. The objective is to use the arts as a catalyst to engage and connect people from excluded and under represented groups in Monmouthshire to connect with the landscape of the Wye Valley and offer disadvantaged groups opportunities for enjoyment, self-expression and relaxation in the outdoor environment.

Arts…

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Cymraeg

Arts Alive Wales worked in Brecon during Spring and Summer 2010. Our arts project ‘Green Fire’ had an environmental theme and was aimed at the St John’s Ward communities of North West Brecon.

Green Fire offered opportunities for people to participate in artist led activities that will create a lasting legacy for the community.

What we did:
1. Created a ‘Peace Garden’ sited at Priory Primary School
2. Explored and celebrated the ancient Maendu Well site, making flags for use at future events and litter picks
3. Made a textile that maps the community

Arianwyr y Prosiect /

…

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The ‘Branching Out’ project provided outdoor sessions at the Skirrid woodland Forest school site, which is beautifully maintained by the National Trust. The project ran from May 2007. Sessions were planned and led by Miranda Thomason and Tamsin Young, established artists who have Forest School Leader accreditation and wide experience in community work, a great combination of skills that makes for lively and stimulating workshops.

Sessions were run with different groups of children, young people and families who normally attended at least four sessions. Programmes were designed to meet each group’s requirements and groups often had a broad range of ages and needs.

The…

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Over summer 2009, ‘Healing Words’,  brought together artists, poets and people from Blaenau Gwent to take a journey of words and images. The project aims to give people coping with mental health issues the opportunity to express themselves through poetry and art.

‘Healing Words’ was a partnership project organised by Head 4 Arts, Gwent Arts in Health, Academi and Arts Alive. Academi writers Graham Hartill, Anita Flowers and Mike Church worked with participants to develop shared writing whilst Arts Alive artists Kate Raggett, Tim Rossiter and Tessa Waite helped groups…

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In 2007, Arts Alive Wales worked with local schools and adult groups to create flags and bunting to decorate Brecon for the HSBC Brecon Jazz Festival. Brecon Jazz attracts visitors from far and wide, and groups created individual, bright and vibrant flags and bunting that was displayed in public places around Brecon.

Flags are potent symbols and expressions of identity and make a wonderful project for young people and adults with many opportunities to explore issues of identity, other cultures, creativity and self-expression. In the workshops with local schools and groups, participants designed and painted their own flags and bunting which was…

Read more about HSBC Brecon Jazz Flag Project

During 2007, Brecon DFAS sponsored an Arts Alive project that gave over 400 pupils in South Powys the opportunity to make a textile picture of Beaufort Street, the main route through Crickhowell.  The 3m long banner depicts the A40 from the Fire Station to the Bear Hotel. 

Nearly 300 children in Crickhowell Primary School contributed to the artwork and each class was responsible for designing and making one of the buildings on this busy stretch of road. The 3 landscape panels at the top of the Stitch were designed and executed by the neighbouring schools of Llanbedr, Llangattock and Cwmdu. Lisa Hellier…

Read more about Children’s panel of Crickhowell in Stitches

The Crickhowell High Street Stitch-Up began in 2004 as part of an Arts Alive Wales development project. We asked our artists to find a community art project that would be ambitious, exciting and fun but meaningful and relevant to Crickhowell. Lisa Hellier, who had already made a map of the town, came up with the ‘High Street Stitch Up’, a textile mapping project to depict the heart of our town, basing the overall design on her own map. Lisa provided the templates for all the buildings, but all the work you see on the panels is that of the participants…

Read more about The High Street Stitch-up – Crickhowell in Stitches