Just over a week ago Ciara Phillips’ residency at Western Front ended with a Saturday afternoon ‘closing’ event. Sadly I didn’t get in to Vancouver that day, so didn’t meet the children with whom she’s been working or see the final display of their collaborative work. But on the previous Wednesday when I dropped off painted plates Eric took me in to the gallery. Ciara had several visitors but took the time to show me some of the children’s prints and explained how she has converted the gallery space into a working studio for the month. I can imagine that it would have been an encouraging, stimulating place for the young artists to experiment with ways of producing their ideas.

In my photo Ciara is holding one of her plates and it shows how it relates to the small stools she had painted prior to the children starting their workshops with her. You can see the same exuberant use of bright colour and masking tape. There are tennis balls on the feet!

The small plate images are of her two plates, which I’ve previously posted full-size.

Good luck for your future art career, Ciara, and I’ll look forward to seeing how the huge painted ship turns out!