Celebrating 2022 and looking forward to 2023
Happy new year! 2022 was a big year for us at Boom! Community Arts, so we wanted to take a moment to reflect on everything we achieved, and let you know our plans for 2023!
Regular art workshops
We ran four 10-week blocks of our regular art workshops Still Scribbling and More Scribbling at the St Matthew’s Centre, and Young Scribblers with YPF at Possilpoint.
Our workshop leaders Barry Neeson, Pearl Kinnear, Bex Smith, Danielle Banks and Rosamund McCormack did an amazing job to create a safe and friendly environment for the local community to make art together. Lots of the workshop attendees have been coming for a long time now, but we welcomed lots of new people to a Boom workshop for the first time too.
The Scribbling community is at the heart of our year-round work, and they are a really wonderful group - massive thank you to our lovely workshop attendees, the brilliant workshop leaders, and our friends at St Matthew’s Centre and YPF!
Community artwork at the new Stockingfield Bridge
The new Stockingfield Bridge opened in 2022, finally reconnecting Ruchill, Maryhill and Gilshochill. It’s great to have this new link between our communities, and Scottish Canals have been working with artists to fill the site with artwork.
Boom decided to create concrete paving slabs cast with designs inspired by the natural environment surrounding the canal. We organised litter picks of the local area and drawing workshops with Danielle Banks to create the designs for the final pieces. The paving slabs are in progress, designed and cast by Pearl Kinnear. We can’t wait to see the final pieces installed - watch this space!
We were really happy to work with the local community to collectively make our mark on this iconic new space. Thanks to Scottish Canals, and the project funders Sustrans and the Glasgow City Council Vacant Derelict Land Fund.
The North Canal Heritage Sculptures Project
We were thrilled to coordinate the community engagement activity for the North Canal Heritage Sculptures Project, which will install three sculptures by artist Nichol Wheatley at the Hamiltonhill Claypits Nature Reserve.
Over the summer, Boom ran drawing workshops with Danielle Banks to gather responses to the themes of memory, aspiration and nature, which were then incorporated into the sculpture design. Like the Stockingfield project, it was so exciting to get the community involved in contributing to the artwork. Stay tuned to see the final pieces!
Big thanks to Nichol Wheatley, the Claypits Management Group, and The North Canal Heritage Sculptures Project funders at the National Lottery Heritage fund and Glasgow City Council.
Scribblers Academy
Over the summer we ran a new series of free workshops for secondary school age participants at The Courtyard, delivered in partnership with Queens Cross Housing Association. Artist Bex Smith supported the young people to improve their art skills and to develop their own style as an artist. Everyone was provided with their very own art kit to use during the workshops and to keep afterwards. We got such brilliant feedback from everyone who took part so we are definitely planning to run Scribblers Academy again in 2023!
A new addition to the team
Our small (but mighty) team grew with the addition of… me! I started as the brand-new Marketing and Administration Coordinator in September, and I’m so happy to be on board - it’s really exciting to see Boom growing bigger!
Possilpark Loves Christmas
Finally, we wrapped up the year with our favourite big community event, Possilpark Loves Christmas! It was an absolutely fantastic weekend where we had the pleasure of teaming up with our friends from Elsewhere Events to give Santa a tour around Possilpark, Hamiltonhill and Ruchill to meet all of the local children. We also held lantern-making workshops and joined in with the festivity at Millenium Square and Possilpark Parish Church. We’ve got an entire blog post about Possilpark Loves Christmas 2022 with loads of photos if you want to find out more!
Looking ahead to 2023
We are so happy to kick off 2023 with our regular art workshops starting up again at St Matthew’s Centre and YPF! The current block is running until mid-February, and we will be opening registration for the next block of workshops next month.
In the meantime, Team Boom are busy working away on securing funding for the future. Our workshops are free thanks to public funding, so our General Manager Nina is working on lots of funding applications so that we can keep bringing community art to Possilpark and North Glasgow for free.
We’ve got lots of ideas and big dreams for what we can achieve in the next year, and we hope you’ll join us for the ride!
If you’d like to support us, you can always donate if you are able to:
Thanks for reading and see you soon,
Anna x