{"id":14108,"date":"2026-06-10T13:54:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T12:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=14108"},"modified":"2026-06-10T13:54:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T12:54:22","slug":"ancient-egypt-flowers-and-abstract-art-no-problem-for-the-arts-ambassadors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/2026\/06\/10\/ancient-egypt-flowers-and-abstract-art-no-problem-for-the-arts-ambassadors\/","title":{"rendered":"Ancient Egypt, Flowers and Abstract Art &#8211; no problem for the Arts Ambassadors"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>For\u202fmore than\u202fa decade, the\u202fFitzwilliam\u202fMuseum and Kettle\u2019s Yard\u202fhave\u202fworked in\u202fpartnership to\u202frun an annual\u202fproject with\u202fNorth\u202fCambridge\u202fAcademy\u202f(NCA),\u202fto support Year 8 students in achieving a Bronze Arts Award.<\/h2>\n<p>This year all 12\u202fNCA students\u202fhave\u202fpassed\u202fwith flying colours. They took inspiration from\u202fthe\u202fbright and\u202fjoyful works of Frank Bowling at the <a href=\"https:\/\/museums.cam.ac.uk\/museums\/the-fitzwilliam-museum\">Fitzwilliam Museum<\/a>, and explored artist Harold Offeh\u2019s playful work at <a href=\"https:\/\/museums.cam.ac.uk\/museums\/kettles-yard\">Kettle&#8217;s Yard<\/a>, as well as creating a video for the <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kettlesyard.cam.ac.uk\/whats-on\/handpicked-painting-flowers\/\">Handpicked: Painting Flowers from 1900 to Today<\/a><\/em> exhibition.<\/p>\n<h3>Why Arts Award?<\/h3>\n<p>An <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsaward.org.uk\/site\/?id=64\">Arts Award<\/a> is a unique nationally\u202frecognised\u202fqualification that supports young people to grow as artists and art leaders. It inspires them to connect with and take part in the wider arts\u202fworld through\u202ftackling art-based\u202fchallenges.<\/p>\n<p>There are four parts to the Bronze Arts Award. To pass, all students must take part in an art activity, share a skill they have learnt,\u202fdemonstrate\u202fhow they are inspired by an artwork or artist and review an exhibition.<\/p>\n<p>This project aimed to improve selected students&#8217; cultural capital and their confidence in taking on new challenges, to encourage them to feel at home in our collections, and to improve their soft skills such as working with their peers.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_14116\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14116\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-14116 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_0302-1-683x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Students sitting on the floor in the \u2018Made in Ancient Egypt\u2019 exhibition drawing and facing a statue.\" width=\"640\" height=\"960\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_0302-1-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_0302-1-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_0302-1-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_0302-1.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-14116\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students drawing in the &#8216;Made in Ancient Egypt&#8217; exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3>What did the Arts Ambassadors create?<\/h3>\n<p>This year, the Arts Ambassadors began their Arts Award at Kettle\u2019s Yard to complete Part A; Explore the arts as a participant, and Part B; Explore the arts as an audience member.<\/p>\n<p>They spent time in the Kettle\u2019s Yard house, looking at flower paintings by artists Christopher Wood and Winifred Nicholson. An artist-led workshop was run by local artist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amywormald.net\/\">Amy Wormald<\/a>, inviting the students to loosen up, and get big and bold with their painted flower designs.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_14118\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14118\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-14118 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_8887-768x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"Two young people lean on a table drawing line drawings on A3 paper with felt tips.\" width=\"640\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_8887-768x1024.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_8887-225x300.jpeg 225w, https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_8887.jpeg 1125w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-14118\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Working with artist Amy Wormald at Kettle\u2019s Yard on fun drawing activities<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Alongside completing their Arts Award, the NCA students created a video to help other young people explore the <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kettlesyard.cam.ac.uk\/whats-on\/handpicked-painting-flowers\/\">Handpicked<\/a><\/em>\u00a0exhibition. You can watch the video on YouTube or on Bloomberg Connects.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"North Cambridge Academy Arts Ambassadors introduction to Handpicked: Painting Flowers\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6yajXCcmZnQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>At the Fitzwilliam Museum, the Arts Ambassadors completed Part C; Arts Inspiration and Part D; Arts skills share \u2013 passing on arts skills to others. The students visited the <em><a href=\"https:\/\/fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk\/plan-your-visit\/exhibitions\/made-in-ancient-egypt\">Made in Ancient\u202fEgypt<\/a><\/em> exhibition to review and gain inspiration from artefacts.<\/p>\n<p>They\u202ftried\u202ftheir\u202fhand at\u202fmono-printing,\u202finspired\u202fby\u202f artists Paul Nash and C.R.W.\u202f Nevinson\u202fin\u202fthe exhibition <em><a href=\"https:\/\/fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk\/plan-your-visit\/exhibitions\/war-craft\">War Craft<\/a><\/em>,\u202fand learnt how to create\u202fan abstract\u202fpour painting inspired by the current exhibition <a href=\"https:\/\/fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk\/plan-your-visit\/exhibitions\/frank-bowling-seeking-the-sublime\"><em>Frank Bowling: Seeking the Sublime<\/em><\/a>. They then had the daunting task of sharing the skills learnt back to Susi\u202fSahmland\u202fand Ben\u202fBowling\u202ffrom the <a href=\"https:\/\/frankbowling.com\/\">Frank\u202fBowling\u202fFoundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3>Come and see the Arts Ambassadors&#8217; artwork<\/h3>\n<p>The final\u202fthree\u202fcollaborative\u202fartworks\u202fare on\u202fdisplay\u202fin the\u202fschool&#8217;s\u202flunchroom at the Fitzwilliam\u202fMuseum until December 2026.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_14122\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14122\" style=\"width: 875px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-14122 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Image-246-1.jpg\" alt=\"The final artworks inspired by the work of abstract artist Frank Bowling hanging in the Fitzwilliam Museum schools\u2019 lunchroom.\" width=\"875\" height=\"670\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Image-246-1.jpg 875w, https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Image-246-1-300x230.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Image-246-1-768x588.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 875px) 100vw, 875px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-14122\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Three brightly coloured paintings mounted on the wall in the Fitzwilliam Museum lunchroom.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>They will then be\u202fpresented\u202fback to\u202fthe group\u202falong with\u202ftheir\u202fcertificates\u202fat\u202fa greatly anticipated awards ceremony held in Gallery 3 at the Fitzwilliam Museum\u202fin autumn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For\u202fmore than\u202fa decade, the\u202fFitzwilliam\u202fMuseum and Kettle\u2019s Yard\u202fhave\u202fworked in\u202fpartnership to\u202frun an annual\u202fproject with\u202fNorth\u202fCambridge\u202fAcademy\u202f(NCA),\u202fto support Year 8 students in achieving a Bronze Arts Award. This year all 12\u202fNCA students\u202fhave\u202fpassed\u202fwith flying colours. They took inspiration from\u202fthe\u202fbright and\u202fjoyful works of Frank Bowling at the Fitzwilliam Museum, and explored artist Harold Offeh\u2019s playful work at Kettle&#8217;s Yard, as well as creating a video for the&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/2026\/06\/10\/ancient-egypt-flowers-and-abstract-art-no-problem-for-the-arts-ambassadors\/\" class=\"excerpt-more hide-for-medium\">Read full article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":14115,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[165,156],"tags":[],"coauthors":[257,446],"class_list":["post-14108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engagement","category-the-fitzwilliam-museum"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14108"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14126,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14108\/revisions\/14126"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14108"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museums.cam.ac.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=14108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}