Artlink West Yorkshire’s crafty scheme for art during lockdown

The Creative Toolkit has been put together during lockdown by Artlink West Yorkshire whose mission is to bring the creative sector to groups which have the least access to it.

The art packs, which contain materials and are supported by how-to videos and Zoom sessions, have helped people design colourful masks and puppets.

Sylvie Fourcin, director at Artlink West Yorkshire says: “Delivering an arts project remotely to nearly 200 adults across Leeds seemed like an impossible take in March. We are now well on our way and the adults we work with look forward with excitement to the delivery of our creative packs.

“It has been amazing to see them take part online creating bird masks, colourful textile landscapes and puppets to name but a few.”

The charity, based on Belle Vue Road, Leeds, has teamed up with care organisation Aspire CBS (Community Benefit Society) and five Leeds City Council care homes to run the project.

Hayley Mason, Artlink’s project manager, also hailed the artists they work with for embracing new skills, like video tutoring.

She said: “One of the good things is it has made us aware of how adaptable we are as an organisation.

“We’ve been able to rise to the challenge which was quite daunting at first. We had to ask our artists to redesign how they operate. They have really stepped up to the challenge and now they are quite comfortable doing it this way.”

Hayley was impressed by their response to the new way of working and how they had made it entertaining for people.

She added: “They have brought it alive and they have made it fun, colourful and creative. They’ve been amazing.”

The project, which has been funded by an emergency grant from the National Lottery Community Fund, has also had good feedback from carers and from participants.

Becci, a support worker from Aspire CBS, summed up their time on the project so far, saying: “We had a cracking morning at Holmsley. We all created our backdrops and started creating our puppets and stories, we will continue next Wednesday. They loved chatting to everyone on Zoom. “

Project manager Hayley said the Zoom sessions had also helped people catch up with friends that hadn’t seen each other for weeks and months because of the pandemic.

She said: “To see that in action is wonderful and quite moving really.”

Some had also used the video conferencing technology to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to one of the people on the Zoom call.

The Creative Toolkits scheme is an extension of Artlink’s programme ‘Moving On’ which saw artists work with the same group of people for three years and build up an incredible rapport.

Before lockdown, Artlink took its work to care homes, day centres and schools. But it has learnt new skills during the pandemic and plans to keep utilising them in the near future. Hayley added: “We will take some of the aspects that we do on this project. I’m not entirely sure yet, but if we do manage to come back all together again, then perhaps using the Zooms or the how-to videos as a legacy for our work. We would like to continue some aspects when things get back to some kind of normality.”

FACT FILE:

Art Link West Yorkshire grew out of the national Shape Up North programme that began in 1979.

It became a separate charity at the end of the 1980s and aims to bring art to the most vulnerable people in society. It works with adults with learning disabilities, dementia and long term mental health issues. The charity also works with women who are part of the criminal justice system and with young people.

Artlink runs numerous projects like ‘We are All Artists’, which has helped people in care homes discover the likes of Jackson Pollock.

The creative group expanded its work with older people and those with dementia after director Sylvie Fourcin undertook the Winston Churchill Travel Fellowship in 2017. She visited New York and Vancouver to discover how they did participatory art with elders. In 2018 Artlink also worked with people at the Health and Well Being Hub and from the Wykebeck Valley Day Centre on its Creative Connections programme.

The charity, which has a management committee of six and a staff of four, is mainly funded through the Art Council’s National Portfolio. It is also supported through Leeds City Council’s Arts@Leeds scheme and by the National Lottery’s Community Fund.

For more information see: artlinkwestyorks.org, email: [email protected] or ring 0113 2431005.