Festival of Potential in St Kilda

Melbourne-based The Mind Gallery runs corporate workshops where professional artists are hired to facilitate the clients to paint individual canvases or communal murals as a means to better achieve business goals. The process involves staff visualizing and painting that goal. Their company, which began as a part-time venture, has grown into an increasingly popular choice for companies seeking to team-build or familiarize employees with either a new product or concept.

As a corporate consultant previously, Anne was called in to help with team-building in the professional context. She was already using drawing in her training workshops to help capture her clients’ attention and collectivise their energy. However, it was in conversation with a professional artist, Gareth Altman about holding dinner parties where the guests were invited to paint, that she came up with the idea of the The Mind Gallery. She expained to me that

“Having experienced a number of workshops and corporate setting where people were trying to get across messages using boring powerpoints and presentations I saw that people tuned out. So realizing people enjoy doing something creative, painting was an extension of what I already did in many ways.”

American Express, recently did a survey (of which, on research, American Express does many) to reveal that “over half of all Australians would like to discover a new skill and more than a third would like to tap into their potential or explore their own creativity” (their press release).

Last year American Express contacted Mind Gallery to help them realize what they called “American Express Festival of Potential”. In December 2009 in Sydney, Mind Gallery organized a three day event where 12 professional artists were hired to facilitate the general public to paint canvases in acrylic paint and to join in free drumming workshops. Anne says that the event was inundated, with 800 canvases completed within the first day, where only 1000 had been predicted to be completed for the three days. An exhibition of the three-day’s painting was displayed on a website.

The Sydney Festival of Potential was in December 2009. This March 19th and 20th 2010 there will be 30 easles set up in O’Donnell Gardens, opposite Lunar Park, on Friday 8am to 6pm and Saturday 10am to 8pm. All are welcome to come and paint with the aid of 12 professional painters.

In addition, a troupe of drummers is coming to town and bringing with it some of Australia’s most dynamic circus performers and artists to share the secret of their talents with any interested and enthusiastic member of the public.

Funded by American Express, $25 is being donated per canvas to the Creative Youth Initiative. CYI is a program by Mission Australia which encourages students to be involved in community arts and performance, with the aim of building self esteem, improving communication skills and providing positive learning experiences and educational qualifications..

Acrylic and canvas are the media available for all to use. Anne says that the professional artists that will be present at the event are well-experienced in nurturing the most nervous new-comers: she says

“The artists are all very people orientated and know how to make people feel very comfortable to have a go. Offering suggestions requires personal skills. If people describe a vision there is a skill to be able to quickly help them distill that as well as a good design sense”.

Anne’s background is a degree in Economics degree followed by work in various corporate training contexts, “I worked in traditional training in sales and service but I wanted to do something very different and creative because that is what I enjoy.”

As proof of the pudding, since she started The Mind Gallery, Anne became motivated to explore her own previously untapped creative potential on the canvas, “I have started painting myself and have sold six paintings at the local café,” she tells me.

According to Anne, Amex is holding these philanthropic events internationally; the money donated is quite considerable, as is the publicity…

For more information on the American Express Festival of Potential here.