Back in May half term, six young people came along to an art workshop at Serennu Children’s Centre led by Newport-based artist Sarah Merton. The session was funded through Newport City Council’s Playworks Holiday Project and gave Lukas, Jasmine, Archie, Logan, Hattie and Bessie an afternoon to explore collage and see where their own ideas took them.

Sparkle Trustee Nicole Garnon, who owns Gallery 57 in Newport, had helped connect us with Sarah, who planned the workshop around moodboarding and mixed media. Rather than asking everyone to work towards the same finished piece, she introduced different techniques and encouraged the group to experiment with images, words, colours and textures.

For Sarah, that freedom to explore is an important part of the creative process. As she explains, ‘A moodboard allows participants to put themselves in the picture. I wanted everyone to tell me who they were through images.’

 

Looking at what they created that afternoon, you can see just how differently each of them approached it.

Lukas found ways of taking seemingly unrelated images and turning them into new stories, including a girl stuck inside a computer and a rescue mission taking place on a phone. Jasmine was fascinated by the story of Laika, the first dog to orbit Earth, and created a visual tribute to her. When fitting the space scene she had in mind onto one page proved tricky, Sarah introduced her to the idea of a diptych, where two separate panels form part of the same picture.

Archie’s approach was much more ordered, carefully cutting out images and grouping them by colour and theme, while Logan played around with typography and magazine text to create something much more surreal, including using the word ‘see’ where a pair of eyes might normally be.

For Bessie, there was something she particularly wanted her artwork to say. Her school had donated food to people who needed it and she decided to use her piece to raise awareness of food charities. Her twin sister Hattie took inspiration from her love of nature instead, experimenting with different patterns and textures and finding room in her collage for both the bumpy back of a dinosaur and a plate of pies.

It was exactly the kind of freedom Sarah had hoped collage would give them. She describes it as ‘a playground for colours, textures and shapes to run and jump together’, where existing images can be taken apart, rearranged and given a completely different meaning. In her words, ‘New stories were forged from old.’

There had been the possibility that the finished pieces could eventually be exhibited at Gallery 57, and over the following months the idea became a reality. On Wednesday 2 September, the young people and their families were invited to the gallery to see the work they had created during that half-term afternoon now hanging on its walls.

Having seen the pieces before, I think what struck me most on Wednesday was how different they looked in the gallery. Each one had been beautifully framed in white and displayed against the white walls, with the young artist’s name beneath it. Seeing them presented that way really brought home just how much thought, personality and creativity had gone into each one.

Nicole Garnon said, ‘It was an absolute delight to be able to host this exhibition in the gallery and to invite the young people and their families to an opening event to see their framed pieces on the wall. The art created was so full of imagination and energy and was testament to the participants’ creativity.’

 

There was such a lovely buzz in the gallery as the young people arrived with their families and found their artwork on the walls. There were lots of photos, plenty of pointing things out to each other and some very big smiles, but more than anything there was a real sense of pride in the room.

It was there in the young people seeing their work displayed so beautifully, in their families looking at what they had created, and in Sarah seeing where an afternoon of experimenting with collage had eventually led. For those of us from Sparkle who were there too, it was lovely to see the project come full circle and to share that moment with them.

Sparkle’s Chair of Trustees, Janet Kelly, was among those who joined the young people and their families at the exhibition. She said, ‘The young people were so pleased to see their work displayed in a “proper” gallery and their families were very appreciative of Sparkle for supporting this very creative initiative.’

Sarah felt that same sense of pride and, reflecting on the exhibition afterwards, said there had been ‘a sense of pride swimming around and lots of good vibes packed into that room’, describing the evening as ‘a real tonic for the soul’.

It’s difficult to think of a better way to describe it.

 

Art can be playful, personal, strange, thoughtful or simply a chance to try something you haven’t tried before, and all of that was visible in the work on the walls at Gallery 57. What began with six young people spending a half-term afternoon exploring collage gave each of them the chance to create something entirely their own, and then to see that work framed, displayed and appreciated by other people.

A few months ago, Lukas, Jasmine, Archie, Logan, Hattie and Bessie came along to an art workshop at Sparkle. On Wednesday evening, they stood together in a Newport gallery as six exhibited artists.

We couldn’t have been prouder to see them there.

Every year, Sparkle needs to raise £750,000 to keep its services running for children, young people and families across Gwent.

Your support helps create more Thursday nights like Hattie and Bessie's: time with friends, opportunities to build confidence and independence, and somewhere to simply be themselves.

If you'd like to help make that possible, please consider making a donation to Sparkle.

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