Artists without borders: artwork from the United Kingdom

Hello, my name is Elaine Thomas and I am the United Kingdom representative for ICAF. I may have met some of you at ICAF's 1999 Festival. I am here to tell you about how we chose the United Kingdom's entry for the 2003 Festival. As usual, we had lots of inspirational entries.

In the north of England, Liz Smallman, the Education and Public Programmes Manager for Eureka, a museum for children, collected entries from many young artists. In one school alone, two-hundred and seventeen students took part. Eureka is a wonderful and exciting place, and is always full of children exploring creative ideas. The artist Jenny Gilks judged the northern entries, and selected a wonderful piece of work by Gina Pearson to represent the north of England.

In the south of England, work was collected and a painting by Katy Dash was chosen to represent the south. In Wales, Carolyn Davies, the Vice ChairofArt and Design for Education in Swansea, Wales, gathered together entries and selected beautiful works by Jack Dennis, Bethan Williams, Amy Island and Joel Duffy.

In February, an exhibition of angel imagery by children was held at Tockington Manor School. I started this project myself to help raise funds for art projects in children's hospitals. You can see a picture of me here with one of the amazing angels (look for a future article on this exhibition in ChildArt Magazine). One of the angels seemed to be so perfect for ICAF that we put it forward for the final judging also. It was called The Angel of Nations by Felix Pilgrim.

You can see some of these chosen entries here. This selected work was taken to the Holburne Museum of Art in Bath, where final judging took place. The Holburne Museum has exciting creative workshops for young people and houses a treasure trove of outstanding art from the past. The judges were Lisa White, Curator of Decorative Art, and Rosie Bradley, Research Assistant. The piece which they chose to represent the United Kingdom at the 2003 Festival was Thoughts and Feelings, by Gina Pearson--the entry from Eureka. As you can see in the Gallery, Gina created an extremely thought-provoking and imaginative picture, which impressed all the judges.

Elaine Thomas with angel created by child artist

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Me in the New Millennium by Jack Dennis, Bethan Williams, Amy Island and Joel Duffy

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Holding Hands Makes the World Go Round by Katy Dash

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Holburne Museum of Art, Bath, England

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The Angel of Nations by Felix Pilgrim

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COPYRIGHT 2003 International Child Art Foundation
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group