As part of their 2012 Summer Programme, the National Gallery recently hosted the annual Summer Art Camp in Cayman Brac at the Heritage House. Children of all ages came together for a full day of creative expression with music, performance, face painting and fine art activities.

Led by artists Nasaria and Randy Chollette, with support from National Gallery Sister Islands Officer Simone Scott, students learnt about fine art and recycling, creating works of art from ‘found’ objects on the beach. Later, they were treated to a poetry performance by Nasaria, who recently returned from representing the Cayman Islands at the Olympic Poetry festival, and partook in drumming, performance and writing sessions.  The Camp finished with a display of the students work and a lecture later that evening.

Said Nasaria “I am about to go back into education and this Day camp was a great opportunity for me to get back into the swing of things. The people on the Brac are so gracious and the children are wonderfully wide open. They are creative and bold and really loved the drumming, the folksongs, the poems and the art.”

This is the sixth year that the NGCI Summer Art Camp has been held, with previous guest instructors including some of Cayman’s most well-known artists: Wray Banker, Sean Smith, Gordon and Alta Solomon and Aston Ebanks, to name a few.

This year the event was generously supported by Brac Informatics Centre, CB Rent-A-Car, NIM Things, Cayman Brac Heritage House with assistance from volunteers Win and Theingi Tin Oung, Barbara MacDowell, Jane Robertson, Perry la Ness,  Miss Saskia, Raymond Scott and Matthew Scott.

In addition to one-off camps and workshops, the National Gallery Sister Islands Programme Schedule includes four classes each month: Art for the Elderly at Kirkconnell Community Care Centre every 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month 10:30 to 11:30am; Outdoor Painting at locations around the Brac every Saturday morning 9am to 10am Free for residents; Brac CineClub at The Alexander Hotel every first Saturday of the month. 7pm to 9pm; and Kids Art Club at Spot Bay Primary School Mondays 4pm to 5pm.

Contact NGCI Sister Islands Officer Simone Scott at [email protected] for further information.