BP Portrait Award: Inspiring portraits by teenagers

Inspire a Generation is the official slogan of the Olympic Games.  However inspiring the next generation is not just limited to sport - it applies to art as well.

Participants in BP Portrait Award: Next Generation Taster Sessions, July 2012
Photograph Othello De’Souza-Hartley © National Portrait Gallery

BP is a premier partner of the London 2012 Olympics.  One of the Museum activities associated with the London 2012 Festival - part of the Cultural Olympiad - is the National Portrait Gallery's BP Portrait Award Next Generation programme which is about:

• bringing together leading artists with young people 
• widening the horizons of young people 
• enabling them to participate in learning about making art
• encouraging them to draw and paint portraits
• inspiring a permanent artistic legacy.

See my previous post The Next Generation - Portraiture for Teenagers which reviewed the BP Portrait Award Next Generation activities for 14-19 years olds interested in art and portraiture.

The Next Generation is a project run by the National Portrait Gallery which is all about inspiring 14­-19-year-olds (aka "The Next Generation") about portraiture. It provides different opportunities for teenagers to meet with and gain insights from past BP Portrait Award artists and to share their own artwork.

A Next Generation Taster Session

I recently attended a BP Portrait Award: Next Generation Taster Session at the NPG and this post is a report on what happened.

The aims of the Taster Session are to

• Achieve engagement and participation - nobody learns unless they're interested!
• Try out a range of portrait techniques in the Gallery spaces and develop an understanding that there's more than one way to record a figure and make a portrait
• Meet artists who have had work in the BP Portrait Exhibition

The Facebook Debate

For those who followed the debate on my Facebook page following the last blog post (prior to comments by a certain indiviudal being deleted by me), here are the answers to what actually happens.  As I very much suspected, it's very wrong to criticise the guidance offered by the NPG and/or to assume that it's always appropriate that young people follow a traditional atelier approach and are taught how to draw a face in conventional terms!

The reason for this is that these are young people who are interested in art - but they have very different experiences in relation to portraiture.  From what I could see a fair number of the young people had little prior instruction in drawing a head.   Any session therefore has to be geared to involving everybody - whatever their experience or skill level - and to generate engagement and participation within a three hour time slot which in turn is likely to promote future engagement.

In this post I'm including some of the comments from the young people on the feedback forms which they complete at the end of the session.  From these you can deduce the value of the Taster Session from their perspective.

‘I found it really useful and it helped me have an insight into the artworld. I hope to go to artschool and this has broadened my experience of art’
Participant in Next Generation Taster Session, 2012

The structure of the taster session

I'm going to describe the way in which the 3.5 hours were structured - but first a comment on how well the young people engaged with the sessions.

Art Business: Taxes and bookkeeping for artists

I've often come across artists who tell me they're not good at bookkeeping or keeping track of their records of income and expenditure for tax purposes.

I vividly remember one evening spent trying to help a friend who was a master silversmith get his accounts together and being faced by his shoeboxes full of invoices and receipts.......

Anyway - I came across this video and it seemed like one which a lot of people might watch if this is an area where you'd like to do better.

It contains a lot of practical and valuable advice about what you can and cannot do.

Bear in mind this is an American accountant talking about what American artists can and cannot do - however for the most part the general principles are the same in most countries.

It provides a checklist of things to review for the purposes of what you can claim against tax and how you need to spread expenses against income.  Obviously sales tax is very specific to the country or state you live in.


Taxes & Bookkeeping for Artists - Steven Goldglit from New York Academy of Art on Vimeo.

29th July 2012: Who's made a mark this week?

Today's post starts with an item from the Olympic's Opening Ceremony. The man behind one of the best-kept secrets of the OIympic opening ceremony - the Olympic Cauldron is designer Thomas Heatherwick

This article Gallery: Thomas Heatherwick's showstopping Olympic 2012 cauldron in The Architect's Journal has a number of photographs of how the installation works.

Photograph by CarlosVanVegas
Creative Commons - some rights reserved

In this video Thomas Heatherwick discusses his design. I personally love the idea that each copper petal came with a competing nation and will go back to that nation.

Plus this is a little bit about the man himself from his company website - which has images of his work - it's very impressive!

Thomas is an Honorary Fellow of the RIBA and a Senior Fellow at the Royal College of Art. He is the recipient of honorary doctorates from four British universities – Sheffield Hallam, Brighton, Dundee and Manchester Metropolitan. He has won the Prince Philip Designers Prize and in 2006, was the youngest practitioner to be appointed a Royal Designer for Industry.

You can also see an exhibition of the work of Heatherwick Studio at the Victoria & Albert Museum until 30th September.  It now includes a model of the cauldron and how it works.

Moving on - today's post contains items from the last two weeks. I'm trying to ease up on posting over the next month or so in order to (1) have a bit of a break which helps me keep my enthusiasm for blogging and (2) to accommodate a pinched radial nerve in my arm which is hovering between rather painful and excruciating!

Plus a big thank you to all those who pushed my subscribers above 4,000 this last week

Artists and Art Bloggers

How to get people to subscribe to your blog

Making A Mark: Trend in subscriptions (and reach) January 2006 - July 2012

This week two things happened

1. The number of subscriptions to Making A Mark topped 4,000 - it's been a long slow climb!
2. I got a query about how to add the email subscription gadget to an art blog

I've written before about how to get subscriptions (see below) however it's a topic which never goes away!

• Blog feeds - and how to set up a Feedburner subscription facility on your blog 

If you want people to visit your blog you need to help them.

• First of all you need to activate a feed for your blog.

• Then you need to offer your visitors a subscription facility - so they can remember where to find you again and/or get your content sent to them every day.

• The top 10 items for the sidebar of an artist's blog 

I also had a big jump in subscribers when I made the subscriber links and widgets really easy to find. To start with they were half way down the side column. It was a bit like having a business card which never got handed out. Once I moved the subscription links to near the top (just under the information about visitors/subscribers) my subscriptions started to take off in a major way.

A simple explanation about how to add a subscription gadget to your blog

This was the query I received

Dear Katherine,

I am sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if you could help me understand how to acquire the "subscribe to this blog by email" widget or gadget or ?

I have a personal art blog on Blogger, and have been trying to figure it out on my own, but I don't understand how to get that emailing thing. Is it something that you must pay for?

I tried looking at Feedburner, but that wasn't clear to me...and I think I succeeded in putting a spot for people to "follow" my blog, but not by email, and I am not even sure I want that.

I can use my computer fairly well, but am not technically savvy, so I am probably just missing something and I don't know who else to turn to who is as blog savvy as you.

Again, I apologize for taking up your time, but if you understand what I am asking for and it won't be too much trouble, could you assist me?

Thank you very much,

I described the basics of what I do with this blog - you can find the instructions below.  They worked - the art blogger how has an email subscription form prominent on her blog! 

I have two different approaches - and described the approach for each

Get Blog Updates by Email

GET BLOG UPDATES BY EMAIL
Subscribe to Making a Mark by Email
Please note subscriptions only become live after you have verified the link in the email you will receive

This link code comes from feedburner. To get this GO TO:

• Google Feedburner http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/myfeeds while logged into your Google Account
• Select the Publicise tab
• Select email subscriptions
• Decide whether you want a form or a link - Feedburner provides code for both
• Make sure you choose the correct code for the blogging software you use
• Click the Go! box to implement the subscription form code (I choose to copy the code and then insert into an html gadget)

Use a Blogger gadget for subscriptions

SUBSCRIBE USING A FEEDREADER

 Posts

 All Comments

To get this in your side column you need to get a Blogger gadget.

• Select Layout format
• Click "add a gadget" and 
• Use the "Follow by email" gadget
• OR Use the Subscription Links gadget

See Olympic Athletes at the National Portrait Gallery

Aiming High is the third exhibition of Road to 2012 photographs of the British Olympic Athletes and the gamesmakers opened last week at the National Portrait Gallery.

Olympic Athletes: rowing, equestrian and sailing by Anderson & Low
Men's Rowing Eight, Ann Dunham,  Alexandra Richam and Nicki Birrell

Road to 2012 has been a three-year project - with three annual exhibitions which together have displayed the 100 newly commissioned photographic portraits.  These celebrate the people who, together, will collectively make the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games happen. They range from the athletes both old and young and their trainers - plus the gamesmakers - people who build venues, people who look after athletes and the torch bearers. Each annual exhibition has been displayed free to the public at the Gallery.

Olympic Gamesmakers by Nadav Kander

Aiming High Exhibition

Portrait photography is not usually "my thing", however I've been increasingly impressed with how much more adventurous portrait photographers are when compared to some portrait painters.

What struck me about the exhibition was how very individual the styles of the photographers are - and how excellent some of the portaits are.

The nature of the website also made me think that these Olympic Games and these Olympic athletes are probably going to be the most photographed/facebooked/tweeted in Olympic History.  There's a television channel for every venue and every event!


The real strength of this Exhibition will be in whether it's an Exhibition which people will be keen to see both during and after the Games - as they take a close look at some of those people who will have "made their mark" on our lives.


In the meantime do take a look at the website which provides you with all the images in the three exhibitions.

The photographs in the Aiming High exhibition are by:

• Anderson & Low - photographed both athletes, support staff and administrators typically photographed in their places of training and natural environments. This is a video Interview with Anderson & Low

"We're trying to bring stillness into exertion....we're not interested in realism or naturalism, we're interested in truth"

• Nadav Kander - photographed talented young athletes and the torch bearers.  I particularly liked his striking monochromatic studies which displayed their athletic build to a much greater degree than colour film.

Nadev Kander and his photographs of young Olympic athletes

• Jillian Edelstein was asked to portray all those involved in the final preparations for the games - from the man who supplied the trees to the woman who's responsible for all the catering.  I found a lot to like in the room devoted to her work

Part of Jillian Edelstein's Road to 2012 Portfolio

Jillian Edelstein with Boris Johnson and a London news crew

The exhibition is free and is located on the ground floor of the Gallery and also on a large landing on the first floor in the older part of the gallery.  It continues until 23 September.

The Road to 2012 - images from Years 1 and 2

Two previous exhibitions


It follows two earlier exhibitions. in 2010 and 2011.  Links to the work of those photographers are included in their names.

• Road to 2012: Setting Out in 2010

the first year of the project, saw photographers Brian Griffin and Bettina von Zwehl capture athletes and inspirational figures involved at the start of the journey towards London 2012.

• Road to 2012: Changing Pace

the second year of the project, photographic portraits were created by Emma Hardy and Finlay MacKay

A free outdoor exhibition was also displayed in

• Cardiff on (30 March - 27 May 2012) 
•  before travelling to the Mound in Edinburgh (1 June - 8 July 2012) 
• and then Birmingham (13 July - 9th September 2012).

About the photographers

Jonathan Anderson and Edwin Low have been collaborating as "Anderson & Low" since 1990. The wide-ranging work includes portraiture, abstracts and nudes, and is all noted for attention to concept, form and lighting. Their work is exhibited worldwide, residing in numerous public and private collections. Their take on the concept of portraiture pushes the limits of the genre as in their project, Manga Dreams, (a hybrid between portraiture, graphics, calligraphy and cyber-culture), which was featured in the 2011 Venice Biennale. Their most recent work with athletes is Endure – An Intimate Journey with the Chinese Gymnasts, the result of an unprecedented two-year collaboration with the elite gymnasts in Beijing.

Nadav Kander holds a key position in contemporary British photography. He brings a cool keen eye, and consummate craftsmanship to an ambitious breadth of subject matter. Israeli-born Kander traces a passion for photography back to his teenage years in South Africa where he grew up. Since settling in London in 1982 he has built a multi-award winning career. Two diverse projects in 2009 augmented his international reputation; the New York Times commission to make 52 portraits of the Obama Administration, later exhibited as Obama’s People and his landscape work in China, Yangtze - The Long River, which won the prestigious Prix Pictet prize.

Born in South Africa, Edelstein worked as a press photographer before moving to London in 1985. Her first job with The Sunday Times led to portrait commissions from top international magazines including the New York Times Magazine and Vanity Fair. In Truth and Lies (2001), a powerful book and touring exhibition on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa and her new book, Here and There: An Expedition of Sorts, she weaves together portraiture, photojournalism and landscape.