News

Our Creative Pathways group in Barrhead have been incredibly
busy using their art and design skills to promote environmental advocacy on a
local level.

Based at the Dunterlie Resource Centre, the young people
have been working with local community groups in the area as part of green arts
projects.

They have partnered with The Conservation Volunteers (TCV),
a group dedicated to improving greenspaces in Dunterlie and Barrhead for
wildlife and people, and have also been working with Dunterlie’s youth group to
create designs for local art.

The team, working with our artists Emmett and Portia, are
also looking at ways their designs could be used to brighten up the Dunterlie
Resource Centre they have working in since January this year.

In the past week, TCV worked with our young people to show them how to build bird boxes. The group got on with the task in hand,
following the process from start to finish: measuring, sawing, hammering,
drilling and sealing the boxes until they were ready for painting.

These bird boxes will be installed in the greenspaces
surrounding Dunterlie to encourage more wildlife to nest in the area. The group
have also planted fifty trees in the nearby park.

Meanwhile, the group have been looking at the meaning behind
arts and decoration more broadly. A Through
the Keyhole-style exercise saw the team attempting to figure out whose home
was whose from pictures – a fascinating way of looking at the art behind the
person, and one that threw up quite a few surprises and debates.

This fed into a workshop the team delivered with the
Dunterlie Youth Group (aged 8-12). They discussed theory of colour and the
different meanings and emotions. After much debate, the youth group created
individual designs for the shutters, which the Creative Pathways team took
elements from for final designs potentially for the shutters at the centre in Dunterlie.

Meanwhile, the group continue to get support from Impact
Arts’ Opportunities Co-ordinator Maggie to help them find spaces in employment,
training or education for when the course ends in March.

The programme is open to 16-25 year olds who are not in employment, education or training. If you are interested, please contact Heather Gault on 0141 575 3001 or email heather.gault@impactarts.co.uk.

This programme is funded by Barrhead Housing Association, the Big Lottery Fund’s Our Bright Future initiative, and the Scottish Government’s People and Communities fund.