So I got an email to say that I have been accepted onto the artist in schools panel. I am not sure completely what this means. I think it means I am eligible to apply to do projects in schools, from September. I need to research further. Anyway it’s nice to get a positive email!
And it makes sense, as I have spent the last month working intensively on The Clare Kids Art Competition, an art competition I organised for kids in primary schools in Co Clare. It was successful, we had 218 entries. I have enough prizes for everyone, more or less. I feel like it was well organised and the kids got a lot out of it. I posted each entry onto the facebook competition page and wrote a comment about each one. I imagined if it was me who had entered and how much it would mean to me to see my entry posted and responded to. I have a forensic interest in how kids draw anyway, especially the younger ones and their representational gestural mark making, that I can but aspire to. So it was not hard to write about the work, and give an opinion about it. I didn’t do the judging as my 3 kids all entered, so it would have been unfair if I judged obviously.
In fairness the judges, Paul Corey, Sinéad Cahill, Eleanor Feely and Ana Colomer did a great job and took time and responded in detail to the works. All I have to do now is get the prizes organised and I am done, apart from organising the exhibition of the entries in glór when Covid-19 is not dominating our lives anymore.
It got me thinking about the amount of work involved, sorting and photographing and documenting the entries, posting and writing a response to each one, it was night after late night of work. I couldn’t stop once I’d started and of course the perfectionist in me was not going to let my standards slip, once set.
https://www.facebook.com/countyclarekidsartcompetition/
Now I have to think about how to use the experience to my advantage and make it pay for itself in some way.
