Empower Women For Change Scotland
We were approached by Lababa Naqvi| from Empower Women for Change Scotland to help facilitate a project called Reaching Milestones. We invited EWFC to run their Reaching Milestones session at our studio in Shawlands, the project was for women to tell their stories through visual art in a social setting. The session went really well with some lovely images being painted and discussed, the group mentioned in passing that they would love to try pottery. With this positive experience, we reached out to EWFC several months later to ask if they would like to be part of a project we were running called Mindful Ceramic Making, an 8-week ceramics course that focuses on making pottery by hand. Lababa referred us 10 keen potters and the sessions have been very productive as you can see below!
Much like the previous Reaching Milestones project, our Mindful Ceramics classes with EWFC were as much about bonding in a social space as creating artwork. In the early sessions, Ivy taught the group several handbuilding techniques including scratch and slip, coiling pots and slab building. As the sessions continued, attendees worked independently on their different projects ranging from functional pots to creating illustrative works of ceramic art adding elements and textures. From our feedback forms we have seen that the regular routine of making artwork together has been beneficial for the women's socialising as well as their individual creativity skills. They also mentioned how much they enjoyed meeting and working with Ivy.