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EDUCATION WORK

2011 -Natural Identity Project - working with 2 schools in the Stirling Area over 2 or 3 months, exploring Art, bookmaking, Poetry and the Natural Environment, culminating in an exhibition at The Changing Room in Stirling.
2010 -Bean Geese project - working with Slammanan Primary School and funded by SNH, examining the rare Bean Goose through field trips and art activity, culminating in an exhibition in the school.
2007 -6 Cities Design Festival - workshops in the Changing Room Gallery in Stirling (through Stirling Council), responding to the local urban environment, producing architectural models and posters on the theme of "recycled design", with under 12's, 12 - 18 yrs, and over 18's.
-Early Years Project at the Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh. Working with the Off The Wall exhibition (including work by Jim Lambie, Christine Borland and Nathan Coley) in collaboration with Lis Dooner, a flute player with Scottish Chambers Orchestra, and Pam Wardell, a storyteller and dramaturge.
-Ark Trust Over 50s Forum tour of Off The Wall at the Gallery of Modern Art.
- Freelance gallery education with The National Galleries of Scotland: regular lectures and tours with school-groups and adults across all four galleries.
- Gallery of Modern art and Kaimes Special Needs School talks and workshops surrounding Off the Wall at the Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh.
- National Galleries writing tours and workshops with adults, with Helen Boden.
- Ca(i)re group, Eric Liddell centre, Edinburgh. 6 week course exploring The National Galleries of Scotland.
- 2 day drawing and painting course in Holyrood Palace, related to the Amazing Rare Things at The Queens Gallery, Edinburgh.
2006 -Fruitmarket gallery, Edinburgh. Various talks and workshops with Calum Innes exhibition, including The Big Draw, and Opt in For Art with yound people.
- Changing Room, Stirling. The Big Draw, text-based workshops, and workshops with schools in conjuction with Stirling Library.
- Scottish Natural Heritage, Stirling. Flanders Moss Project with Thornhill Primary School.
- National Galleries of Scotland, Cowparade workshops and talks, with Vet Aid.
2005 -Changing Room, Stirling Wallace 700 Project: working with a group from East Plean primary school towards an exhibition and performance in September 2005 at The Tolbooth, Stirling.
- Andy Warhol talks and workshops with a wide range of groups at the Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh.
- Francis Bacon talks and workshops with a wide range of groups at the Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh.
- Ben Nicolson relief workshop at The Dean gallery, Edinburgh.
2004 - Freelance gallery education with The National Galleries of Scotland: regular lectures and tours with school-groups and adults across all four galleries.
- Workshop based around Work in Progress exhibition at The Changing Room, Stirling.
- Travel Journals: Family day workshops at The National Gallery.
- Lucien Freud graphic workshop at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.
2003 - Artist's Training for Gallery Education, with the Institute of Education, London.
- Freelance gallery education with The National Galleries of Scotland.
- Workshop and Artist Talk based around Past Standing exhibition at The Changing Room, Stirling.
- National Galleries of Scotland Family Day: drawing workshops based around The Macduff Circle by Richard Long at The Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh.
- Drop in and Draw: informal and experimental drawing workshops for adults at The Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh.
- Big Draw: Edinburgh Zoo, The Changing Room in Stirling and the National Galleries of Scotland.
- Get Arty: monoprinting workshop at Edinburgh Zoo.
- Saturday Art Club at The Dean Gallery, Edinburgh: 4 workshops based on Outsider Art from the Scottie Wilson collection.
2002 - Freelance gallery education with The National Galleries of Scotland.
2001 - Preparing and running day classes in Painting and Drawing with adults outdoors, through the Community Education Programme Summer School at Leith Academy, Edinburgh.
2000 - Preparing and running workshops in schools with The Travelling Gallery, in relation to the on land exhibition, various location around Scotland.
- Preparing and running a 2-day painting workshop for the Fleadh Suil in Ullapool, Scotland.
- Community Education Programme Tutor in painting at Leith Academy, Edinburgh.
1999 - Studio visits and talks with local schools, Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ireland.
- Gallery talk, Talbot Rice Gallery Edinburgh, in relation to the "In The Summertime" show.
1997 - Voluntary work with Artlink at The Barony Housing Association, Edinburgh.


NATIONAL GALLERIES OF SCOTLAND
I have worked with the National Galleries of Scotland on a freelance basis for over 2 years. This has involved many strands of activity, including themed gallery tours and workshops.

Gallery tours.
The philosophy supporting these tours is based on ideas of dialogue and inclusion. I am not there as an "expert", but rather as an equal to help elicit an honest response from the participants in order to raise critical awareness. The structure therefore takes the form of a series of carefully chosen questions, and is always flexible and led by the response of the individuals present. Often conflicting views arise, in which case I will open up a debate among the group in order to stimulate discussion. I have led hundreds of these tours with all ages (as well as constantly researching and developing new ones) and have found them in practice to be consistently enlightening, exciting, engaging and empowering for those involved.

Some examples of specific tours are:
WW2 and Human Rights
Uses works by Kokoschka and Barlach in The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art to understand something of how war affects individual lives, relating these themes to contemporary refugee situations and the everyday lives of the group, and using activities such as role-playing to explore expressing the issues raised in their own painting.

The Natural Environment
This uses a variety of works at The Gallery of Modern Art by artists such as Ian Hamilton Finlay, Richard Long and Charles Jencks to explore ideas and issues surrounding the natural word - looking at scientific approaches, personal responses, classicism and expression through landscape. To research and develop this tour, I used the gallery library resources, meeting frequently with Philippa Drummond, the schools education officer to discuss content and direction.

Myself and Family
Uses works at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery to explore ideas and issues surrounding the family, identity and community, and how these things have changed through the ages.

These tours generally last an hour, and are often supported by activities, games and relevant resources such as art materials, fabrics, objects and photographs in order to engage the senses as much as possible. Other tours have included Cindy Sherman, the Boyle Family, Ashley Havinden, Impressionism, Portraiture, Line and Colour and Narrative in Painting. A very wide range of contextual knowledge and awareness is required, from Early Italian Painting right through to Damian Hirst.


Saturday Art Club.
The Saturday Art Club at the Dean Gallery is run in 4 week themed blocks for two age groups (5-8, and 9-12), and relates to a particular exhibition in one of the Galleries. I have run one of these so far, which was related to Outsider Art. It involved four 2 hour workshops with each age group, and included:
Week one.Looked at an exhibition of Outsider Artist Scottie Wilson. Discussion of what we mean by "Outsider Art".
Various drawing activities in order to loosen up, such as drawing blindfolded and drawing each other in pairs without looking at the paper. I also asked them to remember and record a dream before next week, and gave out a worksheet to help.
Week two.Building on previous work, and using the dreams as a springboard for new drawings. Discussion of each others work and dreams, and linking this to Outsider Art, the subconscious and surrealism. Looked at Dali's Bird painting in the gallery.
Week three.Developing the dream drawings into a circular pattern/design using paint.
Week four.Using last weeks work to transcribe designs onto plates, inspired by Scottie Wilson.

Drop in and Draw.
These are a series of hour long one-off experimental drawing workshops for adults at the Gallery Of Modern Art, using work in the collection as a starting point. Previous workshops have included: Bill Viola video piece. Drawing each other in pairs, then swapping over and drawing onto and over each other drawings.
Douglas Gordon's List of Names. 1.Thinking of text as drawing and making a text-based response to the gallery surroundings. 2. Thinking about the List of Names as a kind of map, and responding in collage to the broad theme of mapping. Looking at Rachael Whitread's Untitled (colours) and thinking about negative space in drawing.

Richard Long Macduff Circle workshop.(see image 1)
This was a series of one hour workshops inspired by Richard Long's stone circle at the Dean Gallery. We began by drawing on large sheets of paper on the ground using long sticks with charcoal attached. This was in order to echo the ground-based nature of the work itself, as well as to encourage participants to draw in a new way they may not have experienced before. We then collected textures from the surrounding area and collaged into the drawings, in order to connect the drawing with a sense of place, prompting thoughts about how Long responded to his surroundings.

THE CHANGING ROOM, STIRLING
Past Standing
In 2003 I showed 4 paintings in Past Standing at The Changing Room, a group show themed around the idea of souvenirs.
I ran a workshop in response to this exhibition where participants were asked to bring in an object which reminded them of a place, experience or person. Following a discussion of the exhibition and the objects they brought, we began by drawing in transparent wax onto white primed MDF. The drawings were invisible until revealed by a wash of ink, and were intended to echo the processes of memory, creating in effect ghost drawings. We then collaged into this with digital print-outs of photographs of the objects themselves.

The Big Draw
Also in 2003 I ran with another artist The Big Draw, which was in response to an exhibition in The Changing Room by Donald Urquhart. (See the images below)





We began by discussing the exhibition, centred around different ways of approaching the idea of landscape using a variety of media.
We then gave out notebooks and pencils and headed outside to walk from the gallery to The Tolbooth Art Centre, taking in on the way several places which reflect different aspects of out surroundings, such as a shopping centre, the main street, the old town and the more rural graveyard. We used note-making, digital sound recordings and a digital camera to record as much as possible about each place, as well as thinking about the journey itself, and the resulting map made by the line of the walk.
The workshop continued in The Tolbooth where we used our raw material to produce details of patterns gathered from the original place, reflecting something of the landscape from urban, noisy and busy, to quiet, natural and idyllic. These were transcribed onto acetate, which were projected over each other onto a large sheet of paper on the wall. Onto this large sheet each person began to draw (using pens, pastels, charcoal, paint, pencil etc) collaboratively, stopping frequently to record on video a stop-frame animation. The resulting video work showed the drawing blossom and develop from small points to large clusters of drawing. This was then sound-tracked by the sounds gathered on the walk.

Work in Progress
This year, for the Work in Progress exhibition at The Changing Room I ran a 2 hour workshop based on a video of moving hands with 24 primary 7 children from a local school. Following a discussion of their personal responses and ideas raised by the film, they paired off and drew each others hands drawing, without looking at the paper. The aim was to think about, as well as movement and observation, the expressive functions of the hands and how they are used to communicate. (see the images below)





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