May saw the second Kick Start My Arts workshop hosted by BREC with visiting Perth Festival Lab Alumni 2021 Artist Rebecca Jensen facilitating two days of creative content for the kick-starters.

I hope, like me that you have fond memories of your art teachers – such grand figures of warmth and knowledge appearing as a welcome oasis of artistic relief in the regime of regular curriculum.

I think what I love most about art teachers is that they are mostly concerned with ‘the potential of you and your abilities – always seeing all the things you can be and create.

My friend and colleague Rebecca is the epitome of all these things AND as she hails from Canada so there is extra layers of baked in goodness in all she does.

On Saturday Rebecca began to build on concepts of narrative and storytelling introduced by Rachael Woodward (previous workshop) – Rebecca chose to focus on the characters within stories.

It began with sketches and then with some skilled instruction, some cutting tools, some lacerated fingers and inks and rollers we arrived at lino printed characters and scenery.

That evening Rebecca and I attended the closing of South West Arts NOW at BRAG and after wandering the exhibition it was unanimously decided that we would bring the Kick Starters to see what we had seen the following morning.

And we did.  How great is it to have two cultural centres within walking distance in our city? -especially when the way is paved with public art and murals.  The Kick Starters had an engaging time at Bunbury Regional Galleries each chose a favourite work and shared with the group what they liked about it, mostly though we just took in all the sights and colour, we did however pay close attention to different landscapes and sceneries presented.

Back at BREC filled with enthusiasm and inspiration the Kickstarters sketched and mapped out their own sceneries on long rolls of paper, these were attached to rods and inserted into cardboard stages. The result were scrolling reels that could be operated as the participants narrated their stories.

Thank you Rebecca for all your baked in goodness.

REBECCA JENSEN

Born in Canada in 1993, Rebecca Jensen migrated to Australia in the late 90’s. Coming from several generations of migrants, Jensen adopted an affinity with language, heritage and their respective roles within immigration politics; this interest is now a central concern of her emerging practice. Rebecca graduated with a Bachelor of Contemporary Arts from Edith Cowan University in 2016. In 2017 she was awarded an Australian Government New Colombo Grant to participate in overseas study and concluded an eight-month research project on Shanghai’s Blind Date Corner culminating in her second solo exhibition Heaven Won’t Throw You a Meat Pie 天上不会掉馅饼.

Jensen’s practice is multidisciplinary and often employs text. At its most whimsical her work uses language to explore the everyday through humorous & often cynical haikus. In its more serious iterations her work investigates social phenomenon in both the Australian and Chinese context. Since 2018, Jensen has undertaken residencies locally and abroad, continued her Chinese language study and has most recently begun cultivating an emerging curatorial practice.