Fairies, lanterns, young visions and getting it out!

fairies

I think I've spent too much time with the fairies. My feet haven't touched the ground! 
Last Autumn saw the culmination of the Fairy Path Project, commissioned by Shipping Brow Gallery, funded by Maryport Town Council. Artist, Jim Osborne and I worked across 7 schools in Maryport, revisiting the memoirs of local person Doris Riley, and her collection of stories and myths of the area. After the children had visited the legendary path, they worked on their responses to everything they had discovered. We hung the result down the path to re-animate it. I liked the final effect - little accents of colour dotted down the path, weird and wonderful faces and mobiles coming into view from each side.

The work was hung perhaps a little late in the season, so unfortunately, I'm now in the process of repairing many of the poor artworks. I thought varnished AirDry Fimo would survive, but this locality definitely needs fired clay or wood. We live and learn. 

Lanterns for everyone here

In late autumn, I was invited by Everyone Here, the arts organisation run by artists and members of the west coast community, to help with lantern-making. The occasion was their Lightworks festivals in Seascale and Workington. After around 18 lantern-making workshops with hundreds of folk, the marvellous lanterns were ready to set off on their parade!

Funnily enough, I've been spending time looking through the awesome archive of the work of Welfare State International curated by Bristol University. Headed by John Fox and Sue Gill, Welfare State International was based in Cumbria for many years. They were also the first community arts company to bring lantern processions to Britain, after a cultural exchange with Japan. Hurray!

young people and their poetic visions

In developing their future plans for the town, Cockermouth Town Council were inspired to ask the most imaginative people in their community first - its youngest members. I was commissioned to find a way that the children could speak through poetic and visual imagery to give full voice to their ideas. I created large black and white drawings of different parts of Cockermouth. The children were invited to transform these drawings, animate their town according to their hopes and desires! When collage is used in a group setting, each fragment of text or image juxtaposed with the one next to it, is a super-charged way to spark off new connections and ideas. We have Kurt Schwitters to mainly thank for this. Just lately, I've been exploring the Armitt Museum's collection of his work and related archive. 

The children's ideas were thought-provoking and comprehensive, centring to a large degree on outdoor adventures, good times with family and looking after the natural world. A group of Cockermouth School sixthformers then hosted a sharing event for the young children. All the adults stood back while these young people curated one of the most inspired events I have ever attended! The primary school representatives discussed their ideas with members of other schools, affirming and exploring their thoughts. The artwork was then shown at a later town visioning day, where the wider public were also invited to have their say.

getting it out

This is my simplistic title for a body of work I started about 4 years ago. It's about manifesting the unsayable, something the arts are very good at doing. 
Two years ago, on a residency at Stiwdio Maelor in Corris, Wales, I began turning drawings of indescribable experiences, feelings, and events into paintings. I returned to this site this year to continue. 

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A post shared by Stiwdio Maelor (@stiwdiomaelor)

From this, I am now in residence for roughly 3 months at Hope Haven in Whitehaven, part of a unique collaboration between West Coast Mental Health Partnership and Everyone Here. ​

Through a collective process facilitated by Everyone Here, the staff chose to commission an artist to have a weekly presence in the building. So, here I am, once a week, getting on with getting it out. The response has been instantaneous - with staff and visitors to the building talking about art, and dreaming up creative participatory plans for the future.