YES , the answer is yes we got it !! A vitally important milestone has been reached - major achievement in the current financial climate . We have been notified, we will receive grant funding, from a major funder, Arts Council England, for our wonderful project. I know I have not written for awhile, due to, much anxiety (lots) , anticipation alongside a mind boggling flurry of activity. Needless to say it has not all quite sunk in but we now have the means to move very quickly and positively forward !!!!
We have in place a really fantastic creative team ( theatre, performing arts, creative artists , digitals till & moving image, multi-media MA's BA's etc) planning out with me in our regular team meetings, still and moving image shoots, the art direction , external and studio, locations and venues , extras costumes, props , hair make up and personnel . In addition to very having stimulating discussions with clear decisions emerging about creative technicalities about the visual look, colour textures, post edit treatments of the piece, across the different decades of style, throughout the narrative of the piece . We are currently recruiting a crowd of extras. All our main character/model actors have all been sourced locally and cast by me. All to generate the quality images we need for the stage production . Key project management tools are Dropbox and Google Calender-essential !!! It does feel historic, with an unstoppable positive forward momentum. We are building something that will really be very special and unique right here in the middle lands of England ..of Leicester The world awaits....
Showing posts with label england. Show all posts
Showing posts with label england. Show all posts
Wednesday, 24 August 2011
Monday, 10 May 2010
All Hung Out with Frida Kahlo
So today several days after the predictable political turmoil England currently faces, of a hung parliament. I effect to be confident and sanguine, as I now know I must definitely get the help I require from some quarter. It starts tommorow I meet a woman skilled, experienced and knowledgeable in these dark arts, of getting money from Arts funding bodies for emerging arts wonderkinds as myself. Just as in the days of patronage I need to get her on my side in my camp so to speak in order to bring forth this work !
Wonderful inspiration I found at the weekend, provided in a incredible performance by Khadijatou Doyneh, a strong confident articulate and eloquent artist, just re - confirm how joyful is it to meet a British Black woman, so able to utilise all her gifts so magnificantly. However this is a rare occurence far too rare today.
We dont see such artists on our arts cultural radar never mind the media etc, I had taken to studying more of women's art feminist art etc over the week end. I just marvelled at how countries like e.g. Germany Europe in general just churn brillant women artists out all the time. Only a couple of Black women artists are listed in the book I read , no other women of colour included , thus surely providing the opportunity for this omission to be addressed more fully by commentators, driven to correct this glaring imbalance .
On the phone I chatted with a male colleague in a similar situation to myself with his arts project , we shared our mutal disappointment in having our ambition, raised only for it to be scaled down by the circumstances, outside of our control that were not divulged at the time we embarked on our respective artistic journeys . We find some comfort in these conversations with each other, i.e. to carry on with the 'struggle', saying with hindsight if we had all the facts - would we have taken on the enterprise ?
Later I noted a frustrated , almost bitter tone on his part, also curiously secretative as if he had information of great import that he could not divulge at this time. As he felt more than slighted by these untoward developments affecting his work, he felt the political uncertainty would only worsen matters, hasten further cuts in arts spending, therefore the end of all our larger hopes. I was more cautiously optimistic, I had a weekend of fun and deep reflection, this has strengthened me and gvien me a certain necessary detachment at times , to be able to see things a little more clearer, rather than through a mist of frustrated anger . I understand though how he feels I guess we have similar problems but have different ways of dealing with it. For me as I said before it is all grist to the mill.
This then follows on as it brings me into some affinity, tenous connection and fascination with the works of Frida Kahlo. European Surrealists, wanted to call her a surrealist, but she said she 'never painted a dream' she painted her lived authentic experience - infused as it was with unimaginable agonies and her passion for Mexcian folklore. Looking at her photos it is her gaze that arrests you and the proudly unplucked dark lush eyebrows, that give her a defiant yet melancholic beauty. It is these qualities that I find most compelling of all.
Wonderful inspiration I found at the weekend, provided in a incredible performance by Khadijatou Doyneh, a strong confident articulate and eloquent artist, just re - confirm how joyful is it to meet a British Black woman, so able to utilise all her gifts so magnificantly. However this is a rare occurence far too rare today.
We dont see such artists on our arts cultural radar never mind the media etc, I had taken to studying more of women's art feminist art etc over the week end. I just marvelled at how countries like e.g. Germany Europe in general just churn brillant women artists out all the time. Only a couple of Black women artists are listed in the book I read , no other women of colour included , thus surely providing the opportunity for this omission to be addressed more fully by commentators, driven to correct this glaring imbalance .
On the phone I chatted with a male colleague in a similar situation to myself with his arts project , we shared our mutal disappointment in having our ambition, raised only for it to be scaled down by the circumstances, outside of our control that were not divulged at the time we embarked on our respective artistic journeys . We find some comfort in these conversations with each other, i.e. to carry on with the 'struggle', saying with hindsight if we had all the facts - would we have taken on the enterprise ?
Later I noted a frustrated , almost bitter tone on his part, also curiously secretative as if he had information of great import that he could not divulge at this time. As he felt more than slighted by these untoward developments affecting his work, he felt the political uncertainty would only worsen matters, hasten further cuts in arts spending, therefore the end of all our larger hopes. I was more cautiously optimistic, I had a weekend of fun and deep reflection, this has strengthened me and gvien me a certain necessary detachment at times , to be able to see things a little more clearer, rather than through a mist of frustrated anger . I understand though how he feels I guess we have similar problems but have different ways of dealing with it. For me as I said before it is all grist to the mill.
This then follows on as it brings me into some affinity, tenous connection and fascination with the works of Frida Kahlo. European Surrealists, wanted to call her a surrealist, but she said she 'never painted a dream' she painted her lived authentic experience - infused as it was with unimaginable agonies and her passion for Mexcian folklore. Looking at her photos it is her gaze that arrests you and the proudly unplucked dark lush eyebrows, that give her a defiant yet melancholic beauty. It is these qualities that I find most compelling of all.
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