One of My Panels is Missing

Sad to report one of the panels I made for the Brampton Valley Way has been stolen. If you find it in a ditch or see it gracing someone's garden I'd love to know. Oh and just in case it was the gold tiles that attracted your magpie eye and light fingers, the gold tiles are not real gold, just foiled glass. For the full story click here

If anyone has any information about the theft of this public artwork please contact Park Ranger Dan Hurst  0160 - 488 9478 or report any suspicious activity near the panel to Northamptonshire Police Force. 

The project was made possible with funding raised by Back To Books a not for profit community organisation and 

Marking A Fine Line Finally Installed!

It's been quite a long journey from idea to installation

I've worked with many lovely people and you can 

read about Back To Books and all who took part here

Most of all I must thank my wonderful volunteers Carolyn, Ricky and Mark who took such care in creating the woodwork and gave so much time to the installation and to the Green Patch for letting us use a poly tunnel this winter as a temporary workshop. It fill my heart to think of all the time and effort they gave!

Also huge thanks to Ranger Dan Hurst

 who got us up and down the 

Brampton Valley way in many variable weathers!

The Frost panel was the trickiest to install

but with Spring in full swing,

blossom appearing along the Way,

 

lambs and lush greenery

 

don't let the moss grow under your feet

take to your bikes and ride!

More photos here

Summer

I have been spending much of the summer 

working on a mosaic way marker project 

for Back To Books, if you'd like to follow the 

progress of this project you can find all the links here

Brampton Valley Way Mosaic Way Markers

I am currently working on Marking a Fine Line creating a set of 12 mosaic Way Markers for Back To Books to be sited along the Brampton Valley Way, a cycle track on the site of a former railway line in Northamptonshire. The designs are inspired by photographs taken during walks through and around the Valley Way during B2B's Tracing the Tracks project last year. I have drawn up all the panels and am making six myself, working with groups on three panels, inviting B2B members to my studio / shed to spend a few hours laying on tiles. You can see the designs here

I am finding that working in my shed / studio is lovely, the layout needs further refinement but now the weather is improving and the light lasts longer I can stay out there working for long stretches. Charlie whippet, is also enjoying our new location!

The project has been funded by Northamptonshire Community Foundation and Midlands Cooperative Society. 

I will be doing a drop-in session at Brixworth Country Park on May 27th from 11 - 3 where we will be working on one of the panels. I hope some of the visitors will come and join me! This will be a drop in session, panel is 1m x 2m so 5 or 6 people at a time can work on it comfortably.

Opportunities for participation will be posted on the Back To Books Blog  

http://myrighthandwoman.blogspot.co.uk/

Olympic Mosaics in Druids Heath

Just before the end of the Summer Term I had a 6 day residency at Bells Farm Primary School near Birmingham. I was working with Year 6 pupils to help them create 5 mosaic panels as a Legacy Project. Each panel featured the silhouette of a sporting activity on a 1m x 1m board. There were many other activities going on during the week, a  sleep over for Year 6, the school production of The Jungle book, flute practice, sports coaching, art activities and the finishing of work books. Through it all staff and pupils remained lively, active and focussed and were a delight to work with. All the children have wonderful singing voices too and the working days went with a swing!

Outlining

Filling the gaps

Gymnastics

Tennis

Basketball

Football

Athletics

Residency and Rent - Some Recent Work in Schools

 

During the winter term I worked with Year 3 at Priory Lower School in Bedford, our theme was outer space . The children imagined their own universe and each child created an A4 wet felted panel depicting planets and stars.

The following week we read Ted Hughes The Iron Giant and tried to imagine the planet the giant might have come from. We also used this as a means of exploring ink and wax resists and wax crayons on a heavy weight paper.

In the Spring Term we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and each child made a paper collage of the caterpillar and one of the things he might have eaten. The following week the children made a picture of the butterfly that the caterpillar later became. Very few of the children adopted the principle of symmetry when creating their butterflies!

During the Winter Term I also worked with Year 2 who were studying Patchwork and this gave us the opportunity to explore, pattern, design and repetition. As the children would be working on actual fabric with another facilitator we decided to work with paper. Each child was given a paper master of a traditional patchwork block and then had to follow the pattern and apply papers of different colours. 

  

Each child made a second paper patch using decoupage papers and paper punches, they also added 'stitches' using marker pens.

Year 2 also made woven paper patchwork blocks, using two different patterned wallpapers. After the individual squares were woven the children helped me to add a machine stitched pattern on top.

As part of the agreement I have with Beanfield Primary School, Corby (where I currently have a studio) I worked with children in different year groups on art projects that complimented their Science Week activities. Children from several years experimented with moving images, making thaumatropes, zoetropes and flip books.

Year 1 explored oil and water resists whilst marbling paper plates and cut out birds which were later used by older children to create wind sculptures.

The image above shows the plan for a mosaic at Oakley Vale Primary School in Corby. The design was a distillation of images and ideas from drawings made by children in each class.

I was artist in residence for six days and during that time every child in every class came and helped to apply the tiles. The image above gives an idea of the stages the work went through to reach the finished piece.

 The work has now been installed on the front of the building.

Here is the completed mosaic in more detail.

This mosiac designed and made by children at the Arran Way Community Centre

Cause For Concern

During my career I have had the pleasure of working both as a part time Youth Worker and as an artist with many young people in Corby. Although I don't live there, it's where my studio is based and I have seen the changes that have taken place since the dark days of the 1980's. It has always had and continues to have a wonderful community spirit, a generous heart, an outgoing nature and I'm delighted that the ongoing Regeneration has injected a renewed sense pride, ambition and optimism in the town, particularly amongst it's young people.

However I am worried about the fate of one of it's older buildings, the Connaughty Centre, it's not a beautiful building and it's certainly a little battered and the worse for wear, so what's so special? It's value lies within, through the work it does with young people.

Dreams, the Youth Club based there, has had many different incarnations, many young people have learnt skills, developed their passion for music, dance, sport and creativity, made friends, had crushes, fallen in and out of love, learnt about life, mixed and moved on. It has offered them a place to express themselves, to hang out and socialise under the expert eyes of some wonderful, caring, indomitable Youth Workers.

I heard recently that the Connaughty Centre is due to close in December and feel this is a serious cause for concern, there are few enough places for young people to make that transition from child to young adult and I hope that the powers that be will seriously reconsider their decision.

In the last couple of years I worked on two separate mosaic projects with young people at the Connaughty Centre. The first was a Heritage Lottery Funded project in which groups of young people researched eight decades in Corby from 1920 to 2000. They looked at landmark buildings, traditions, activities and the part Corby played in the different decades. Once the research was complete I worked with them and the Corby CIC Youth Team to encapsulate some of their findings in a series of mosaic panels.

Working on the 1960's panel

The young people involved worked over several months with drop in sessions happening at the Connaughty Centre, Lodge Park Sports Centre and structured group sessions in my studio. As I've mentioned before, mosaics take patience and staying power but each group put their all into making their particular panel.

1970's Panel - Glam Rock, Punk, platform form soles,

Porridge Oats, Westwood and the Silver Jubliee

We also had time to talk about their findings, the people they'd met during their research, the differences and similarities in the lives of people in those eight decades. The finished panels were edged in steel and hung, temporarily in the Connaughty Centre Hall. The mosaics were unveiled by the local MP at the time, Phil Hope and the young people were commended for their work and creativity.

Once the Cube opened, the mosaics were taken down to be rehung somewhere in the new building. Another group of young people were inspired by the mosaics and wanted to try their hand at making one of their own, to represent what Dreams, the Youth Club meant to them. They applied for the money and their application was successful, I was asked back to help them with their project.

I asked the group if they wanted to draw the ideas themselves or whether they wanted me to come up with a design based on their ideas, they chose the latter. They came up with a series of words : growth, the seasons, nature, music, DJs, cooking, fruit, birds, faces flowers, dreams, stars, fireworks, bonfire, trees, snowflakes, friendship, the world.....and from that I came up with a wiggly cut out design which was intended for a large rectangular space in the Coffee Bar area.

As usual time and money were tight and as I only had 10 sessions I went ahead and cut out the pieces, then found out that the mosaics were going to be hung where the previous ones had been. It's a difficult space, high up, with trunking running through the middle and on slope, but we did the best we could to make the pieces fit the space.

We met on Monday evenings for 2 hours at a time and over the course of the project lots of different young people came in and took part. Vicki, the young woman who made the initial application was a star and made sure the rest of the team kept on coming. I found their commitment encouraging and all their different personalities inspiring.

We did run out of time but thankfully J Devereux, Corby's Strategic Arts & Cultural Officer managed to find funding for the extra sessions and it was money well spent.

Not only was it a chance for the participants to learn new skills, but it also offered lots of opportunities for lively conversations and debate.

Some participants popped in for a brief time, just to have a quite moment before going back out to socialise with their friends. There was always a good atmosphere in the room and even the most unlikely characters were tempted in to take part.

During the course of the two projects the importance of all the different types of work that goes on at the Connaughty Centre became increasingly evident. If the building has to go, then some other provision must be made for the young people who use it.

During the planning meetings one young woman

came up with a slogan for the mosaic

"Dreams: together, united, we make our stand"

People are taking a stand, making their voices heard, various suggestions and options are being looked at and if you'd like to know more about the centre and what it means to the community click the link The Connaughty Centre Facebook Page for the latest updates.