Kay Smith, ArtsPlay Regional Co-ordinator (April 2002 to March 2004)

Kay Smith probably better known as Kay Greer has been living and working in the Highlands since 1996. She trained at Edinburgh Art College in Drawing, Painting & Printmaking, but it is as a community artist making large-scale site-specific art works that she has become known.

In 1990 she became involved with a Community Arts Company called Welfare State International. They were working in Glasgow on a ‘Year of Culture’ project called ‘Glasgow All Lit Up’. It was a Community Project on a gigantic scale. It involved working with schools and community groups throughout the Strathclyde area.

As School’s Liaison Officer Kay was responsible running in-service workshops for teachers from 123 schools from Lochgilphead to Girvan and from Arran to Cumbernauld. Her role was to visit the schools, work with the teachers to teach the children to build willow and paper lanterns, organise materials and arrange transport to the procession.

The Lantern Procession took place on 6th October 1990 and involved 10,000 people all carrying their home-made lanterns through the centre of Glasgow, accompanied by large lorry sized lanterns. It ended with a fabulous finale by Welfare State on Glasgow Green.

Since then she has worked with various theatre companies; Fablevision ,Clown Jewels, Arts in Motion and Greycoast making props, sets and costumes. .

As a Community Artist she runs workshops for adults and children in a variety of art forms including making large-scale sculptures from willow to use as part of Community Celebrations.
 
In 2001 Kay went to Australia for 5 weeks to work with Neil Cameron Enterprises on ‘The Largest River Boat Lantern Procession in the World’ which was part of Brisbane’s celebrations for the Bi -Centenary Celebrations of The Federation. Here she brushed up on her skills as a pyro technician, making and running Fire Events.

Kay is also trained as an Art teacher. She worked for five years on Bute before moving to the Highlands where she works as a supply teacher between her art projects. In 2001 she was the co-ordinator for The Ross-shire Special Needs Playscheme, a very successful pilot Playscheme for children with special needs.

Kay was appointed as Regional Co-ordinator for ArtsPlay in April 2002 and her role here was to co-ordinate a rolling programme over two years, covering the ten LEC areas of the Highlands and Islands. Kay ended her employment as Regional Co-ordinator in March 2004.
 

Jelica Gavrilovic, ArtsPlay Regional Co-ordinator (August 2003-March 2005)

Jelica joined Kay as regional co-ordinator in August 2003. She was the local co-ordinator for the Inverness and Nairn ArtsPlay project and along with the artists, formed Artsplay Highland in April 2003.

She has worked in community development for 15 years, and qualified as a community and youth worker in 1991. She has worked with children and young people in a variety of settings, and is strongly committed to the voluntary sector and rights work.

She has delivered training programs in child protection, children’s rights, disability, race, and sex awareness,  through organisations such as Women’s Aid, Article 12 in Scotland, and Independent Living, Keighley.

Her personal interest in music, visual art and writing led her to  introduce artists into these organisations as a means of empowering children and young people who have had traumatic and abusive lives, to enable them to express their feelings and to survive their experiences.

ArtsPlay has provided a positive approach to child development and education, and for Jelica, is potentially an integral part of the nurturing of social and emotional intelligence for children in our society.

When ArtsPlay ended in March 2004, Jelica was retained as Regional Co-ordinator - until March 2005 -  in order to re-visit the 10 LEC areas and look at ways and means for ArtsPlay to continue on a local level.

Jelica organised the major national conference on ArtsPlay, which focused on examples of good practice and made a collective contribution on a Mission Statement to the Cultural Commission on children and provision of the arts.

The conference took place at the Craigmonie Centre, Glenurquart High School, Drumnadrochit, Inverness-shire on 2 December 2004.