HELP...
KINGSTON...
NICE UP THE WALLS...
im not even sure i know why i have taken so long to get this chapter blogged...chapter five...the final paint...it certainly was a very busy last ten days... three paintings, several live shows, lots of pasting, and an interview, we were kinda glad we had come to a closure, sad that we would be off in a few days but it felt good to finish in a school..we started in a school so made perfect sense to finish in one...
help jamaica is a purely sponsorship funded project...its run by a couple of germans that became inspired to start there own library/project after seeing the impact that trench town reading and writing school had on the trench town community...its based in cassava piece kingston, next to two rivalling gully side communities...the desire was to provide a service to two separated communities in an attempt to merge them together. There is an education programme for adults as well as children, reading writing, art, and many other necessary subjects are taught on the grounds after school hours and in to the evenings for the adults. The centre has gone from strength to strength, building more classrooms and expanding its library contents continuously...there is a particularly strong reference to afrocentric books on the shelves...
I have painted a few madarills in the last couple of years...what i love about this animal is that it has such vibrant colours in its face, i love making the features pop out of the wall...several paintings down the line and i was finally getting used to the Jamaican sprays...i wont be missing them though..hahahaha...Hille, founder of help, asked us to adorn the paintings with a message to the audience...so both our paintings adopted pencils behind their ears...these guys below started doing some martial arts practise on the wall, had to snap some shots...there were a lot of youth around us whilst we were painting this wall as u would expect in a school...it was great to give them an insight to what can be achieved with paint and some dedication...
Given that it is the penultimate intention of nice up the walls to launch a jamaican visual arts school...it was really important to link up with a centre like help...our heads were filled with thoughts and realistic scenarios as to how that will come about...i feel optimistic that it can happen and that the first stage has been incredibly successful... the next step will be a show documenting what has happened in london and then we will look for funding to fly back out there with a large group of international artists...nice up the walls is just getting started...but it has started...
click
HERE for a link to help jamaica....
THERE IS LOTS MORE PHOTO ON THEIR WEBSITE OF THE PAINT
I wonder if hille and i saw duppy or something in this photo....
we have the same perplexed expression...hahahahaha
lindas blog soon come....click for link...
HERE
