Local artist Jacqueline Read has drawn on her dual talents as artist and support worker to run an all-ability visual arts workshop.
The workshop series, which was held earlier this year, offered participants the opportunity to expand their skills in four different art mediums over a four-week period.
The all-abilities workshop was funded by the Regional Arts Development Fund through Bundaberg Regional Council.
Eleven participants attended the workshop each week, which provided the additional opportunity for new friendships and social interaction.
Jacqueline said the benefit of an all-abilities workshop was that a broad range of people could come along.
“Everyone who came along were genuinely interested in visual art and learning, which is fabulous,” she said.
“There’s a shared joy of creating with likeminded people, the deliciousness of the materials which only other art lovers understand.”
Workshop participants focused on a different visual art medium each week, learning techniques from which to further develop their own individual art practice after the workshop.
Graphite drawing, oil pastel, acrylic painting and watercolour were all explored throughout the course.
Participants built on their learning each week to produce a mixed-media canvas that showcased their new skills.
Support through art
Jacqueline said she found personal fulfilment in helping someone develop skills that gave them confidence in their talent and ability.
“As a support worker who supports people with disabilities to learn and create visual art, it is doubly fulfilling,” she said.
“Creating art has so many therapeutic and capacity building benefits.
“The motivation to undertake the activity makes people push through any discomfort they might be feeling whether it be physical discomfort or psychological.”
Jacqueline’s own interest in creating art started as a young child, growing up in a western Queensland farming community, surrounded by art and art making through the influence of her creative parents.
It was in 2009, after moving to the Bundaberg Region, that she began pursuing her creative practice in drawing and painting in watercolour and acrylic.
She exhibited a series of acrylic landscape paintings at Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery in 2012, sharing Gallery One with four other local artists.
Jacqueline enjoys working in a range of different mediums which influenced the development of the workshop program.
“I love them all for their own special qualities,” she said.
“Watercolour is beautiful because of the vibrancy of it, it’s translucent.”
“Equally I love graphic pencil, charcoal, pastel. It’s all just beautiful.”
It’s this love of beauty and sharing the joy of creation that inspires Jacqueline’s teaching.
“Everyone is together doing the same thing, which creates that real feeling of community and joy.”
Jacqueline continues to provide one-on-one tutoring to some of the workshop participants and other budding artists through The Creative Ability Hub.
The Regional Arts Development Fund is a partnership between the Queensland Government and Bundaberg Regional Council to support local arts and culture in regional Queensland.
For more information about the Regional Arts Development Fund, click here.
