04 Feb TYB – Meeting Craobh Rua*
Things are progressing nicely with the TYB Craobh Rua project, inside and outside the studio. Two of our artists met for with our grant funders and handled the admin side of paperwork required to draw down funds. While myself and Jenny Slater met with the Craobh Rua project workers last week. We discussed a number of topics e.g numbers of participants, venue suitability, installation of artworks, garda clearance for child protection, consent issues re photography and so on.
The Mother & Baby group meets normally on a Tuesday morning from 11am to 12.30 and we’d like to fit in here if we can, with a possibility of one other morning, probably a Thursday, being another option. We hope to have approximately 10 mothers and 10 children taking part, with babies ranging in age from a couple of months old to toddlerhood. Due to the various age ranges we’ve decided that it would be best to have a number of designated creative stations to cater for the different developmental needs of the children, so we are proposing a ‘Quiet Space’ a ‘Busy Space’ an ‘Active/Outdoor Space’ and a ‘Reflecting Space’ for reading, writing, and thinking together. For continuity and containment we want to have an opening circle sing/song time to start the group each week and an ending song with bubbles to mark the end of the group session.
So, in line with our own practice, interests and availability, the four artists involved must send in a brief bullet point proposal of ideas for one quiet space art activity, one busy space art idea and one outdoor art activity by Feb 25th. These will pull together into a more detailed weekly planner for us to work from, under the umbrella of our main proposal and email a copy to everyone. We plan to offer 8 sessions to the group, of 90mins contact time over 8 weeks. Planning and prep sessions are outlined below. We must outline how much your materials would cost for each art idea proposed so we can work out budgeting etc. and get a system going for keeping our receipts’ etc safe for the duration.
We will also look about for any safe musical instruments, children’s books that we might have at home.
Proposed Timeline
· February 11th – 11am Artists’ Meet-Up with the Group, to show their work and to hear from the group about their own ideas, hopes for the project.
· February 18th – Artists’ Research Trip to Recreate Dublin
· February 25th -Artists Exploring and Trying Out Ideas Together
· March 10th- Artists’ Research Visit to FE McWilliams Parent Baby Art Event
· March 24th- Artists Preparing Materials for the Group
· March Artists 31st -Preparing Materials for the Group
· April 7th – Group Starts
· May 26th – Group Ends/Celebration/Show
I felt this post is necessary to highlight the logistics of enabling the TYB art encounter to occur. I am pulling together the proposal for the 25th deadline. Incorporating activities and workshops designed for the audience is key. I will present a draft outline proposal in another post.
- Craobh Rua means the Red Branch in Irish. The Red Branch is the name of two of the three royal houses of the king of Ulster, Conchobar mac Nessa, at his capital Emain Macha, in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. In modern retellings it is sometimes used as the name of an order of warriors, the Red Branch Knights.