By Noelle Williamson
Announcing Fanfare for the Makers – a public portrait exhibition in Bramley, shared between two venues from May 1 to May 23.
The portraits will celebrate the people whose everyday talents and skills are threaded through our everyday lives: the friends, family, neighbours and colleagues who routinely make, bake and grow things for us, or whose hobbies and interests make them, and us, feel good.
You often hear people sharing memories like, “My mum used to sing to us …” or “My grandad had an allotment …” or “I used to hear the sewing machine going …”
You could think of those memories as little pieces of music in a minor key, played on a single instrument – a clarinet, perhaps, or a muted trumpet.
The Fanfare for the Makers exhibition is more Tutti! Concert Band than solo trumpet – and playing in a major key! – because we’re celebrating the here and now, whether it’s “My sister makes the best curry in the world!” or “Dad always sings when he’s in the shed. He hasn’t got the best voice, but I like to hear him.”
Which artist could truly do justice to your mum and her mural, or your colleague who has filled the office with plants? Isn’t it obvious?
Dear people of Bramley & Stanningley (even if you’re still too young to write your name, never mind read this) it’s time for you to get creative about them!
This is how it will work.
- You are invited to create a portrait of your dad (or nana or friend or grandson) that says something about them and their particular talent or skill, e.g. the sock knitter, singer, tomato grower, DIYer, pianist, home cook, storyteller, home dressmaker.
- Your portrait can be realistic or abstract, as long as it tells the viewer about that person and their everyday creativity.
- You can write by hand, draw, paint, print, collage, embroider, or mix your media – in any essentially 2D medium apart from photography (See the photography competition, In My Backyard, to be announced on Monday, 27/04.)
- Your portrait should ideally be between postcard and A5 size – no larger than A4.
- Take it to Bramley Community Hub & Library, on Hough Lane, or Trinity Methodist Church, on Upper Town Street, between Friday, May 1 and Friday, May 15.
There will be Bramley Community Arts Festival postboxes at Bramley Library and Trinity Church next week.
You can drop your portrait in either postbox from next Friday, May 1 to Friday, May 15.
It will then be added to the display at the end of that day.
That’s it.
Every single entry for Fanfare for the Makers will be displayed where you post it until May 16, in a montage that will grow every day. Then, all the portraits will be brought together and exhibited at Bramley Library for another week, until May 23rd.
After that, you can then collect your portrait and give it to your Maker.
Look out next Thursday, April 31, for further details about access times and contact information for submissions, as well as photos of the Bramley Community Arts Festival postboxes in situ at Bramley Library and Trinity Church.
In the meantime, you have a week before the post boxes are unsealed and the first portraits go up, and then two more weeks till May 15. Plenty of time to create your masterpiece! Have fun!