The Convenience Gallery is into its second month. We have continued to operate as self funded and had our first Affordable Workshop on the 22nd June. Our space has really taken shape and we've had a really positive response and engagement so far. We had a mixture of people attend, from market goers, to those who've heard about us online. We felt this was a really positive start. With participants staying over an hour. We believe with more time and finance, we can continue to turn this into something really positive with a mixture of affordable (£5-£10) and free workshops.
This would be opportunity to engage with the local community as well as drawing on the one we have created through our Open Call, and early engagement process.
The Workshops will run alongside a project we have planned based on the market. We are inviting artists to work in our space, creating new work based on this area and market.
The £500 will be distributed over the two months to the workshops and market project. These two months should benefit both artists and the local community.
We have an artist Ellie Brennan, who makes artwork through fabric and rug making techniques. She will be working on the market project - all the artists in this project will have access to use our gallery as studio hot desk space for free across the month long project in August.
We have discussed the costing of her workshop with her and have based our costing off of artist feedback and personal experience running workshops.
We hope through the project we strengthen our relationship with locals, other stall holders and artists.
Throughout the project we want it to give access to techniques that may not be readily available as well as highlighting what the market has still to offer.
We intend to then help establish a workshop programme in other venues, where the artists can continue beyond this programme, having got the equipment to continue this with the money received.