Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to one and all! Here’s a little lion looking forward to opening his present – I wonder what’s inside?
Festive greetings!
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Author Archives: Jane Porter
A multitude of miniature organs
All through this term I have been working on a marvellous project celebrating the wonder that is the Royal Festival Hall organ. In my last post I talked about a visit to the workshop where the organ was made and restored – and to complement that here are some brand new organs, all invented and hand-built from cereal packets by year 5 at Telferscot Primary School in Balham.
I set the class the challenge of creating an activity that families visiting the RFH could do at home, inspired by the organ – and they all immediately started to fizz with ideas and brilliantly creative solutions. These mini-organs feature all the elements of the real thing – a console and keyboard, many many pipes, pedals, a soundboard, blowers – and of course seats for the audience and in some cases a luxury box for VIP visitors! One of them even comes in its own carrying case – the perfect portable organ.
I’m going to be compiling all the children’s ideas into a takeaway activity sheet full of tips on how to make your own organ, ready for the Pull Out All the Stops organ festival in March 2014.
Behind the scenes in the organ workshop: a visit to Harrison and Harrison
I’ve just come back from a few days in Durham, working on a very exciting project with a team from the Royal Festival Hall. Pull Out All The Stops is a campaign to restore the spectacular organ at the RFH, all 7,500 pipes – the restoration is now almost complete and will be celebrated with a huge organ festival next spring. Two lucky primary schools have been involved throughout, with the Year 5 classes visiting both the RFH and the workshop in Durham which both built and restored the organ, Harrison and Harrison.
My role has been to work with the two schools to produce a children’s guide to the organ, for and by children, and I will post more on this nearer the festival. Last week I felt very lucky to visit Harrison and Harrison with children from the school in county Durham, as well as a film-maker and an animator – the results are going to be fabulous! The children spent a day drawing then filming with Sam, and another day animating with John from Skidaddle Films – this was very inspiring to watch and made me really want to experiment more with film. We also had a great time inventing a board game (based on snakes and ladders), which will be part of the festival next spring.
It was thrilling to get to see how an organ is made, up close – the metal room was particularly exciting, as we were able to watch old pipes rapidly disappear into a furnace and emerge on a giant ladle as a shining river of molten lead. Dotted throughout the workshop were cauldrons of honey-like glue….I particularly loved the description of the visit one boy wrote the following day: “The smelly golden glue, sprinkling out like golden syrup out of the hot pot in steaming water falling. Saws chopping, drills cutting, metal hammers banging loud.”
There’s a lovely notice in the foyer of the workshop – Mr Harrison’s Instructions, dated 1883. Looking after the organ is important: “Should the keys get dusty, as they surely must from time to time, do not begrudge a few moments to clean them. What can look worse than to see the delicate ebonies and ivories of the notes and drawstops in a state of dirt and dust, helping them, forsooth, to lost their whiteness and polish prematurely. A soft dry duster is all that is needed.”
Mary Seacole’s Medicine Boxes
I’ve just finished the last of a series of workshops at National Trust property Sutton House – the oldest house in Hackney. Each workshop was themed around one of nine Influential Black Londoners, and the final one was inspired by Mary Seacole. A very knowledgeable Year 5 class from a local primary school set about making little cubes to represent Mrs Seacole’s life and work – and wrote instructions to go inside on how to nurse soldiers the Mary Seacole way. Her combination of kindness and bravery, together with her blending of traditional Caribbean herbal medicine and European medical practice proved very inspiring for the class, and their little medicine chests are decorated with bandages, blankets, warm food and medicines, as well as some Jamaican flags to represent her birthplace.
It’s been a wonderful project to be part of. Many thanks to Gemma, Gina and the team at Sutton House as well as all the volunteer helpers – especially Daisy.
The Great Draw Off Draw-Off
Ever since I first found out about it, I’ve been fascinated by the idea of the Thames draw-off – an event that happens once a year when the weirs at Richmond are opened for a month or so to allow for maintenance of the lock, weirs and sluices and inspection of the river bed. At low tide this can lead to a very empty-looking river, and I have always intended to go down there to have a look.
When I mentioned the draw off to my artist friend Jill, she thought I meant a ‘pencils and sketchbooks at dawn’ competitive drawing event – and once the confusion had been cleared up, we agreed that a ‘draw off draw-off’ would be an excellent idea. And so it was that earlier today, having checked the tide tables, we went down to the river at Ham, wellies on and sketchbooks under arms, eagerly expecting to be able to walk across the dry riverbed.
Disappointingly the river was still rather full and the White Swan pub on the other side remained inaccessible – but with gloves on we settled down for some chilly outdoor sketching and enjoyed watching the subtle changes in the water surface as the tide changed. And the water was low enough to expose some interesting root patterns along the shore. Jill had the great idea of using some river mud and a stick to draw with, which created a lovely textured line. Rubbing dock leaves on the page gave a surprisingly intense green too. We finished with a pot of tea at the Hollyhock cafe on Richmond Hill, where the teapot needed gloves on to keep the tea warm.
Crayons, pom-poms and bananas – the launch is done!
Pencils, glue sticks and pom-poms have been thoroughly deployed in two launch events to mark the publication of This Rabbit, That Rabbit. Many thanks to Under The Greenwood Tree and Salt and Pepper for hosting the two events, which involved a colouring and collage activity overseen by the friendly giant velvet rabbit. Little pots of strawberries and bananas were the perfect accompaniment at Salt and Pepper, with cappucino for all the adults.
Lovely Sue and John at Salt and Pepper couldn’t bear to part with their window-display rabbit, so I’ve changed to message to read ‘signed copies available here’ and he will stay at the cafe for now. Now I’m off to my local library to give them a copy for their weekly ‘Rhyme Time’ sessions.
Publication day
Today is publication day for my Baby Walker board book, This Rabbit, That Rabbit. It’s the first book I have done that’s all my own pictures AND words (though there aren’t very many of them…) so it’s a thrilling moment. I had the idea for the book several years ago from watching our pet rabbits – they used to lie very flat with their feet stretched out behind them when they were feeling particularly contented. And one of them was slightly on the large side. More recently I dug the idea out again and came up with some words that sounded good together and which would give me an excuse to draw some funny pictures.
There’s a launch event today in Clapham and another tomorrow in Southfields – all the details are in the previous post, here.
A long-eared launch
Guests enjoying the nibbles at an exclusive launch party for my brand new baby book, This Rabbit, That Rabbit, published by Walker Books this Thursday.
Human guests are welcome to come along to two free, drop-in launch events this week: the first is at Under The Greenwood Tree, a lovely children’s bookshop in Clapham, from 10-11am on Thursday 7th November, and the second is on Friday 8th November at a delightful cafe in Southfields, Salt and Pepper – also from 10-11am.
I’ll be there to help under 5s make a rabbity souvenir to take home – all welcome! I’ll also be bringing my velvet rabbit character. Both venues sell delicious cofffee and cakes!
Under the Greenwood Tree is at 11 The Polygon, London SW4 0JG
Salt and Pepper is at 177 Replingham Road, London SW18 5LY
Little green fingers…
By the studio door we have a giant banana plant, whose huge green leaves unfurl every spring from the most unpromising stumps. The storm in the early hours of Monday morning brought a tiny casualty – a banana flower head, complete with rings of tiny green bananas, snapped off. It’s been a great source of interest in the studio – the flower head is astonishingly heavy, and the stem must be the softest, most velvety thing in the plant kingdom. Artist Joe Madeira, who has his studio in The Art Cabin downstairs, drew the banana flower then passed it on to me – then I did a quick painting after which we ceremonially sliced into the flower to see what was within. It’s fascinating to see the rings of tiny embryonic bananas, bright yellow when cut then swiftly becoming purple and black. And the sap it exudes is as sticky as PVA.
The final step was to try some print-making – I inked it up with goache and took a few impressions. The results were rather fuzzy, but it was a good experiment to try. I’ve used all sorts of vegetables for printing in the past, and the best without any doubt is okra. So now you know!
Silver and sludge
As part of my research for an exhibition I’ll be holding next year, I am exploring some parts of the Thames that I have never visited before. The biggest gap is the Thames Barrier, which has been open for 30 years and while I’ve lived in the same city all that time, I had never seen it until last week. It’s a stunning sight, a series of silver sculptures gleaming in the late afternoon sun. Hidden away in a tunnel by the water is a delightful surprise – a profile of the entire river, from Thames Head to Sea Reach, by artist Simon Read, showing all the locks and tributaries.
Having visited the source of the Thames a couple of months ago, I felt a sense of amazement that this was the same river that began in a dried up pile of stones. Here, the river is surrounded by grinding conveyor belts delivering sand or sludge – the river is working hard. Over the coming months I am going to contemplate everything I have seen, and through drawing and print-making try and arrive at an exhibition.