The very beginning of ADD ~ Zoom meetings
When I was asked by Ali Board if I’d like to join a small group of artists to support each other at the beginning of the Pandemic …I was full of emotions. Firstly what a kind hearted lady to set this up with Matthew Palmer. I felt warm. I felt deeply honoured and humbled to have be asked as I was probably the least known of us! Also a little scared of meeting these well known and much loved artists!
We had our first Zoom meeting ..which meant having to get to grips with another bit of technology. Little did I know that there would be a huge amount of extra learning about technology to come… and an incredibly steep learning curve ahead of me. To be honest I am better much more proficient at climbing steep mountains and crags than technology curves!
I was quiet in the first Zoom meeting as I still felt quite shy and a bit in awe of these amazing people …but I listened to everything everyone was saying. We were all in shock as were the whole Nation. As we all had our own Art businesses and we were all going through the same thing…. all very worried that our businesses might go down the plug hole. All of us had worked so hard to get them off the ground and this could have been devastating. Equally, it was so good to know I wasn’t alone. …and we all sympathised with each other.
After a week of reflection..we had another Zoom meeting and all of us brought a lot of positive thoughts to the meeting. We started discussing how we could help our students and other artist out there. We wanted to support others as well as ourselves and so the pan to prepare and demonstrate Live. The technology side scared me to death! But again, my ADD team mates supported and encouraged each other. I have to say there were two camps…those who were incredibly tech savvy ..and those of us who weren’t! I’m not going to tell you who they were but you can probably guess!
Our Zoom meetings were weekly throughout the Pandemic and fast track friendships grew.
The launch of ADD ~ Live workshops
And so the Live demo’s began over a Bank holiday weekend and they were well attended. We were all quite nervous but excited at the same time. We loved supporting each other on each demo (and the fact that we were supported by each other) We had lots of tech issues and Gremlins to sort out etc. I remember Sharon’s equipment falling apart and how she just carried on calmly regardless. I remember Jeremy having his video upside down….and the same happened to me one time where I need up working in a contorted and twisted position the whole way through. Matthew lost all connection on one of his demos’ and thunder storms wreaked havoc one weekend. Leading up to that Ali set up the ADD Facebook page.
We were quite overwhelmed by how many people we had reached! (An average of 3000 viewers at the height of the pandemic) As a result, we decided we should have a website and so that was born.
Collaborative work
We worked on a collaborative project painting a street of houses and each of us added a house….videoing our painting of it. It was one of my whacky ideas! This involved painting our bit and then carefully packaging it up and sending it on to the next artist in the post! This can still be seen on our Artist Demo Days website (https://www.artistdemodays.co.uk/collaboration ) I loved the fact that it reflected our personalities.
This made me want to make special Christmas cards for the team…so I turned then all into robins. It started as one painting then I cut them up and sent individually. Everyone sent something special to each other that year. We had become good friends.
We can be recognised by our various individual painting and teaching styles, and also by our love of certain colours, love of biscuits, love of getting our hands messy, love of cheeky banter, love of imaginative ideas, love of thinking outside the box, and much, much more.
We all worked together in another team effort “singing” the twelve days of Christmas. We had such a laugh putting that together. As many of you know we sent it again in 2021. I expect it will be out again in December 2022. It has become a tradition.
The uniting of ADD ~ Get togethers
Eventually, the Government relaxed Covid rules a little. This enabled Ali B, Sharon and Denise to get together in Norfolk. Me and the boys (being the Northerners) couldn’t join them as our end of the country was still in lockdown. To say I was disappointed is an understatement! We had planned it for months.
However, we planned another one for November 2021 and we all made it apart from our busy Ali B and was of course sadly missed.
We had a great time visiting a sculpture park, taking photos, sketching, laughing loads, being filmed as part of Travelling Brush Dippers, painting and enjoying lots of refreshments together.
Meanwhile a few of us managed to visit each other individually and even surprise others by doing the Zoom meetings together! These ranged from day visits to week-long holidays! I think this is a remarkable achievement when you think of the miles between us.
The forming of ADDicts ~ Facebook page
It was Sharon who suggested we set up a Facebook group for our supportive followers who were fast becoming friends by chatting through the workshops. This again has been very successful with lots of people sharing their work and stories. We really believe we have a little family here and we love seeing the group thrive.
Patchings
Initiated by Jeremy we have been plotting and planning for many months to be at Patchings in Nottinghamshire.
Now we will finally all be together working as the Dream Team at Patchings 2022. Four whole days to enjoy each other’s company. To support each other’s workshops for real and hopefully meet lots of our ADDicts.
We cannot wait to see and work alongside each other ..and we can’t wait to see our supporters!
