Nurturing young creatives with the National Saturday Art Club
The National Saturday Club is an initiative involving thousands of young people taking part in various clubs across the UK.
Coleg Sir Gâr is currently the only club in Wales to be delivering the initiative, with its art and design club, held on Saturday mornings for 13-16-year-olds at the college’s Graig campus.
The club was developed around 15 years ago when founders Sir John Sorrell and Frances Lady Sorrell put the idea into motion with the support of their Sorrell Foundation.
Due to the success of the original art and design club, other subjects were later developed into Saturday clubs for science and engineering, fashion and business and writing and talking.
Coleg Sir Gâr has been involved with this initiative for over 10 years and has delivered countless art and design sessions and industry workshops to local young people.
Recently, London-based and French-born typography artist, Nadina Ali, travelled to the college to talk to club members about her work, her commissions and inspirations.
The group then had a chance to get hands-on and created typography billboards under Nadina’s guidance.
Previous industry-specialist workshops took art club members for a costume design session at Royal Opera House and a session on scale perception in art at a London architectural company.
At the end of every year, each group travels to London for a graduation and exhibition where their work is displayed at Somerset House, alongside other members of clubs from across the UK.
Tuesday Howells, who runs the National Saturday Club at Coleg Sir Gâr says: “The club offers young people such an opportunity to freely explore their artistic skills and widen their knowledge with hands-on industry insights.
“Every year we have a lovely group of students and it’s so nice to see young people from all over Carmarthenshire, that have never met before, bond over their love of art.”
The annual review of the National Saturday Club has revealed that for the year 2023/2024, 82% of members gained a better understanding of job roles and careers in the creative arts, 2,155 young people took part in the club and 70% of members, said attending has improved their outlook for the future.
Also noted within the same year, was the participation across the UK of 387 supporting tutors and 175 industry professionals with 3,023 people visiting the end of year exhibition in London.
This initiative, which is completely free for participants, is supported financially by Reaching Wider, Arts Council England and the Department of Education.
The club runs across the term of an academic year and is held on Saturday mornings from 10am to 1pm.
Find out more here.
