Street Art brightens up the day!

I can't believe I haven't blogged since March! Well, I have a kind of excuse - I've been very busy running this street art project for young people. The project had it's grand finale on Sunday when all the art work was displayed on the street. Here's a video so you can see some of the highlights of the day. And here's a facebook link so you can see the photos. Hopefully I'll have a bit more time now to get back into blogging! Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the video.

Summer fun continued...

Some of the finished articles from this week's creative workshops at Novi Most Jajce.

Summer fun

We've started our summer holiday programme at Novi Most Jajce, and this morning we had the first Creative Workshop. Here's some of what we got up to. The workshops continue tomorrow.

Avant-Garde Jajce 2012

We did it! The art project for young people that I've been talking about on and off for the last month or so has finished. 

It was certainly a day to remember. It started at 03:30am with an armed robbery in the centre of town, about 2 minutes from our house. At 05:00am we left our house as planned to meet  up with the others to put up the exhibition around the town but we were stopped before we even left our street by a policeman telling us to go back into our house as there was a gunman on the loose and the town centre was on lock down. At 06:30am a SWAT team turned up with guns at the ready and searched all around the area around our house as we watched out of the windows. By 07:30am the coast seemed to be clear and one of the policemen gave us permission to start putting the exhibition up. I had to go to a friend's house to pick up some of the stuff as she hadn't been able to get into the town due to the lock down. I should add that we live in an old walled town so there are only a couple of ways in and out. When I got back to the town gate, the policeman there wouldn't let me back in and he got pretty angry when I tried to explain that I live in the town and needed to go home and to set up our exhibition. After and hour of waiting outside the town gate he let me in and we started to put the exhibition up! You can watch us doing it in the video above. 

As if we hadn't had enough to deal with already, there were two big thunder storms in the afternoon right when the young people were supposed to be performing outside! You can see some dancing in the rain on this second video which is of the performances.

And the waiting is over...

After our workshop on Monday the army of babushkas in my living room now have faces :)

Waiting for Faces

 There's a slowly growing army of faceless babushka dolls in my living room! Preparing for next week's workshops...

Projekat Avant-Guarde Jajce 2012

 The art project for young people, which I mentioned a week or so ago, is now well underway.

 There are lots of different workshops going on over the next few weeks leading up to the big day on 3rd May.

 Yesterday we enjoyed the sun while painting wooden dolls.

These dolls will be left around town on the big day as part of an 'Art Drop'.

Each doll has a message attached to it letting the public know that they are free to take and wishing them a nice day.

Small beginnings...

I mentioned a week or so ago that we had a plan brewing for a big creative event for young people here in Jajce - the plan is still brewing and is coming along nicely. Today a group of us started limbering up for the big day. Small beginnings but hopefully the end result, when the day comes, will be fab!

Youth Art Month

I just found out that this month is Youth Art Month in the USA. The goal of it is to emphasize the value of participating in art for children and young people. There are national, state and local events to celebrate it. Sounds like a great idea.  Here in BiH at Novi Most Jajce, every month is Youth Art Month in one way, as we are always doing new art projects with young people. But it would be great to have some bigger events to celebrate the work they are doing and the value of young people having creative opportunities. In fact,we have a plan brewing, not for this month, but maybe the next...Keep your eyes open to see how it all unfolds. The photo above is from our art session last night.

Making hamsters

Some of the Hamsters we made last night at Novi Most Jajce. The pattern can be found in MollieMakes magazine issue 5 or here on the MollieMakes website.

3 notes, 3 cities, 30 dancers

I think this video speaks for itself. I know Ashley because she ran some dance workshops for us in our Youth Centre in Mostar last summer which were fantastic. If you are interested in supporting the project click here. And please spread the word. Thanks :)