Collective Weekender Roundup

A week or so ago, you may remember I said I was hosting an animation workshop as part of the Collective Weekender happening in Preston. It was a four day mini arts/ creative festival which took place in various locations around the city celebrating the variety of talent and artists living in Preston. There were loads of workshops and performances open to the public and more importantly, all FREE. Free arts is something I am a big advocate of, because I feel arts should be accessible for all, regardless of your financial situation or background. There's so many barriers in the arts and I could go on, but that is probably for a whole other blog post!

Here's the result of what we created:

Unfortunately no one besides my boyfriend turned up for the event (which was still super fun as we had a brilliant afternoon drawing horses together!), but quite disappointing on the whole. I put a lot of planning and preparation into the workshop and in all honesty it was quite an anticlimax when I realised that I wasn't going to get any attendees. Perhaps it was because of timing- I mean a Thursday afternoon might not have been the best time for this kind of thing. Or maybe I didn't promote it enough (though there's only so much I can/ want to spam my IG/ Twitter accounts). Or perhaps lack of friends in Preston (maybe I should spend less time in my room animating and do more socialising). That thought scares me..!

Whatever the cause was, on sharing the final outcome from the workshop on social media after the event, I had a lot of positive feedback which makes me think that next time I do something like this, more people will show up. Plus over the course of the weekend I met a lot of other Preston creatives by attending several of the events, so I feel like I have since widened my network.

Me in my element. Look at that smile!

The other events I attended were the Cyanotype workshop with photographer Nicola Lewis-Dixon. This was really fun as I've never done one of these before (basically cameraless photography). I'd love to try this out more in my own time.

Cyanotype workshop

The writing workshop hosted by writer and filmmaker Su Moffat. I've not attended many writing workshops (or at least not as an adult- I remember a few when I was a kid) so I didn't quite know what to expect. Though Su was really good at encouraging ideas and offered some great tips/ prompts for improving creative writing and pulling out a story.

The other event I went to was the portrait painting workshop with artist Sally Dyer. I've not painted in a way which isn't abstract for quite a few years, so this was a fantastic workshop to get back into painting. Sally was great and offered as much or as little advice you needed or wanted. Unfortunately I didn't quite finish mine in the timeframe, but the workshop was really enjoyable and relaxing and has definitely inspired me to start painting again!

Still went for abstract colours though didn't I

If I had the time, I would have loved to have attended more of these events- they all sounded fantastic and from the photographs afterwards, they looked great, too! I really hope this momentum and community of creativity in Preston continues, because it actually feels really good and positive at the moment.

Talking of which, there is actually SO MUCH GOING ON IN PRESTON right now and it's all so cool!! If this ain't the place to be in the North West right now, I don't know where is.

We got a Wallace and Gromit bench installed:

Lancashire Encounter is happening right now. Head here for the line up. There's also a lot of top class poetry/ comedy/ performances coming up, hosted by Enjoy the Show events promotion. Preston has also just released it's 12 year cultural strategy- read more about that here.

So, see you in Preston then, yeah?