OPEN DOOR – Textile Tales - Final Week 12

Today was the last day of this wonderful 12-week project. I always find the last day of a project charged with mixed emotions; a sense of achievement, celebration in creating work and making new relationships, reflecting on discoveries and surprises and yet mixed in with a smidge of sadness about something great coming to an end.

The ladies have been absolutely brilliant, they have been so focussed and come each week with a keenness to learn something new as well as listen and learn from each other. They have very supportive and encouraging of each other, on occasions when some of us felt vulnerable or unsure.

With it being the final session, there were many tasks we needed to get through; evaluating and reflecting, capturing voice recordings, finishing our final pieces, gathering ideas for future projects and (the best bit) a celebration with homemade food each of us prepared.

The ladies thought carefully about what sound they wanted to go inside their story boxes. We practised fitting our singing, reciting or speaking into 10 seconds – a challenge! With the sound device we recorded everybody and then slipped the sound into our story boxes, ready for somebody else to put up to their ears and listen.  I love how the decorated boxes (which we created on the very first session) and the sound (which we recorded on our last session) has been united together fnally. Each box represents them and offers a small insight into their personality. They are all so unique and I think the women were very brave to share a little bit of them.

Sharon spoke the first line of a sikh mool mantar prayer, which she dedicated to her granddaughter, because it carries an important life message for her to learn. Sharon repeats this mantra each morning after she wakes up.

Yvonne sang a captivating part of gospel song she wrote herself. The song was inspired by a faith discussion she had had with her family one day. The words were very powerful and we all found ourselves humming along to the tune.

Wendy recited part of a poem she had remembered during the course of the project, triggered by the making of her story box when she drew a lovely illustration of a magpie on the top of the box. The poem was written by John Donn, an Elizabethan poet. “Such a surprising heavenly jest, a wagtail in a magpie nest”

Balwinder sang a gentle sounding sikh hyme. The words translating to “Whatever you will ask from God, he will give you” Her mother taught her when she was a young girl.

Whilst our voices were captured, our fingers busily rolled, fulled, pinned, tacked and sewed our felted and batik beauties onto the banners, ready for myself and Musarat to assemble for the exhibition.

The open exhibition of the all the work will be held at Artlink on Wednesday 10th July, amongst many other artworks created during other Artlink Open Door projects. I really look forward to seeing the reactions from the participants’ friends and families when they come to share their work. We’ve been planning the event with other Artlink artists and coordinators, which is shaping up to be a fabulous celebration and sharing of all som much creativity, imagination and bravery.

Well done everybody and thank you for making this project happen! The project has inspired and motivated us, as proven by some lovely quotes here:

“I really enjoyed every minute of this project. It has been a pleasure.”

“Brilliant tutors! I have learned a lot and really enjoyed the company!”

“I have made new friends and enjoyed the company of others. The staff have been very kind and are wonderful people. “

“Thank you for your kindness and patience. Thank you for sharing your skills with me.”

“It’s been great to get out of the house and make new friends, I appreciate this when I live on my own. I have improved my manual skills and my ability to be patient with others and work in a large group.”

Here is a picture of the tasty food we munched on; spring rolls, pakoras, samosas, cheese straws, jerk chicken. A delicious spread!

OPEN DOOR with Shantona

Session 8

We were all excited about seeing our animation and the photos that were taken in the last session, so Rozi started by showing us the animation on the large tv screen. It was amazing how everyone’s pieces formed different patterns and the colours were fantastic. Every one of us got a print-out of the still photo we had chosen, to use as inspiration.

So now that we had experimented with creating different shapes and patterns through this fantastic photo app, we were introduced to the next stage – making canvases.  We started by experimenting with colour, looking at contrasting colours and how the colours worked well together. We mixed lots of colours – ‘ it was funny when the paint started splattering & splodging out of the tubes’, it was a little messy but fun.  We had lots of vibrant colours and the opportunity to be creative with these. We all mixed colours, some were vibrant and colourful, others became dull and dark because we mixed lots of different colours in one tub.

We then chose one colour to paint the canvas – the canvas will be used as part of the base with lots of patterns, shapes and objects arranged over the top in the coming weeks.  We also revisited MBW work to remind and inspire us.

Once again Musarat reminded us to bring three chosen objects as we had forgotten; these objects will be used as part of our canvas piece.

 

Conversations in Colour - Session 6

One of the writing groups began by showing the performance pieces they had developed in the previous session.  The combined work had a lovely streamlined wholeness to it.  As one group member said, ‘They are such bizarre stories and the movement brings it to life’.  Here is an example of Karrie’s part of the story.

PAUL

Paul threw back the orange to the crowd. There were resounding boos from the audience. The group began to perform a song – Love Me Do. As the song progressed the booing got louder until the band stopped mid song. They walked off the stage defiantly.

There was no second act. The crowd fell silent. Murmurs and conversations then ensued. From a small faction of the crowd erupted a chant. “We want Paul”.... This gradually spread across the arena....

The first group then began the group poetry exercise that the other group had undertaken the previous week.  All the drafts had something original and interesting to offer and most were even fairly polished by the time we reached the editing stage!  However, the piece they chose to develop was on a theme all of us living in the modern age know well – tiredness.  Compared to the slow stirring of porridge and other striking images that I won’t spoil by giving away, I think the finished piece will be a novel take on the subject.  Here are some of the first drafts.

The second group experienced their first foray, of the project, into performance and voice work. We all giggled as we breathed out strange sounds and then began to think about how the two pieces might be performed.  They thought in depth about their work, one member even ‘coming out of her shell’, as she put it, and reading out for the first time.   I told them that there would be an opportunity to read at the Open Door Exhibition in July and shared with them my own first experiences of reading publicly – how nervous I had been, how much I had loved it, the positive feedback I had received.  I explained that I wouldn’t make them perform but that I hoped they would want to join in the process of developing their writing into performance within the sessions.  They smiled broadly and agreed.

Becky Cherriman

Before we started tie dying our cotton bags, I showed the group the ironed-up sample pieces we made last time. They were surprised how beautiful they all looked. Everybody was very enthusiastic, and some people brought their own cotton hats and T-shirts. Soon the room was full of strange looking alien creatures. 

Because it takes much longer to tie dye big pieces, nobody saw the results of their labour, so on Thursday there will be a lot of beautiful surprises waiting to be unwrapped.  Some people were worried about the mess in the studio, so I’ve brought a couple of photographs of famous artist studios, just to show them what a professional mess looks like!!! We’ve got a long way to go yet, but at least we won’t be worrying about the mess!

                                                                                  Milena Dragic 

                                                                                                                                        

OPEN DOOR – Textile Tales - Final Week 12

Today was the last day of this wonderful 12-week project. I always find the last day of a project charged with mixed emotions; a sense of achievement, the celebration in creating work and making new relationships, reflecting on discoveries and surprises and yet mixed in with a smidge of sadness about something great coming to an end.

The ladies have been absolutely brilliant, they have been so focussed and come each week with a keenness to learn something new as well as listen and learn from each other. They have been very supportive and encouraging of each other, on occasions when some of us felt vulnerable or unsure.

With it being the final session, there were many tasks we needed to get through; evaluating and reflecting, capturing voice recordings, finishing our final pieces, gathering ideas for future projects and (the best bit) a celebration with homemade food each of us prepared.

The ladies had thought carefully about what sound they wanted to go inside their story boxes. We practised fitting our singing, reciting or speaking into just 10 seconds – a challenge (it took a few attempts, but we got there) ! With the sound device, we recorded individual voices and then slipped the sound into our story boxes, ready for somebody else to put up to their ears and listen.  

I love how the decorated boxes (which we created on the very first session) and the sound (which we recorded on our last session) has been united together fnally. Each box represents the participant and offers a small insight into their personality. They are all so unique and I think the women were very brave to share a little bit of them.

Sharon spoke the first line of a sikh mool mantar prayer, which she dedicated to her granddaughter, because it carries an important life message for her to learn. Sharon repeats this mantra each morning when she wakes up.

Yvonne sang a captivating part of a gospel song she wrote herself. The song was inspired by a faith discussion she had had with her family one day. The words were very powerful and we all found ourselves humming along to the tune.

Wendy recited part of a poem she had remembered during the course of the project, triggered by the making of her story box when she drew a lovely illustration of a magpie on the top of the box. The poem was written by John Donn, an Elizabethan poet. “Such a surprising heavenly jest, a wagtail in a magpie nest”.  Her box is a nest of leaves when you open it up.

Balwinder sang a gentle sounding sikh hymn. The words translating to “Whatever you will ask from God, He will give you” Her mother taught her the hymn when she was a young girl.

Whilst our voices were captured, our fingers busily rolled, fulled, pinned, tacked and sewed our felted and batik beauties onto the banners, ready for myself and Musarat to assemble for the exhibition.

The open exhibition of the all the work will be held at Artlink on Wednesday 10th July, amongst many other artworks created during other Artlink Open Door projects. I really look forward to seeing the reactions from the participants’ friends and families when they come to share their work. Musarat and I have been planning the event with other Artlink artists and coordinators, which is shaping up to be a fabulous celebration and sharing of so much creativity, imagination and bravery.

Well done everybody and thank you for making this project happen! The project has inspired and motivated us, as echoed by some lovely quotes here:

“I really enjoyed every minute of this project. It has been a pleasure.”

“I have learned a lot and really enjoyed the company! Brilliant tutors!”

“I have made new friends and enjoyed the company of others. The staff have been very kind and are wonderful people. “

“Thank you for your kindness and patience. Thank you for sharing your skills with me.”

“It’s been great to get out of the house and make new friends, I appreciate this when I live on my own. I have improved my manual skills and my ability to be patient with others and work in a large group.”

Here is a picture of the tasty food we munched on; spring rolls, pakoras, samosas, cheese straws, jerk chicken. A delicious spread!