Last workshops of 2024
Last workshops of 2024

The last double workshop of this year was dedicated to Christmas time.

If you follow us regularly, you know that the gallery is currently undergoing renovations, and for this reason it is not possible to organize any events in our premises. Of course, we could have taken the easy way out and suspended all our activities for the duration of the renovation, but we didn't want to. On the contrary, we tried to do everything to prevent such a situation from happening. Our educator Pavlína toured Jihlava elementary and kindergarten schools with an Advent program, and educator Veronika visits institutions for seniors every month, and as well as moved the popular art course for the adult public to the premises of the Seifertova Elementary School. So all that was left was to figure out what would happen to our regular weekend workshops for families with children. In this regard, we were greatly helped and accommodated by Brána Jihlavy and the Documentary Film Center (CDF), who offered us the use of the newly renovated Silver House on Masaryk Square, coincidentally almost next to our gallery building.

And so we moved our weekend workshops there from September. The first (and somewhat trial) September workshop was held there, where we were inspired by the house itself, and we cut out and assembled our own suburbs. This was followed by the November workshop, which was in the spirit of the celebration of the Day of the Fight for Freedom and Democracy – we made lanterns, with which we then went on a short parade along the walls of Jihlava. And of course, in December we could not miss the traditional and perhaps the most popular Christmas workshop. There is always the greatest interest in Christmas and Easter workshops, so this year we also offered two dates – on Saturday, December 21, in the morning and afternoon.

We are very grateful for the opportunity to create in the Silver House and the CDF, but even here we encounter limits. One of them is limited space. While in the gallery we can take up to 25 children per workshop (due to great interest, and because we don't like to turn anyone away, we have already squeezed in 30 children – parents had to stay in the hallway ☺), here the maximum number of children per workshop is 15. So both workshops filled up almost immediately, and even though several children couldn't come due to illness, it didn't matter, at least there was more working space.

We start every (not only) Christmas workshop the same way – we make name tags so we don’t have to shout “hey you” at each other and then we talk. This time the topic was clear – the story of the birth of Jesus Christ. Just like in the school program, we used original illustrations that were painted especially for us by the artist Veronika Vlková. In the space of the Documentary Film Center, we took advantage of the opportunity to use their technique, so we projected the pictures onto a large screen.

And then it was time to create. This year, our educator Pavlína came up with a way to decorate candle glasses for the children. Each workshop participant received two glasses from us, into which they could then choose tea lights – the offer included classic white, red with the scent of gingerbread, and green with the scent of fir. We decorated the glasses with tissue paper that was glued to them. This resulted in a large number of beautiful works that will bring joy to their homes at Christmas. At the end, the children also received a small gift from us – in addition to stickers, we also prepared two flashlight candles in the package, which they could also decorate with a special gold marker during workshop.

We are very happy that despite the change of environment, there is still a lot of interest in our weekend workshops. We are very grateful to Brána Jihlava and the Documentary Film Center, but we are already impatiently waiting for the end of the reconstruction so that we can create "in our own" again.

We wish you a nice rest of the Christmas holidays, and we are already looking forward to more workshops in 2025.

Jana Jarošová, December 28, 2024

assistant of director, PR
Bc. Jana Jarošová, DiS.

phone number: 567 301 681; 721 434 761
jarosova@ogv.cz

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