Smile Train

All Aboard.

Collages are usually patterns which are never quite finished. Despite spending hours cutting and sticking to pages, hording piles of media to sift through and keeping pockets of pictures of miniature objects, the few that I complete I like to be just that. Complete. I come back to pictures I started years ago with fresh eyes, sometimes even with a new attitude to the project: this would work better as a painting, or the colour scheme should be bolder, retouched digitally. Using these collages as art works have notes attached and stories to tell. Pop Art has its roots in the poster medium, and the work I’d like to celebrate today I would categorise as so. A happy, joyful ride along, bright and for a good cause.

The charity Smile Train caught my attention in adverts online, yet only resonated recently when a ‘Thank You’ card from the organisation, dated 2010, was in the corner of a photo-frame in an elderly gentleman’s home I visit as a carer. Children born with cleft palates can grow up surrounded by judgement and stigma without money to afford surgery. Shallowness isn’t the end of the story; clefts can cause problems eating, drinking, speaking, breathing and hearing. I felt called to the cause as the small Pop Art collage of a train from 2017, anthropomorphised as both ‘little’ and ‘big’ with one cut of the scissors and shifting the paper slightly, was always one of my favourites. I appreciated it’s simplicity: “YES! I’ve actually finished one!” is always a good feeling.

From the original image the idea has grown into a full fund-raising project. Now a large-scale copy has been painted up to sit near a small railway statue. Each year, the local area hosts an art trail where people are encouraged to walk up and down between the main town, along the river and to the craft centre. The railway statue lies just between, on route and attracts plenty of foot traffic. The setup I have laid out encourages curiosity and is noisy enough to draw people in to sign up from as little as two pounds a month. Stickers of just the train, with the background removed, are in print to give to those who donate and kids who take an interest: my hope is to make it memorable, meaningful and heartfelt.

Scars can be fear provoking and cause a lot of upset to the person who has them. I have a split lip which, before I had braces, would mean my lip would fold upwards and stick to my tooth when I smiled. I always felt as if this made me not ‘normal’ looking. I would like anyone with similar features to never feel as if they are different in a bad way. For young children, this is especially important as it can shape how they live the rest of their lives. It sounds as if it’s all too coincidental to be real, but the story is an honest one, made all the more cheerful and, hopefully, helpful to others, by just cutting up some pictures.

Continuing to create images from collage means more ‘trains of thought’ (apologies, that term had to pop up somewhere in this challenge letter) can head to more destinations. I like to combine the still imagery with musical pieces: to build an event and something to think about well after the day is over. I would encourage anybody and everybody to search for Smile Train online and consider donating. Together we can make a real difference to which ever good cause makes us happy.