Busy Bee-ing Creative at Chorlton's Big Green Festival 2012!

Last Saturday was a whirlwind of flying cardboard tubes, paper cups and empty cereal boxes as I facilitated a creative construction workshop at Chorlton's Big Green Festival. I was invited by Busy Bee Toyshop Co-operative to help the lovely children of South Manchester let their imaginations run wild with the aid of the fantastic creative toy Makedo. The plastic connectors are a bit like split pins crossed with reusable cable-ties and allow the creator to make absolutely anything they can dream up from recycled cardboard and found materials. I had lots of fun preparing for the workshop, creating a menagerie of creatures from the contents of my recycling bin. I was especially fond of Earl Grey, the Rockhopper penguin made from an egg box and a tea packet. The young festival goers and their families produced a wonderful array of animals, vehicles, robots and rockets. The creations are currently on display in Busy Bee's shop window and the best ones have earned their makers a prize!

ART:CONNECT Liverpool

Very exciting things have been happening at the Bluecoat, my creative home as Blue Room Lead Facilitator. For the past seven weeks we have been hosting artist in residence Wendell McShine who was born in Trinidad and is based in Mexico. He has been working with our Blue Room group of adults with learning disabilities as well as groups of children and young people from the Norris Green area of Liverpool. Funded by the PCT and focused on the Five Ways to Wellbeing, the project has strived to 'connect' groups of people who would not ordinarily come together, and may be apprehensive about doing so, over shared creative activities.

Wendell shared with us his interest in folklore and carnival culture, helping the Blue Room groups to find their 'animal totems'. From these they created beautiful charcoal drawings and incredible 3D carnival masks embellished with found fabrics and jewels. Many of the pieces have been created in an intergenerational collaborative process. A highlight was 'Dream Week' when the children and young people spent their half-term week working together with Blue Room.

Inspired by the cardboard skyline of Liverpool the group had created as a way to welcome Wendell to the city, the multi-disciplinary artist worked with us to develop an animated film. The group's hand drawn and painted cardboard cars, people and buildings take the viewer on a vibrant city tour, uncovering connections between people and places. The groups even worked with musicians to record their own unique soundtrack and theme tune. The animation and documentary film of the project is still in progress and will be complete in a few months as Wendell continues to work on editing back in Mexico.


The project has been a wonderful experience for all who have taken part. At our opening event earlier this week, the response from visitors and families was overwhelmingly positive. I have thoroughly enjoyed working on the project and am so proud of what the groups have achieved in just seven weeks. The exhibition Art:Connect Liverpool will be open to the public 10-6pm daily until 15th April 2012 at the Bluecoat.

Mice, Rice and Rubbish Revamped!

Recently, I've been teaming up with the brilliant Rubbish Revamped's Danielle Lowy to deliver some creative recycling sessions on behalf of the WEA as part of their Peripheral Vision project.

Held at the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester, two fantastic groups of adults got the chance to create adorable creatures from upcycled socks! Inspired by Donna Wilson's show at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, the participants explored pattern cutting, stitching techniques and stuffing their creatures with tactile waste materials such as old rice and pillow wadding.

The results were a wonderfully expressive bunch of creatures ranging from mice and bunnies to red squirrels and even mythical looking critters. It was great to see how much character can be invested in an old sock, simply by adding a couple of buttons for eyes and carefully positioned ears. Inspired, I've made these two little mice for my lovely Mum and Nana for Mother's Day!

Liverpool Loves part two ...

This week the Valentines craftiness continued as I delivered workshops with groups in Huyton and Kirkby as part of Kirkby Art Gallery's 'Your Valentine' exhibition. First up was a very girly and pleasantly fiddly couple of hours making paper roses with a fantastic group at the amazing brand new Knowsley Leisure and Culture Park. I didn't expect to find so much art in a leisure centre with the brilliant Alphabet Trail sculptures dotted around the building




Next came printmaking in Kirkby, with a lovely group who created delicate prints by rolling ink over textured lace before using these to collage their own designs for Valentines. It has been a brilliant few weeks journeying around Knowsley and being welcomed by the most delightful and creative groups. I encountered lots of big hearted folks, very much in the spirit of Valentine's Day! Hopefully I get to work with some of them again for more crafty fun.

Liverpool Loves.....

This week I've been trundling around Merseyside on the bus with a suitcase full of clay, plaster and lace all in the name of 'love'. Kirkby Gallery has a fascinating exhibiton charting the history of the Valentines card from the 19th Century onwards and to celebrate, I've been delivering a series of workshops inspired by Victorian Valentines.

Working with wonderful groups of adults with learning disabilities in Stockbridge and Halewood, we got messy making oversized 'Loveheart' sweet sculptures. The groups designed their own clay moulds, creating delicate imprints of lace and adding personal messages of love before pouring in liquid plaster and adding subtle colours with soft pastel. Its been brilliant getting to know all of the group members and staff at the centres and hearing about their own valentines. There is more to come next week as I visit centres in Kirkby and Huyton, watch this space!

The Finished Film!

After a wonderful 6 months of working on the Stories in the Shadows project with the fantastic people of Sale West we have a ten minute animated film! The piece was shown at a lovely event at the end of October celebrating 40 years of the Sale West estate. I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone who took part and trusted me with this project! Follow this link to see the animation.

Stories emerging from the Shadows!

After a few months of deliciously painstaking work on stopmotion animated scenes for Stories in the Shadows, a community storytelling project based in Sale West, the finished film is almost there! It has been brilliant process involving fantastic tales being told by residents from the estate, beautiful silhouette puppets being created by local children and young people plus local musicians creating spine-tinkling musical scores. Join us on Saturday 29th October from 5.30pm for the big premiere and celebration event at Sale West Youth Centre. Watch this space to see the finished film!