10 thoughts on “PicKee Steps”

1. Andy and I have just been talking about Back to Back Theatre. I first saw Food Court at the Barbican in 2010 one of those productions that went BOO! Very shocking and good quality but showing people with learning disabilities as powerful and in roles that were bullish and cruel at times. It showed the real side of life, that isn’t always people with learning disabilities being daisies and sunshine. We also talked about how sometimes, as a learning disabled artist you are made to feel grateful for any opportunity you are given, even if its not good, or not accessible. It’s important that learning disabled artists are given the opportunity to make work that shows the ‘reality’ of what their lives can be like, the nasty bits too. Kid gloves are not always useful and being up there and out there making quality work means making uncomfortable quality work sometimes. With music from The Necks, take a peek from their You Tube short video made in 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF4cN6PS6B8 Be warned It’s not easy viewing but lovely use of captions tho’

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2. Do “free Art Workshops” or “drop in” mean that some people just don’t get the hard work done by the Artist and Try to put into more people into the space which might mean a big drop in being able to make good art. |What do u think?

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   • i think you are right Andysometimes meeting a large group of people: their comfort, their access and their communication – the art might become less important.

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3. Support & understanding is so important for any learning disabled artist to get the opportunity they need. I often wonder if it would be a great thing if support workers could get some training in what it means to be an artist generally or do some art themselves. I know support workers in Horsham joined the band Boom Tribe so they could understand Samba for themselves. In this way they can be more positive in supporting a learning disabled person to get an arts life, it’s not just an option, something to fill the time for the person they are working with but that for some learning disabled people, it’s like breathing. It’s very very important! Also it would be great if arts organisations who often host learning disabled arts to happen, they might think of the work as ‘mainstream’ rather than just education or tick box or ‘special’ or ‘doing a good thing around inclusion’. if you’re put in a box, you might only be able to produce predictable boxed in work. Do people realise how good learning disabled artists can be?

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4. I think the most important thing that we can do is find a way to carry an idea away with you in a scrapbook or a sketchbook or anything. If you are a dancer, perhaps get people to film good bits of your dance on phones or an ipad and share your good thinking and ideas as they come in a workshop.
   If you work in sound and music, record what happens as you go along and ask people for their feedback. I wonder if Jez Colborne from Mind the Gap does this when he works on one on his big music projects? http://www.pushmeplease.co.uk/artists/jez-colborne/ If you’re lucky you can find a friend to help you.
   A book that makes you feel good – so good quality and a nice pen or pencil. It shows that you are being an artist all the time, keep it in your pocket. a blog might be something to think about. Artists have blogs now, most of them. I use a pencil because pens tend to run out. It’s what alot of artists do jot down your creative life because every little drop of creativity matters. It helps you to remember things. That’s why Sarah and I loved the Rockets Overall project. It was like a sketch book that you wear, brilliant!!!

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5. hi good morning. We’re nearly at the conference. and we have been practising. As i said to practice makes perfect. Do you think we will put people’s noses out of joint and say things that must be said.? Maybe. I think there will be alot of creative quality of art by people with learning disabiltiies on show during the conference and we will show in our leadership that it’s time that people started to feel ok about being critical about our work. We can take it! On the chin!

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6. I have to say that Andy has always been someone who wanted to put learning disabled artists and people ‘in the picture.’ He started Picture This – a brill project about digital art and picture frames (that Andy made) and strong images about young learning disabled people’s lives in Wandsworth . It was really only Photoshop we used, but it was really exciting working as an artist and with youth services too. We worked with Bim Ajadi – who is now a really successful Deaf filmmaker. Andy and I reflected how good it had been for his confidence to be on a course (Shape into Work) that meant meeting up with other disabled artists not just learning disabled artists. Yinka Shonibare was also on that course and he’s been on the plinth (well not actually on the plinth) and he’s in this year’s Brighton Festival too. Being seen as equal to other disabled artists is really important.

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7. So when Sarah and I met, all those years ago, she was working at Shape and i wasn’t working but i knew I was an artist at heart and i wanted to develop like any other artists. The thing is that being learning disabled we often have other physical disabilities, i went to Shape as a ‘disabled artist’ through ‘Shape into Work’ as i wanted to get more training in visual arts. The learning disability bit often means we only get a bit of dance, a bit of art, a bit of ‘basket weaving’. Training in something in a deep way is a hard thing to happen… C Arts companies who provide deeper training and experience for us are on the right track.

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   • I have always felt that its important that we don’t hold onto the jobs we get and are given along the way. Most artists move on to new things and that was why i felt that i wanted to move on from Oska Bright steering committee to make way for a new person to get the opportunity. I think we need to behave like other artists snf move on to new challenges. Now i do more things like training and i’m going to mentor people on the new Sprung leadership course – it’s the next part of http://www.mapfactor.co.uk and is a new digital leadership course for 6 learning disabled artists based at Lighthouse finishin gup a learning disabled digital festival in 2015 in Horsham. I’m going to be giving advice and build confidence and work as part of an artist team.

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   • Yes, it’s true. Andy at that time made a decision to do a youth arts worker course, he felt that in order to be taken seriously and work with a whole range of young people a qualification was really important. It’s a way of saying look i’ve done my time, i know what i’m doing. So he got really good at this through lots of practice. Andy is now known for making the Oska Bright Awards – doing it every year. It’s so difficult for alot of learning disabled artists to go deep with their art.

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