Scolawi News 14-9-14

Once again I'm getting ready to travel out to Malawi and my life is full of 'to do' and 'to take' lists. This time we're taking our children with us so they can experience a completely different culture to ours and realise how privileged their upbringing has been in Scotland.

 

We leave for Malawi next Saturday to exhibit the I Love Scolawi project. I'll be exhibiting at the Lake of Stars music and art festival 26th-28th Sept www.lakeofstars.org and at the Blantryre arts festival 2nd-5rd Oct www.blantyreartsfestival.org

 

Unfortunately I will only be at the Blantyre arts festival for the first two days because I need to get home and get the Scottish exhibition ready, which will run from the 20th October. The exhibition will be left up for the entire four days of the festival. Thomas Chibambo, the director of the festival has also asked me to run a photography workshop during the festival which I'm quite excited about. There are further plans for a collaboration between Thomas and the BAF and the Fotospace Gallery in Glenrothes. While I'm in Malawi I hope to make these plans more concrete.

 

I'm also taking the exhibition to the participating groups who helped create pictures for I Love Scolawi. It will be wonderful to see everyone again, and I can't wait to show participants how their contribution fits into the whole.

 

In the last few weeks I have been feeling quite panicky about getting the community exhibition ready in time, while at the same time creating some work myself. I'm happy to announce that I woke up this morning feeling refreshed and not panicked for the first time in ages! I have completed the 10 pictures I set myself to create, I've photoshopped three composite A0 posters of everyone's work  along with five A0 posters featuring my forty favourite pictures for the Malawian exhibition. Everything that needs printing has been uploaded and sent to the printers, and I should get them delivered back by midweek latest. It's quite a relief, I can tell you!

 

One of three A0 posters showing everyone's artwork

 

 

There's still quite a bit to do: organise the workshop I'm running, mount the printed work, write some blurb to go with the exhibition, update my resume etc. But it feels like the stressy part is over with and I just have to get myself organised.

 

Fundraising news

 

The bingo tea last weekend as a great success, and we raised £264. Big thanks go to Betty for organising the event. I didn't win anything, but I think I've only won at bingo a couple of times :(

 

Cafe Alfresco in Glenrothes have been using their charity box to collect money for I Love Scolawi for the last few months and have raised £260. This seems an incredible amount raised from spare change! Big thanks go to Laura and Claude for organising this.

 

Also worth mentioning I think, is that Laura and Claude looked through my pictures when they popped over the other day and Laura  told me it was my best work to date (bless her!), and that I wasn't allowed to say that I couldn't draw. I can't remember my exact words last email, but I don't think I can't draw, I just think that I'm adequate at drawing - I need to practice the shapes I'm drawing over and over to get them right, whereas I think that good drawers can draw the shapes first time.

 

Thank you to everyone who has donated to me over the last couple of weeks. The total we have raised in nearly £5,700. Well done everyone! There is a Paypal donate button on my blog (top right) if you feel like donating to raise this above £6000.

 

Lastly,
I've had an email from my friend Mary, in Malawi  who has asked if I can bring any old or broken mobile phones over with me to be used for parts. If you have any old phones knocking around the house that you haven't got round to throwing out yet, please consider passing them on to me to take out with me.