In this calendar year 2011, January 22 would in all probability stay a special day, not for any other rationale but for the actuality that, it ushers an event that has historical connotation to Nigerian artists primarily based in Zaria. On that Saturday early morning all-around 10:00 am, amidst the harmattan weather with its penetrating chilly wind which has small or no respect for people today sporting mild jeans, a teeming variety of artists were introduced together to partake in an art workshop titled: Scapes and Sorts. The workshop pulled artists from their studios into an open setting in which creative skills/endeavors were artistically harnessed in a pleasant manner to create different forms of visual representations. The occasion was more or much less like a midpoint for equally lecturers and learners specifically of the twin-departments (Good Arts and Industrial Style) in ABU Zaria, to refresh their inventive abilities but largely in many two-dimensional types: painting and drawing. Above sixty artists, who responded to workshop with enthusiasm, collected in entrance of Samaru current market, Zaria, to artistically consider the Scapes and Kinds of the activities going on in the space.
Shortly just before the commencement of the workshop, Dr. G.G. Duniya, who transpired to be the guide facilitator of the workshop (assisted by Mr. Lasisi Lamidi), resolved participants ahead of declaring it open up. In his tackle, Dr. Duniya highlighted the essence as well as the reason of the workshop, and what it (the workshop) intends to accomplish: “This painting and drawing workshop is meant to serve as an avenue for innovative minds to interact and share drawing and painterly tips, away from the standard studio setting. The workshop is also expected to expose gurus and university student artists to the quite a few possibilities in art, applying varied media and approaches or experiments”. He concluded by saying “we information you to truly feel absolutely free and specific yourselves in the Zaria Art School’s independence of expression, using forms right before you and the resources that suits your creative impulse”.
Immediately following the address, easels were being mounted by some artists whilst other artists took strategic sitting positions that very best go well with their views. But more interestingly, cars and trucks brought by some contributors to the location have been instantly turned into stabilizing platforms for retaining drawing boards while the workshop goes on. On the other hand, a very good number of members ended up seen squatting on the floor with their drawing boards, getting creative watch of their innovative taste. The location was an utmost contradiction to studio natural environment as it delivers seeming issues but typically to the edge of the individuals. For example, the website traffic of folks in the market at the other aspect of the road, the transferring cars and cyclists as nicely as sounds/noises created by the traffics, contributed in shaping the aura of the workshop’s location into a disorganized and noisy natural environment. This is in contrast to studio scenario which is usually serene and serene having said that, the location was almost certainly the best for that type of workshop considering the fact that the members of the workshop later converted the inherent troubles therein, into creative opportunities by exhibiting their artistic talents in various two-dimensional types.
In conditions of attendance, the members of the Scapes and Forms’s workshop, minimize throughout undergraduate and postgraduate college students of both Fine Arts and Industrial Style departments, as properly as lecturers in the Office of Good Arts, Ahmadu Bello College, Zaria. The uniqueness of the workshop was not only for the reason that it was held in an out-doorway setting that stimulates higher creative impulse for exciting creative patterns, it also lies in the actuality that some learners, possibly for the first time, discover by themselves drawing or painting alongside aspect with their lecturers (pros). This state of affairs was extremely favoured by mutual interactivity amongst the two (lecturers and learners) with jokes and funny remarks to continue to keep the venue energetic although the workshop progresses.
Another variable which contributed to including additional flavour in the workshop was the open thematization “Scapes and Types” which paved way for assorted creative creations. In check out of that, it was typical to see interaction of different media in different designs in the will work the taking part artists. That’s why, a single artist is portray when a different artist sitting down following is drawing in charcoal. But most importantly, the open up theme favoured imaginative range on the component of the participating artists specially on the preference of artwork expression which was commonly found in their works. For case in point, Dr. Ken Okoli opt to take the photographic facet of the function, while Mr. Wesley (a lecturer in sculpture) decides to reveal the other side of his creative flair in portray.
Connect with it a Zaria affair but for these who have been current can agree with the author that it goes over and above that place as the existence of artists from other artwork educational facilities attended. For instance, the presence of Mr. Tony Emodi and Mr. Emmanuel Eroka both from Yaba College or university of Technologies, Lagos, created Yaba Artwork school to be nicely represented in the workshop. Amid lecturers who participated in Scapes and Forms are Mr. Shafe, Mr. Caleb, Mr. Aliyu Moh’d as perfectly as the facilitators: Dr. G.G. Duniya and Mr. Lasisi Lamidi.
The workshop was not only attractive at the minute but rather well timed simply because, it came at a time period when cotemporary art exercise is degenerating in the crucial values which are essential for sustaining an endearing visible society of a multi-cultural nation like Nigeria. For occasion, the coming of recent traits in artwork like installation art offers the more youthful artists minimal prospects for proper software of some elements of art as well as standard procedures required in “drawing”- which is the initially and fundamental excellent of a fantastic artist. With the dying lifestyle of artwork workshop in contemporary art exercise, Zaria Artwork University by way of the section of Good Arts, ABU Zaria, did not only current artists the innovative chance to strengthening their drawing skills but also set to revive as effectively as maintain the rudiments in modern art exercise using artwork situations like scapes and Types.