Really excited to be meeting up with Sync Re-Ignite artists for our second session today and to have Carmen Papalia and Louie Fermor in the space with Sean Lee and myself. It’s a Sync Re-Unite, Re-Ignite. Carmen brings a beautiful leadership metaphor the Weather Warlock to the session that you can all read about here.
Launch Pad - Our Summer exhibition is nearly here.
It has been so very exciting working alongside Harvey Cash our filmmaker and our web designer Oli Pyle to shape our 2nd Syncing Space Exhibition.
Our artists have gone all out to describe their work but also to share more of themselves and the process. We are delighted to feature the studio intro films as part of the exhibition too as well as a film about the residency.
We’ll be inviting guests to join us for the launch itself for half an hour of celebrations as we say a fond farewell for now. Sync Shorts Syncing Space won’t be the end for our 4 artists. They join the Sync Shorts family and the wider Sync program which we hope to develop further with partners in Canada but also South Korea.
For now, we want to congratulate Aba, Jared, Emilia and Emily for the journey and launch the work, and the thinking of these wonderful intuitive, sensitive Sync leaders!
Jared's 'Bear on a Mountain' diorama
So wonderful to see how our Syncing Space artists are pulling together their work with their creative support workers for the upcoming exhibition launch on August 22nd.
Here is an image taken from within our content management system for our website (designed by Oli Pyle who is busy prepping the exhibition pages) showing Jared making content for his final diorama artwork It matters to all of us that our work is accessible and so we’re all trying different ways to alt tag and alt text, to describe the work for those blind and low vision audiences but also other audieces too.
And as part of this and the films and audio shaped for this we get even more detail about the artists involved and their leadership thinking and what matters to them as they share their process and final pieces.
Whilst our artists are busy shaping their final artworks and prepping the access for them, i have been making my own drawings weaving the artists and their metaphors connecting with the coloured drawn pencil lines and fatter arroiws that I use to express connection and emotion.
You can see clearly the bear, the rose between 2 thorns, the mermaid and the dog too! What I’ve additionally added are words of what i’ve experienced in the artists, that i’ve seen or seen develop. ‘Perseverence’, ‘Confidence’, ‘Teamwork’, ‘Inspiration’ and more….
It’s my way of staying close to the artists, when we’re far apart in the world, knowing all that they are preparing for, because i’ve been there myself. It has been so great to watch them thinking differently about themselves as artists and using metaphors as i did, with my lava lamp to explore their mood, their making, their attitudes, their courage and what matters to them as artists.
Here is an example of me starting a new painting which is inspired by my own sync leadership program. I have decided to make a series of artworks based on the single line drawings I started when working on my Malaysian paintings. The new series are about various political issues that affect aspects of my life. These are from personal experiences as well as news headlines that I see everyday in the UK. There are lots of changes happening in the UK, I wanted to highlight some of them in my own way.
A few session back as well as going deeper with our metaphors, we talked over plans for artwork for the final showcase/exhibition. For some of us, it’s a big set of steps to move from ideas to actually making those ideas real. We were delighted to get a close up of Emilia’s ideas for an exploration in pop art at BEING and her starting to work on a very big canvas. And sometimes pausing and re-thinking and re-scheduling is part of leadership too.
I’ve decided to keep on drawing as I deepen my understanding of how Syncing Space works in my role as co-facilitator and the connections between each element we share with our 4 artists in the residency. Some of the lines have changed since my first posting, with connections made with thicker red pencil arrows. So I’ve decided to add these elements, such as blog posting, additional support, discussions and what we are talking about this week which is Metaphors. I chose an hour glass symbol for this, to describe time running out because as you get older it seems to go more quickly so you have to try to make the most of things. This particular drawing is to show various connections we all share as artists which made me think about what we have been discussing as a group.
So great to listen to our 4 resident artists sharing their Leadership Styles this week. Knowing that for many of, they have to adapt to the ‘situation’ playing different roles when speaking to a crowd, working with young people or giving all one’s focus to making art work for an exhibition. We are so excited with what people are sharing about their styles and motivations. We heard from Niall McNeil ‘listenship’ style.
Sarah asked me to think about how the connections are coming together between us all after our first sync session together, – the lines between us.
By listening to everyone, it helped me think about my role as a co facilitator on this project. With my experience on last sync shorts, I can guide the artists with my experience and enthusiasm. The drawing I’ve made shows the journey and connections between us all. As we move together on this project, I will add to this.
Graphic Illustration - Session 1
Here is a graphic illustration drawn by Annalees Lim when we all met for the first time which saw our 4 artists, Jared, Emily, Emilia and Aba share their favourite artwork and why they loved it so!
We also explored different leadership styles and the task this week is to share up to 3 of those styles that each artist can see in themselves. Can’t wait to find out what they’ll share this Friday when we meet again.
syncing space - take 2
Sync Shorts is a program that aims to change how those taking part feel about themselves as artist and leaders and helps them understand more about their styles, what motivates them but also what holds them back too!
Thompson's Leadership Styles
Thompson shared his leadership styles in our first Sync Shorts Syncing Space session and the quiet, situational, inclusive and charismatic sides of his arts life. Yes he chose 4 and you can too. Sometimes we don’t choose to be charismatic, we just are. It’s not showing off but something that we might use for good things. To promote our work and what matters to us.
Listen:
Sync artist associate, Thompson Hall and Sarah Pickthall co-founder of Sync met at Action Space base to plan the new Syncing Space residency program and for Sarah to meet the new artists for the first time.
Thompson shared a little about what it feels like being part of Syncing Space. He’s still inspired by his own residency in the Spring and how it’s still inspiring his artwork in new and exciting ways.
The program is starting on Friday the 4th July and finishing on the 8th August with an exhibition of work by our 4 artists made during the 6 weeks of the program.
Last Thursday, Sarah made a final visit to see Charlie at Project Art Works to see her finished artwork and make a recording of a conversation between Charlie, Katie and Patricia all of whom are in the painting. We placed the original photograph taken during the lockdown years beside the painting.
We are designing the final exhibition with our web designer, Oli Pyle and working with the audio of conversations that describes the artworks, why they were made, how they were made and why they matter so much. You will be able to listen and read these in the final exhibition.
It was wonderful in our last session to find out that Izzati has included so many of us in her mandala pictured here. Zu is in the middle as the constant flower, then surrounded by Armani.
Then Sarah is there with pink elements, then Charlie with yellow and green.
Thompson and his blues with dark strokes and where is Andi?
He’s around the circumference!
In sessions three and four, we’ve been sharing our metaphors together and how they relate to our leadership styles and motivation. We have explored Izzati’s butterfly but also what the flower means in her artworks. Thompson’s lava lamp clearly illustrates his nature and the way he approaches things. Ferb is Andi’s metaphor and we can see Andi when we watch the animation episodes! Charlotte’s lightening is something that bolts with challenge but also joy! We are learning all about each other in sharing our metaphors. Sync always does this whatever the programmes we run!
Wonderful to share Pixel Kim, a dear artist friend from South Korea as an example of a quiet, charismatic, collaborative leader.
Pixel’s art making is infectious. When he starts making, other artists come and join him and start making too. This week we started to explore the different ways we approach making artwork in our session. It was so good to do that together.
Izzati shared that she has many pieces on the go at any one time, it keeps her happy. Charlie shared the inspiration for her new work as part of the residency, once she’s found the image, she goes straight to canvas. Thompson uses pencils to explore the work before he starts to paint. Andi is still thinking about where he might focus his thinking and artwork on at this time. He has many followers and many ideas he wants to realise.
So great to see so many posts appearing in our artists’ studios and see the ideas and art making shared as it happens.
That’s the joy of an online residency, we can understand more about what drives our artists to make art. In our second session we were thinking about what motivates us. For some it’s keeping well, finding joy, bringing joy to others.
For others it’s about raising awareness about what is not fair and what needs to change. We had a talk about money too. Why not? Of course it’s great to make money from our artwork. Other’s do! Many of our artists have followings and fan clubs from their art exhibitions and publications.
We had a wonderful time at our first session with Armani and Sarah welcoming our 4 artists to the programme and their supporters. Harvey Cash who made the artist intro films joined us to say hello. Oli Pyle, who designed our website, took us through how to upload posts to our studio spaces and Annalees Lim made illustrations of all the reflections, ideas and leadership thinking to remind us what happened.
Sarah and Thompson at Action Space in London.
I hadn’t met Thompson since 2018 at his exhibition in London pre-Covid and at an Action Space Board meeting. It was great to see each other again and have an interview about his work and his leadership thinking.
Thompson is making exciting new work, making drawings first at home, then bringing them to life. His work is very reflective about people’s experiences in our busy world today.
Charlotte stands infront of her canvas in her studio space.
So wonderful to meet Charlotte Stephens again at Project Art Works (PAW) in Hastings and share the thinking behind Sync Shorts and the Syncing Space artist residency platform. We had an interview and using her artwork made a 90 second intro film for the new website.
Charlotte showed me around, meeting other studio artists.
Our first meet with our Sync Shorts Malaysian Artists and supporters
It was wonderful to meet together today to say hello. Annalees Lim, our associate Sync artist met with Andi Miranti and Izzati Sharin from Malaysia artists.
Annalees shared her ‘live scribe’ work with us and we all started to talk about the artist residency and leadership training and how we are going to work together between now and April.
Our first all group meet will be on the 13th February and we are making short introduction films for each artist for their studio page.
