Formal Portraits in Glamorous Headgear

All the best parties have party hats and all the very best parties have photographers who photograph the glamorous party goers. Ours would be no different. Thanks again to Dylan for taking most of these.

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Making it Special

Whilst creativity and art activity has been at the heart of this project, it has been joined all along the way by friendships and fun. I always knew I wanted the end event to be special and to reflect the spirit of the project (which, as the project progressed got dafter and more colourful). So, daft and colourful it was! I spent a lot of time thinking about and planning the final event, buying spotty napkins and bunting and trying to create a kind of village hall feeling.

In a busy library (both visually busy and busy with people) we were never going to be able to display all of the work together in a visually sophisticated way, so bright and full on was the answer and we followed that through from the art to the food and decorations!.

When the first few guests arrived the place looked great and I am glad to say people noticed and were happy. After about fifteen minutes the place was chaos with crumbs, half eaten cakes and juice all over the place. Eoin was dispatched to the shop on the corner to stock up on more food and we just kept feeding people until they went home……full!

Exhibition and Tea Party

A lovely afternoon. Lots of people came, lots of cake was eaten, party hats made and different art activities took place. I might just let these photos tell the story. Most of them were taken by a young man called Dylan who came to the tea party and definitely wanted to participate, but was a bit old for most of the activities. I asked him if he could help me to take photos, he said yes and he was great. I couldn’t have done it without him. Thanks Dylan!

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What do you think?

During the last sessions I asked for some feedback from participants, and here’s what they said.

‘I’ve really enjoyed coming and taking part in the workshops and found the group to be a really friendly and fun group. I loved the lanterns but I think my favourite sessions were making the birds and the quotes on canvases. I have been inspired to try doing my own canvas paintings at home, and have done two already!

Really looking forward to the celebration party on Saturday, and meeting the afternoon participants. Thank you Cath for such a great set of workshops! Hope that there are more in the future – that would be fantastic. Looking forward to being able to take the work home after and displaying them at home as I am really proud of them.’  Caroline

‘I loved it. We went weird. We did art. We were running round the library doing strange things you shouldn’t be doing in a library’. Sophie

‘I enjoyed it because we did something’ Ellie

‘These art sessions have been fun, interactive, encouraged team building while still strengthening personal confidence. They have made us think and experience new things that we would not normally have done. We’ve met people from different walks of life and seen things from a different perspective. In all we have had a wonderful time and would not have missed the classes for anything.

Thanks for having us and making us feel so welcome, Nicola & Megan

‘I enjoyed it because I’m going to Uni to do art and it gave me an insight.’ Stacey

‘I liked it because it was something different to do and it was fun’. Nadia

‘Thank you for having us. We all had a lovely afternoon, and such a delicious selection of cakes and goodies, of arts and crafts, and lovely people to spend the afternoon with.’ Nina (at the tea party)

When I asked people what their favourite and least favourite activities were I got a real mixed response. Each activity seemed to suit different people with some loving what others disliked. I asked people what they would like to do next if it happened in future and the response was equally diverse – making, painting, collage, using book characters as inspiration.

My feeling is that if the atmosphere is right and you create a space where people feel comfortable and confident to have a go and encourage people to be creative, they will try most things, even if they find out they don’t enjoy them.

I have also been doing some adding up of numbers attending

• Total attendance for the 5 morning sessions was 12 adults and 8 children
• Total attendance for the 5 afternoon sessions was 27 adults and 38 children
• Tea Party – this is an estimate. I did stop at one point and count 27 children and 12 adults, so have taken into account those people who weren’t there at that point. Tea party estimated attendance 16 adults and 34 children.
• Total Total – 55 adults and 80 children

Not bad eh!

Building Towers (and bridges)

So, the afternoon group were revolting. I could have told you that a long time ago! they said they didn’t want to do the secret art mission again, so I got out my handy bag of pebbles (collected from beaches around the UK and Ireland) and out we headed to make pebble sculptures in the sunshine.

Again, I’m not sure how keen people were keen to do this, but I think they have come to trust me over the weeks and went along with it. Pebble stacking is one of my favourite occupations and one that I like to introduce to groups. It’s free, I find it endlessly fascinating and photographs of finished stacks can be beautiful.

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One pair, Stacey and Chloe, had made their stack and come to find me to get the camera, but by the time they returned a group of young people had gathered and dismantled their sculpture.

Far from becoming a problem, it became a really lovely moment of connection between two groups. Iain, the other artist in residence, has been working with the young people who gather outside the library on a project about alternative cultures and hate crime whilst I have been working with families who use the library and the two groups have never met before.

The guy was mortified that he had broken someone’s sculpture and spent ages, with an audience, trying to build the stack again. He couldn’t work out how to do it and his friends stood round discussing strategies whilst the original artists looked on in amusement.

In the end he surrendered, and as his friends said ‘got shown up by a little girl.’ I think this photo really sums up what happened.

The Final Afternoon Session

As I mentioned previously, the secret art missions have been a very popular part of our afternoon sessions, so I decided that our final afternoon would be full of them. That was until the group rebelled and said they only wanted to do one. In any other situation I might be a little upset or even panicked, trying to work out what else we could do, but because most of knew each other reasonable well after several weeks together and because we had the freedom of the library, we were able to do something different. I have also discovered over the weeks that 90 minutes is the right amount of time for the afternoon groups. The mornings regularly ran over and we needed about two and a half hours, whereas the afternoon groups were ready to finish at 3pm.

I had challenged the groups to make sculptures in the lending library (the same activity as we had done in the morning, but using a different space). Despite a few raised eyebrows and rolled eyes when I introduced the idea everyone got on well with the activity and produced some lovely work. We had three groups, each with separate themes and working in different spaces.

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Each group then photographed their art work and had a go at drawing it ‘longstick’ style, which turned out to be one of the least popular activities of the five weeks.

Each of the three pieces was very individual and, I think, successful.

As I am sure you can tell from the first image in this post, we had the press along! The group in the picture were about to start photographing their work when the photographer from the LET helped them with their posing. It’s a great pic and very much a local paper shot!

The Final Morning Session

I know it has only been five days of workshops, but it has been a big part of my summer so I was very sad to see the project end. I have loved working in the library and am just starting to be able to find my way around and to really feel at home.

We had a good morning, people were finishing lantern houses, some starting lantern houses and we also carried out one (not very secret) art challenge.

Six new people came to the morning session which added a lovely new dimension and I think we were probably the noisiest we have ever been in the ever so quiet community history library (sorry).  The social element of the project has been really successful and the drinks and biscuits that the library have provided have really helped to add to that. I am always moved by how children love to help and try to incorporate that into sessions.

For the (not very) secret art mission, I challenge groups to make sculptures or installations from random bags of materials and a selection of randomly allocated words. It’s an activity I have done many times before and the outcomes are always different. One of the aims of the project was for people to begin to create their own new stories and memories of the library, and I hope that building temporary art works about the place will have helped to do that. We also get very curious looks from other library users, which is definitely a good thing in my book!

Freddie, Ffionn and their mum were challenged to make something from a bag of epaulette inserts (from SAMS scrap store) and the word they had to incorporate was ‘disguise’. Their artwork had to include shelves. I love this man that they made – they have given him a hat to disguise him and an umbrella to hide behind!

The other group selected the bag that contained lots of plastic cups, tubes and cones. Their word was ‘surround’ and they had to include a person in their artwork. I think they both did a brilliant job.

An Afternoon Of Secret Art Missions

As I have mentioned before, the secret art missions have been a really popular part of the Thursday afternoon sessions . So, this Thursday, for our final session, we are going to have a whole afternoon of secret art missions.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it……………….

 

Reflecting on Revealing Stories

As we approach the end of the project and I have spent some time away in Cornwall, I have found myself reflecting on the the residency its successes, challenges and impact. I have really enjoyed working in the library and with the people of the library but have had a niggling feeling that I haven’t achieved the vision of the original proposal. I love the library. It has inspired me and I love being around the people, resources and building and I want to do my best for everyone involved.

Some of you might know that the selection process for artists managed to whittle down the applications to two artists – Iain Broadley and myself – but nobody could decide between us as we had very, very different project ideas. In the end we each agreed to take on half of the residency, a decision that suited everyone and definitely a positive way to resolve the dilemma. I think it has been a success and has meant that the project has reached more people and a broader range of participants, with Iain working with young people on an alternative culture project and me working with families and adults.

So, where is the niggling feeling coming from? I have loved my time in the library, I think the participants have enjoyed the project, they feel part of the library and we have made some lovely things which will be exhibited at the tea party and exhibition on Saturday. I am proud of what we have achieved together.

I think that I expected that I could make my original idea happen with half the time and as I realised that I hadn’t been able to do that I also recognised that the niggling feeling was disappointment and concern that other people who were excited by my proposal might be  disappointed.

Half the time has meant that I have become more reliant on activities and ideas that I am more confident will work (essentially making stuff with people). I think I have taken fewer risks than I had planned and consequently stretched my own creativity and others’ less than I had hoped. Two workshops a week on my day in the library, plus meeting, thinking, research and preparation haven’t allowed the time to experiment, research and build relationships that I had planned in my original proposal.

What I have realised though is that the project has become something different than planned, and that different project has been great. There is a genuine thread of the original idea running throughout everything we have done and that has helped to hold the work together and to enable participants to feel part of something bigger. The blog was always going to be a central part of the project and I am pleased that it has been well received and enabled more people to experience some of the more subtle but important elements of the project that sometimes go undocumented.

The process of writing this blog today and throughout the project has helped me to work through and articulate my thinking and I have found it really useful to share and reflect on all aspects of the process, not just the sessions and resulting artwork.

I’m really looking forward to meeting and reflecting with other partners in the project, to learn about their experiences, to share feedback and to look at the impact of our work together.

First of all though, the exhibition and tea party. I’ve bought the napkins and final planning starts this week. I am, it must be said, very excited.

We need your words!

The Message in A Book part of the project will see us placing random stories, quotes, words and memories into books in the library. I have put a call out on facebook and twitter and in the library, but have only had a few responses as yet. So, if you are reading this and could help to make this part of the project a huge success, the details you need are on the poster link below.

Thank you.

Message in a Book