Stratford-upon-Avon
Decorative and Fine Arts Society

Young Arts

• Home
• Lectures
• Visits
• Days of Special Interest
• Volunteers
• Church Recording
• Young Arts
• Membership
• News & Information
• Picture Gallery
• Contacts and Links

Under the guidance of NADFAS Young Arts, Stratford DFAS aims to support and develop arts-related activities among young people in our area. As well as inspiring a lasting enthusiasm for the arts, an awareness of our cultural heritage and its conservation, we hope to expand the opportunities for young people to be involved in creative arts. A visit to an art gallery, working with an artist, watching a craftsman at work, being part of an audience at a play or taking part in a performance can initiate a lifelong interest in the arts.

Stratford-upon-Avon DFAS has supported a wide range of Young Arts projects in recent years which has included sponsoring a costume designer for a school musical, funding a theatre and dance workshop at a school for pupils with learning difficulties and purchasing a computerised embroidery machine for pupils taking vocational qualifications in fashion and theatre costume at a local college.

In 2007, SADFAS Young Arts has funded two projects at secondary schools within the town of Stratford-upon-Avon.

• King Edward VI School. We have enabled the Art Department to purchase 24 display boards which can be sited in different areas of the school. Previously the school did not have any dedicated exhibition space to display the excellent work produced by the students. It is hoped that future art exhibitions will be held in Big School (the old part of the building where William Shakespeare was educated) which will be open to the general public. The photograph shows an earlier exhibition with hired display boards. SADFAS is applying for matched funding from the Patricia Fay Memorial Fund to purchase lighting for the boards.
  
  
• Stratford High School. We have provided funding for hiring models for after-school life drawing classes for sixth form Art students. This is a skill in which students have little confidence normally so they will all benefit greatly from improved observation and drawing skills. The photograph shows students sketching each other.

West Midlands Area Young Arts Project 2007

In March 2007 the West Midlands Area Committee agreed to donate up to £1000 of Area funds to finance a Young Arts project at Swinfen Young Offenders’ Institution in Staffordshire. Eight young men participated in the project under the guidance of a professional artist and produced work in the form of large mosaic tiles based on the theme of “Freedom”. Our Young Arts representative, along with others from the West Midlands, visited Lichfield Cathedral in November 2007 to view the finished work which was temporarily displayed there during Prisons Week. Accompanying the mosaics, we saw a DVD of how the work had developed and heard the voices of the young men discussing their experiences. They all felt that they had been given a wonderful opportunity to enrich their lives by participating in this project.

The mosaics will be permanently displayed in the Visitors’ Centre at Swinfen from January 2008. See photographs of the mosaics in the “Picture gallery”.

In 2008, we hope to support further local arts activities such as assisting pupils at a primary school in their design of a new garden. We welcome any ideas our Members may have about suitable future projects.

Top of page