August Art for Arthritis Research UK Project: Continued

I really enjoyed raising money for this charity over summer and it is definitely a commitment I will keep in mind for future projects. This project is documented on my Personal and Professional Practice blog:

http://a-dear1316ppp.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/AugustArtforArthritis

... and also on my A Wasp in a Wig Tumblr on the page entitled August Art for Arthritis Project:

I was listening to a podcast from BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour and they had Jaqueline Wilson as guest editor, one of my favorite authors when I was younger, and she was talking about her new book out; Katy. Randomly enough it is based on Nicola Miles-Wildin's experiences of chronic illness with JIA, juvenile arthritis thats onset occurs before the age of 16, and her experiences using a wheelchair growing up and day to day life etc. I found this really cool as I had been thinking about how little disability is represented in arts and in character design etc, so I am so happy that Jaqueline Wilson is continuing to write books for young people to relate to and learn and understand more about other people different from them!

In the podcast Nicola talks about how people still will speak to her helper instead of her, even when she is the one checking into the hotel etc, just an idea: doing a short couple of second long animation really simple, where there is just someone speaking to the helper (perhaps above shot) and the wheelchair user is in shot just sat there left out. It doesn't matter what they are saying... just the left out and ignored feeling. Then perhaps someone comes into shot, or a child, and starts speaking to the person in the wheelchair, and suddenly the scene starts coming to life, into colour, the flowers bloom, birds sing and the sun comes out etc... symbolising how much difference the small things can make!

It is something that will influence my future projects I suspect and I will be keeping the topic in mind when thinking for new projects to take up as part of this extended practice module!

- just 1/10 young people have been on a date with someone disabled bbc radio one news -

For the Woman's Hour podcast follow:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b069z8f7

For Nicola's website:
http://nicolamiles-wildin.com/index.htm

Links to charities:
http://www.arthritiscare.org.uk/Home

Scroll down on...
http://www.nras.org.uk/have-you-got-the-s-factor-
...and it gives charities and organisations and contact details.