Thriving

Thrive Youth Arts Festival at the Empire Theatre Toowoomba is one of my absolute favourite community events. There is such a beautiful mix of families gathering together together to engage in the arts for and with their children. Set amongst the backdrop that is the heritage Empire Theatre itself, with the sun shining and chatter of the kids the vibes are truly magical. 

This year it felt right bringing the BIRDS along for the ride as they accompanied the festival theme for 2024 beautifully. I truly love to create space for authentic uninhibited sensory exploration that is temporal mark making.  The process really does break down some of our personal barriers and struggles we may have with making art publicly, and privately. 

Watching people of all ages, genders, ethnicities and backgrounds happily pick up a piece of chalk and scratch some colour onto the pieces was awesome, if I am being honest. 
To accompany the BIRDS I also created (with the assistance of the one and only Aaron Stalling) a set of transparent easels. Created or more assembled from a series of repurposed found objects I loved the idea of peering through and double sided collaborative artworks. Using classic poster paint that was washed both thoroughly and not so thoroughly throughout the festival had a lot of our youngest artists heading straight to the surface. Having the easels at their eyeline was really important for me, often art is made and displayed for taller eyes, but throughout the festival I saw many small children run for the colourful panels with parents in chase only to discover what had caught their eye when they were immediately in front of it. 

The concentration of thought was visually noted on their faces as they worked their way around the panel. Depending on the space available they would make their own fresh designs or begin to place with colour mixing and layering adding to already existing painted areas. 

As always being amongst them and also watching everyone create together had my own mind ticking over new and other ways to facilitate community arts projects in the future.