In March I ran a series of community knitting workshops with The Old Sweet Shop gallery, funded by Arts About Wandsworth. We had about 23 people taking part aged from 8 upwards, all designing and making tea cosies for an exhibition that ran at the gallery from 27th March to 5th April. See www.theoldsweetshopweb.com for lots more pics. I made an ice cream tea cosy for my ‘Beryl’ teapot, and we also had a cemetery, a cauliflower, a crown, a seascape, a bomb and many other wild creations.
I have just finished a big project working with families from Liberty School in Mitcham and the National Trust at Morden Hall Park. Over 6 weeks everyone – adults and children – built up a file of exciting textures, printed textiles etc., then used them to create some really vibrant puppets. The puppets all have names and some very strong characters, and their creators imagined how they would have interacted with real-life people in the park’s history. I specially like ‘The King’ who had a stand-up argument with William Morris, and Molly Munchkin who has a special pocket on the front of her dress for all the things she collects. There will be in an exhibition of the work at the Snuff Mill at the park in May.
Just starting a brand new animal project for a show at The Old Sweet Shop gallery in July…
In January I designed and implemented with Sue Edkins a large scale sewing project at Strand-on-the-Green Infants’ School in Chiswick. This involved 270 Key Stage 1 children aged 5-7, resulting in five framed textile collages illustrating the ‘Every Child Matters’ agenda. We thought it was important to include every child in this infant school to underline the ECM message – quite a challenge in a three-form intake school. Nursery children used textile transfer paint to create self-portraits while Reception, Y1 and Y2 made their own individual fabric collages using simple sewing to illustrate topics like healthy living and eating, ‘making a contribution’, and (most challenging of all) achieving economic wellbeing. The resulting scooters, strawberries, piggy banks and many others were colour co-ordinated and fixed to the canvas to create a visually exciting set of images from what can seem a fairly dry topic.
Tolworth Girls’ School wanted to create an artwork using recycled materials and involving everyone in Year 9. I took inspiration from artist El Anatsui and devised this wall hanging made from recycled juice cartons. Each girl made a segment of 25 tiny squares linked with wire, and they also etched their own designs into the silver and gold packaging material. The result is a flexible hanging that can be hung in folds to catch the light. Sue Edkins also worked on this project.
I created this mural with all the year 4s at Burlington Junior School in New Malden. Each panel represents a continent, and each child drew an outline of a favourite animal from that continent and helped paint around it. I completed the project by writing welcome in six languages, from Korean to Tamil.
A Big Draw event I organised with The Old Sweet Shop art gallery and Saint Cecilia’s, Wandsworth. Over 240 people came along to the school refectory one Saturday. They received a ‘secret’ envelope containing a brief for part of a story about a little red hat, and an A5 ‘spread’. They then stamped the hat onto the page with a self-inking rubber stamp, and used drawing and collage materials provided to create their own original section of the story. All the work wallpapered the gallery for the show afterwards.
