Wow! What a fun few weeks we have all had!
Week 4 has now come to an end and as we complete the last few days of Fun-A-Day 2021 it is important that we express how inspired and grateful we are to each and everyone of this year’s participants. It has been a very different January for all of us, but it has been wonderful to see the project adapt and participants remain as enthusiastic as ever.
Our Monday Funday post this week has given us a fantastic snap shop of what some of our participants have been up to in week 4. There has been printmaking, painting, sewing, weaving, drawing and many other creative activities going on.
One of our wonderful participants Kelly Reilly, this week, shared with us her experience of taking part in Fun-A-Day Dundee for the past 3 years. It was lovely to hear her talk about the project and it’s community with such enthusiasm.
Also this week, the Fun-A-Day team have encouraged our community to share their instagram handles and connect with one another as we believe that one of the main strengths of the project is the way that participants interact, encourage, collaborate and learn together. If you have participated this year (or are considering doing so in the future) and would like to follow some other amazing participants, then click on this link, follow some new pages and become better connected.
Our online creative sessions, hosted by our Creative Facilitator Kirsty Baxter, have continued to bring participants together virtually and we have seen great work emerging from them. We are really excited to be able to continue offering these throughout February as a means of staying connected and continuing our creativity beyond January. Session dates will be announced on our Facebook and Instagram pages. To join in with the creative chats from these sessions you can join the Facebook group here. (These will continue on past our January project.)
While our busiest social media platform is Instagram, we also have many participants who use Facebook and some who do not share their work on social media at all. Ed Muirhead is a musician and a long standing Fun-A-Day Dundee participant who has shared his work this year and every other year on his own website. You can also look back on his previous projects there too.
Did you know that Fun-A-Day concept originally began in America? It was introduced to the creative community of Dundee when Morgan Cahn, an American student studying at DJCAD decided to start something over here. The project in Dundee has grown and evolved enormously since then, but we love to stay connected with our Fun-A-Day community over ‘the pond’. It’s great to see how other communities and artists come together in a similar way in January and you too can follow the projects in places such as DC, Hudson Valley , Delaware and Philadelphia if you wish.
This week our project coordinator Sam Sheriff created a blog to document and update our community on the ‘Christmas Star’ project which was rolled out in December. You can see all of the amazing star interpretations here. It was wonderful to see so many styles and techniques used and we wanted to collated these in one place for everyone to look back on.
leah_gurr_jewellery , meanderingwindflowers , pamelaprint pamelaprints , pauline.lavery pauline.lavery razzmakazz , shonamasonmakes , tracy_dougall_art
In week 4 it has been wonderful to look through the body of work that participants have created over the course of the month. Many have worked within a theme or with a particular medium. Some have worked within an area that they are familiar with, while others have tried something completely new. All projects are unique and all are valuable. We are blown away each year by the work produced by our participants and this year (pandemic and all) is no exception.
Circles by @beccafrances88
Thank you to everyone who has taken part in Fun-A-Day 2021. We hope that you enjoy the final few days of January, and will stay connected with our Fun-A-Day Dundee community on Facebook, Instagram and FADDCreatives (which operates all year round.)
Join us again next year for Fun-A-Day Dundee 2022!
If you are yet to take part, we hope that you now feel inspired to do so.
Fun A Day Dundee 