Reflecting on My First In-Person Workshop: Key Lessons and Insights - ISSUE 55

A recap of my recent adventure…

Housekeeping

Welcome back LL readers! Thank you for opening another Love Lucy letter. I really do appreciate it.

This week I am reflecting on my most recent experience hosting an artist run workshop, keep reading for more details.

Lately, my life has been filled with abundant opportunities which I am so grateful for. Doing new and different things can be really challenging though and can drain a lot of your energy. This is something I have noticed recently and I am only telling you because I like to share the real side of things with you too. I have put myself out there more in the last few months than I have in my entire life and it’s not always the easiest thing to do, as I’m sure you have experienced yourself.

I am such an advocate for putting your hand up and making yourself known and I want to say that if you have done this in any way lately, well done! It really does build confidence and resilience even if the outcome isn’t exactly what you had hoped for.

My goal is to inspire as many people as possible to share their work with the world in any capacity and I hope to create more content that empowers you all to do that!

Feel free to comment below or DM me with your latest exercise in putting yourself out there. I would love to hear!

The Before

I’m writing this part to you pre workshop. I’m feeling really anxious, my appetite is non-existent and my mind feels muddled and racing with all the things that may go wrong, both technically and otherwise.

I keep replaying that scene in 8 Mile where he goes out to rap and just fully chokes. Please let that not be me…

You might think it’s weird that I’m nervous cause I host a YouTube channel…but speaking into the microphone in the safety of my studio is a whole lot different to being physically in front of actual people who are staring back at you. Granted these kids are high school students but I think that is making me more nervous cause I’m worried they will be like, who is this 30-year-old woman blabbing on to us about film photography and the power of YouTube. Kids love YouTube though right? Let’s hope these ones do at least.

I am about to put together a powerpoint of slides to support my babbling and keep them interested, then get together a bunch of props and materials to share that will hopefully excite the students and get their minds going with the possibilities of their own creativity!

I’ll come back to you post workshop and let you know how it all went…wish me luck!

The After

I’m back and I’m buzzing from such an awesome 2 hours of conversation and sharing! Hearing from young people is always a great way to stay connected and a few of the kids were interested in photography and were even kind enough to share their images with me!

Film didn’t seem to move the needle for the group quite as much as I thought, but after some reflection I think I know why…

Film isn’t nostalgic for that age group whereas digicams are! Luckily I had a few with me as I suspected that film might not be an affordable option for this age group (or any age group right now tbh). One of the students had a later model Canon PowerShot that they had got from their parents which I just thought was so cool.

One student had shot some disposal cameras before but wasn’t sure where to get them developed, so of course we chatted more about that. Overall the students seemed to have a wide variety of interests and were curious about many art practices.

So the kids were great, but how did I fare in all of this?

Well, I can tell you that it’s a whole lot harder to speak in front of ACTUAL people than it is to speak into a camera for YouTube. When I started speaking to introduce myself my heart was racing and I was questioning basically my whole existence. I considered maybe just running out the door and retiring as an artist completely…but I didn’t. I pushed through the awkwardness and the hot flushes of anxiety and I focused on the core message of my presentation, which was not about me, but what the kids could take away from what I have learnt and created in the last couple of years.

Being so used to social media I really wanted to convey to them that it’s not about the vanity metrics, it’s more about what you learn along the way when you start sharing your art with the world!

I wanted to convey to them the skills I have built up since starting a YouTube channel and how many doors have opened in the hope that they would feel inspired to share their own work too.

The session really got going when we did the practical activity and this is something I will learn from in the next workshop I do with that age group. They all relaxed so much more when they were able to do something with their hands and it allowed the focus to come solely off of me and be more about one-to-one conversations, which are always my favourites anyway. 

I decided to focus the practical section on zines, introducing the children to many from my own collection, which was an amazingly cool opportunity! Seeing them hold zines that I have owned for years as well as new ones that friends and viewers have sent felt so special. Of course, I wish I could have taken photos so you could all see but as it was children of school age that was not possible.

I gave each student an activity sheet to fill out so they could start planning their very own zine and use the ones I had brought along as inspiration.

They picked out their favourites and we discussed why they liked them. Magazines and old books were handed out for them to cut from and collage with to enable the students to start imagining their own zine idea on paper.

It was so interesting to see their ideas come to life and which zines and photo books they gravitated towards. I felt truly honoured to be there and it was an excellent learning experience for me as both an artist but also a presenter.

I hope I get to do something like this again in the future and I would love to share more of the preparation stage with you all in a video perhaps!?

If you are interested in checking out the gallery I held the workshop at you can do that here! 

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