A drop in activity for families at Morden Hall Park on April 20, making a ‘family tree’ with portraits suspended from the branches.
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.
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.
