COOLitART
Amanda Callis set up Cool it Art, a Social Enterprise providing free art activities for underprivileged children in London, in 2013.
I was extremely fortunate to have such an amazing experience of art at Mayfield which was all down to the Joy’s teaching and their
extensive knowledge, support and simply encouragement to explore through art. I went on to study at City & Guilds of London Art School for my Foundation and Degree in Fine Art Painting - it
was in my 2nd year that I volunteered to help my mentor, Jane Langley - one of my tutors at City & Guilds, with her initiative Cool it Schools - promoting and learning about environmental issues through art. I had never thought about working with children - I think at art school you just think about making art and not how that might turn into a career once you finish. I was
surprised by how much I enjoyed working with children, and the public in general, which led me to embarking on a career as a Community Artist which I have done for 7 years. I have had fantastic projects over my career including working at Clarence House, Kew Gardens, ZSL London Zoo to name but a few as well as Artist in residence in a PMLD School in Sussex. I also worked in Worthing at Community House providing weekly after-school art sessions for underprivileged children for nearly 2 years and ran free art classes in an empty shop in Tufnell Park for 10 months. I had always wanted to run free Art classes for children in my local area, Lambeth, but I wanted to get the relevant experience first before embarking on the project - to ensure that the programme could run as smoothly as possible.
Cool it Art has been awarded 7 lots of funding so far; however funding is extremely competitive and I was unsuccessful in securing funding for 2015-16 for the Vauxhall classes through one of the major funding programmes and funding is time sensitive - most has to be done at least 6 months in advance if not longer. Because of the time constraints and not wanting to let 70 families down I embarked on a Kickstarter to raise the money. I had been awarded a place on the
Centenary Young Fellow programme at the Royal Society of Arts
I set up Cool it Art in May 2013, and was awarded the first funding bid in June 2013 to run 12 sessions over 6 weeks as a taster of the year long project I wanted to start; running alongside the academic year. The geographical area I launched the classes in I knew would be hard to engage people to come - I didn’t realise quite how hard! I spent over 21 hours walking around the estate trying to chat to people about the classes; which in itself was a difficult task - people generally do not trust what they don’t know and breaking down generations of apathy does not happen over night. We did eventually get the first 2 children to come - and then 12 more then trickled in until the point today where there are around 110 children registered to attend the Vauxhall class. All of that has been achieved through word of mouth and building relationships with the community.
The activities Cool it Art provides are hugely necessary, the core activity is weekly after-school art classes for 3-12 year olds; many of the local primary schools do not offer art at all. Art is extremely important for childrens’ development the benefits to the children are huge, from motor neuron skills - especially hand-eye coordination, problem solving, decision- making, the ability to work individually and collaboratively and most importantly having a creative outlet to express oneself creates a better sense of well-being.
Through Cool it Art I have run 100 weekly sessions in Vauxhall, 49 weekly sessions in Stockwell, facilitated 2 mural projects, 1 community garden sign, 1 Bird box competition, 1 Animation project, 7 pop-up art schools, 1 Summer Art Academy, 3 Big Draw Events and of course the initial 12 session prototype; all of which leads to where Cool it Art is at now.
14 The Old Cornelian SUMMER 2016 “ ”
ART IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT FOR CHILDREN’S
DEVELOPMENT
- they happen to have a crowdfunding department who run seminars on how to crowdfund; I was fortunate to have support from their team and the campaign was chosen as an RSA supported Kickstarter.
I had to raise £12,860 in 30 days - for those of you not familiar with Kickstarter it is an all or nothing thing; if you don’t hit 100% of your goal you don’t
get to keep any of the pledges. It was possibly the most stressful 30 days of my life - but ultimately worth it because I didn’t want all the progress made
with the children over the previous 2 years to be for nothing - continuity and stability is so important in a lot of their lives. Cool it Artmade it’s target - it actually surpassed it which enabled me to put on a 5 day Big Draw event combining art and storytelling at Vauxhall City Farm plus get some of the parents on to a training course with the surplus money which was amazing.
Even though Cool it Art has achieved a lot in its first few years there are bigger plans on the horizon. All the work I do is made worthwhile by the children and their parents; to see the childrens’ development throughout the years is amazing.
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