Arts Society Community Grant
and
The Churn Project

In 2021 The Arts Society Corinium was awarded a £250 Arts Society Community Grant. The grant is to help The Arts Society Member Societies support the arts locally by donating it to local arts causes.

We donated the grant to the The Churn Project which supports the community in Cirencester and surrounding area, as it especially supports disadvantaged young people with confidence building activities and delivers creative art sessions alongside the New Brewery Arts Centre.

Our donation was welcomed by the charity and helped finance two creative art sessions led by local artist Laurie Plant.

The first session was held outside in the wonderful surroundings of the Abbey Grounds, Cirencester to deliver a Parklife observational drawing session. Two of the young people were looking for employment opportunities in the creative world of Gaming and Graphics, and this was a great opportunity to receive bespoke training to support their portfolios. Young people who happened to be in the park were encouraged to join in.

The second session concentrated on an observational drawing session relating to drawing hands. The group were of mixed ages and abilities. The participants excelled themselves creating drawings of hands using charcoal on cartridge paper led by, Laurie Plant who gave so many tips and ways to draw using measuring techniques, scaling with a pencil etc.

While the participants suffer with a range of barriers to work and education, such as anxiety, depression, isolation, and some participants have learning disabilities, they were positively encouraged by the sessions and surprised themselves how much they had learned about drawing. It is praise indeed that they intend to keep on drawing.

The feedback from the participants below shows that our grant can make a big difference to peoples' lives. We think that the £250 grant was well spent.