Aimee has been on her Arts Award journey since the age of 7. She completed her Arts Award Discover in 2013 and since then has worked her way through all the levels, finally completing her Gold Arts Award last November.

Aimee started her Gold Arts Award at the end of 2019. She got in touch with a local Mosaic Artist and worked with her to develop her 'New Arts Practise'. Then the pandemic hit and we were thrown into lockdowns. Despite the new bizarre situation we were all in, Aimee was determined to continue with her Award. She created new beautiful mosaic artworks out of old tiles, broken crockery and anything we had around the house.

She even managed to successfully deliver her leadership project online during the first lockdown - in a time of isolation and uncertainty, she wanted to collaborate with other young artists from her local art school, to create a joint project that would bring a sense of togetherness and belonging. She worked with over 50 children (and some keen adults). She taught herself how to use imovie and how to upload videos to youtube, so that she could provide tutorial videos online. She helped the children to design their dream homes, inspiring them to be creative with their choice of materials (food, nature, collage, junk as well as more traditional materials) she then combined all their artworks into a final video art piece that illustrated an amazing fantasy street where all the participants lived. She had wonderful feedback from the children/parents involved and also from many others from the social media pages she shared it with.

Since then, Aimee has fully developed her art practise. She has combined her new skills of mosaic with her original skills in painting portraits to create some very unique and accomplished self-portraits. Her exploration of the possibilities of the different materials is imaginative. She came across different barriers and challenges in the process, but worked through them all.

As a side note, as well as being her mum, I am also Aimee's art teacher at 'Sherwood Young Artists' Arts school. I originally started the school in 2012 as I was searching for an art class for Aimee and couldn't find one. We now have over 280 children that attend weekly art classes and Aimee was the inspiration for it all. She has also been such a key person in the growth of the art school too - she helps me plan the activities we do, she has been there to help me put up every exhibition, she has been at every event, either helping to deliver free workshops to the children in our community, serving teas and coffees, as well as the boring jobs too, like clearing everything up at the end. She is such as inspiration to all the younger children, often helping out in the younger classes.

I'm so incredibly proud of the artist she has become, the passion she has in sharing her skills and positively promoting the Arts, and all she has achieved whilst being on her Arts Award Journey.

What Aimee says about her Arts Award experience

Through doing my Art Awards, I feel that I have developed my skills and creativity as an artist. I feel more confident now to share my art work and my views about different arts issues with others. Through learning about the Creative Industries I have really been inspired and encouraged to pursue a career within it and achieve my ambitions.