FABB (Facilitating Access and Breaking Barriers)
Banner and Mask Making Workshops
Jan Nimmo

The FABB Arts group is made up of a group of young people who expressed an interest in arts and crafts and took it upon themselves to liaise with East Renfrewshire Council’s Young Person Services for a group to be created. The group have been meeting on a weekly basis working with artist Jan Nimmo to take part in various art activities. The young people within the group have been involved in the planning of the workshops and have encouraged each other to participate and invite friends.

Artist Jan Nimmo developed a series of ten-week workshops in response to suggestions from the FABB group who were keen to explore a variety of art techniques that were new to them.

Early workshops combined textiles and painting to create a collaborative banner. Participants looked at images of African painted houses as a source for inspiration for their designs. The technique is simple, effective and accessible and one which the artist has used with other groups of young people. It involves using masking tape to mask off patterns on dyed calico. The fabric which is unmasked is then painted in a selection of colours. This process is repeated several times and the fabric is then sewn together to make a textile hanging.

“I specially liked doing the banners as it was something new and different”

Louise

A series of mask making workshops followed. Looking at examples of masks from Mexico, the young people chose characters and animals for their masks and created them using a variety of different media. Members of the group were then filmed talking about the characters and personalities of their masks.

Finally, the group photographed the masks and banner and used Photoshop to create 2D montages of combined images, digitally altered using filters and semi-transparent layers. These were printed and framed for exhibition.

An i book documenting the project and a DVD with a combination of still and moving images with the voices of the participants has also been created.