After the chaos of moving last month, which included a stint camping in my own home for a month (long story) on a an airbed I had to create a pump for using just packing tape and a vacuum cleaner (Even longer story) we are in new digs. see moving hell pic below... And best of all, at the new place we now have a studio! Look foward to more complex works now we somewhere to assemble and prep, no more bodgy working on the balcony!
A last minute SOS from another painting outfit resulted in a quick search and rescue mission for a mural project in a private home, even with reference available, free style cherubs, Sydney Skylines and ‘Day of the Dead’ characters will stretch your limits, and all pumped out under a super tight schedule…
The Shack Youth Services have also run a series of small street art sessions, with many young people in the South Eastern suburbs of Sydney getting to try their hand at painting with help from CFY Illawarra artists. The result has been awesome fun and a instant gallery of works now decorating their centre, random words, quick compositions and great fun to paint!
Speaking of The Shack, I was asked recently by a client whether or not CFY does logos and graphic design- the answer is yes! Two quick examples are The Shack Youth Services 'house' logo from a couple of years back, as well as the 'Lookup' logo for Sydney hip hop heads Lookup.
Maybanke Youth Centre in Pyrmont also recently ran a fast and fun painting session for a group of local young people, resulting in a selection of cool banner artworks, including a rad yin-yang fish design and basketball artwork. We'll be heading back there in a couple of weeks, keep an eye out for more new aerosol works both at the centre and also at the Powerhouse Museum.
On the topic of the Powerhouse Museum, as part of NAIDOC Week 2010, CFY supplied a mentor artist to help a group of young people in Redfern to paint a series of banners celebrating the achievements of local community members. The banners were then put on display at the museum. Unfortunately these are not the greatest shots but the banners themselves look fantastic and the young people involved learnt all about stencilling and aerosol art as well as taking part in this great annual event.
A longer series of sessions last term resulted in a great ‘fishpond’ themed mural with students of a visual arts secondary school. The brief was to use the space to produce and artwork which had a layered and engaging design to brighten up a desolate piece of local parkland. The students compiled the basic images and stencils and then with the help of a CFY Illawarra lead artist produced this mural over the course of a couple of afternoons, with owners and locals stoked with the result.
The Church of Nazarene in Enmore recently received a grant to run a youth art project in the school holidays to decorate a worn out piece of wall behind their centre. MYRC in Marrickville organised a group of young people to take part and also sent their resident graff guru Tom along to help out and in about 3 hours flat this cool little piece based on a 'peace' theme, stained glass and a 'pece sign' tree was produced. From pencil sketch to larger than life in a couple of hours- Fast game is a good game!
The Youth Action and Policy Association Youth Conference also featured an interactive street art session this year run by CFY Illawarra, and allowed young people to rock a quick piece on the hotel rooftop and then participate in a great little forum on young people, graffiti and the law. A big shout out to the conference organisers and fellow panel members, their work to challenge the anti-graffiti, anti –public art, anti-young people stance of many government departments is very good to see. Check out the following pics and the drop sheet set up on site- not a speck of paint on the hotel!
