living history

I'm in the midst of doing an early spring clean of my paperwork, and came across some photos that Sid Saunders, one of our group from Four Acre's St Helens gave me, photos and quotes that I never posted.... This day he was discussing his memories of holidays in Blackpool...

me, me 2 cousins, sat down on the sands at New Brighton, a bottle of water and a sandwich (Sid)

The coach would stop at the pub, the men would have a pint. Then the biggest job was getting the men out of the pub and back on the coach...

I can see them now, come on dad we want to get on the beach

Blackpool, I don't go now, I've got other fish to fry. (Sid)

I also came across this quote from Joan that sums up the isolation some older people feel: 'Feel like part of you is missing when your husband dies, you can be 18 hours and not talk to people- and I love to talk to people. I started to go to the garden centre on a Saturday to have lunch, just to be around people- nice if somebody talks to you.'

Feedback from staff training sessions

Just winding arthur+martha work down now, ready for our Christmas break. Gary Conley from St Helens Council just sent us some wonderful feedback sent by participants from the staff training sessions:


Hi Gary


...I found the sessions very helpful and relevant to me as I am commencing training in "Prepare to Teach in Lifelong sector....as they prepared me for the voluntary work which I am undertaking, in particular having the experience of going into a day centre occupied by service users was helpful this gave me an insight into what is is like to work with older people...


Lois was very inspirational in particular I enjoyed the embroidery session, as I hope to become a craft teacher, I found myself observing how she delivered the training and this has set the scene for what I could emulate within my voluntary group.  I have since purchased embroidery threads needles , scissors, linen and embroidery hoops so that I now feel fully equipped to try this out and I am thinking of different ways I could introduce embroidery to a group. 

Lois was enthusiastic and inspirational, and was able to convey so much of her experience, and it was very interesting to see the books that she has had published detailing her work.

All in all I thought the whole experience was beneficial and the opportunity was well timed with just starting out to develop a career in training Arts and Crafts.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity, it has been very helpful.

Hi Gary,

We really enjoyed the Arthur and Martha training, Initially we thought we
would not really be able to use any of the ideas, wrong, Margaret and
myself are going to be looking at incorporating some of the activities with
our Service users. I have already tried the creative writing exercise with
one of the service users.

We thought the training was just right and both Lois and Phil were very informative and gave us lots of ideas.

If any further training comes up would you please let us know.

Hi Gary,

For me, as a poet, the training sessions with the Arthur and Martha artists Lois and Phil, have given me an insight into how I can enhance my own workshops by including art techniques alongside poetry as part of my practice. It has also been interesting to find out how poetry exercises have been used successfully with groups of older people with whom I have started to work as a writer myself. Lois and Phil created a relaxed and friendly atmosphere while delivering informative and quality workshops and valuing the contributions and feedback of participants. It was particularly rewarding for me to be able to get professional advice and feedback on my workshop structure and practice from two established and highly regarded art practitioners at this stage of my professional development. I would recommend that anyone aiming for best practice in using art particularly with older people to take the opportunity to attend workshops or to shadow these artists.

Thanks for inviting me to the training

Winterlude

There's rain snaking down the windows and the wind is ice-flavoured. I'm in a cafe in Manchester, wishing my toes were warmer and less wet, but otherwise cheerful. It's the end of the year - arthur+martha will take a holiday interlude until our various projects start up in January. This blog is by way of a hello to the many people we've spent time with in 2011 - and with it comes the wish of warmth, emotional and actual.

It's been a bustle of a year - Lois and I started 2011 working with young carers in Warrington, a very sweet-hearted group, whose lives called on them to be adult beyond the capability of many grown-ups. Then we entered another and very different world, during our project with homeless people in Manchester and Bury. We invited homeless and vulnerable-housed people to customise tourist postcards of Manchester, showing an often unnoticed face of the city. This work was exhibited in the Bury Text Festival and on the BBC Big Screen in the city centre. Then in St Helens, working at Four Acre, we had the great pleasure of helping to start a creative group for older people, some of whom had become very isolated.

In all of these walks of life we met kindness, humour and insight although it sometimes had harsh surroundings. In fact, the remarkable grace that many people showed was both humbling and uplifting. I complain about wet feet, but am sitting in a comfortable room, within a comfortable life.

Despite their uncomfortable lives, participants often make pieces that are artistically ambitious, tough, fragile, funny and emotive. The fact that they may have been dismissed by society in general does not diminish their inherent talent. In fact the power of their work often derives from the outsider perspective that people bring and their determination to find a way to express it.

We would like to thank all who've made work and shared their humour, creativity, the day-to-day of their lives. We also wish to acknowledge the kind help of several individuals this year - Penny Anderson, Steve Giasson, Owen Hutchings, Joanne our poetical support in St Helens and Joan Birkett our artistical one, Gemma Cameron and finally Rebecca Guest, editor extraordinary.

Happy winterlude one and all.

The relation of hard cash to the memory palace

My goodbye session at Chester Lane Library reminscence=art group. It's become ingrained for me to rattle up there on the bike, drink a cuppa while trying to tame my wildly disorganised papers and then welcome the group. My body will probably try to launch itself early out of bed next Thursday - and for some Thursdays to come.

My final two visits have been in part training sessions for Joanne, a local poet who has shadowed us throughout the St Helens project - and in part a broader discussion with the group about their aspirations. I will write about the training at another time, this account is about the legacy of the project, aside from art.

I believe we've left them something of value - namely this group, made of themselves. However they choose to use it, they own a little human network, full of possibilities. We talked about what these possibles might be and I listed their thoughts, then reflected them back.

I was very struck by how unassuming the group are about what they themselves have to offer us all - their reminiscence as art has had 3000 plus 'visits' on the internet and the poem iced onto Woolworths window in the town centre was seen and appreciated by hundreds and hundreds of local folk. People DO value these memories it's just that there's not a clearly defined outlet. Where do you usually go memory shopping? And to extend this metaphor, the appreciation of memory work doesn't necessarily show itself in terms of £££ sales, which is how we are taught to assign value.

Brenda used the phrase ‘group memory’ to describe the sense of a communal reminiscence – sharing memories as a way of energising them within a group. Every Thursday, Chester Lane Library becomes a kind of commune within the 'memory palace'. Turning them into art or poems passes memories to others outside, which is where Lois and I and Joanne step into the process. If you're outside, you can participate by reading or viewing the work, but can't reciprocate. It is the to and fro of the group that makes it such a source of human warmth, a fire to gather round. Brenda described it in precisely these terms: “The warmth. Telling stories and banter. Talking and doing.”

Such a thing is needed when you're pushed to the edge of social relevance, as many older people are. Sadly, the shape of loneliness is the negative image of the gathering, the shadow cast by the fire. Margaret commented: “As you get older, your brain becomes invisible. People don’t value your thoughts and opinions.”

One person talked about being at a wedding, silent and unacknowledged, because as the older relative she was considered unworthy of inclusion. She wasn't introduced to anybody, she was literally unobserved. The rejection stayed with her and depressed her for days afterwards.

If this little group helps to allieviate such biting loneliness, then it has value. If all our daft experimenting and wordplay and art-cake decorating and poem stitching has helped people to be seen and heard, then it has value.

We shook hands and they wished me well; I felt a heart-twinge as I looked back.

Staff Training

Following on from our project in Four Acre, Phil and I have been asked to run some workshops for a group of staff from Care Homes and Day Centres in St Helens. 


From my point of view what I wanted was the up-skilling of staff who deliver art activities in homes and day centres, and the raising of the bar in the area of creativeness with the overall purpose of giving the service users the feeling of well being.


The feedback I have got from the participants have been very positive indeed. They are enjoying the pace and the atmosphere of the sessions and are liking meeting other people from similar working environments who they can share not only ideas with but practices as well.  The staff enjoyed the card making session and also the discussion about art and its role in well-being.
I believe that your sessions are more than meeting my goal.

Gary Conley
Cultural Co-ordinator
St Helens

Each of our workshop sessions had a different theme, the first looking at Felt Making and how it could be used with participants with a wide range of different skills and abilities.


The second was a look at how we can use Art Postcards in participatory arts, for example adapting the picture and its meaning with paint, collage or scratching. We also used the art cards to start a discussion about engagement with art, or what might be called art appreciation. For this workshop I was inspired by the work done by MoMA (the Museum of Modern Art, New York) who have done some wonderful work with people diagnosed with Dementia engaging them with their collection. There are some very useful free downloadable PDFs from their website.

The third week we investigated embroidery and how it could be used with participants. I invited people to look at embroidered samplers for inspiration, and to try out some ideas for themselves. (pictured in this blog) The room fell silent as the group got totally absorbed in the activity. Like many of the older people we work with in hospital or care homes, many of this group hadn't done any embroidery since school and it came as a revelation. Many of the group left with their samples in hand, explaining they were off to do more at home. Another very satisfying day.

The Dinner Bell

I loved music at school, my favourite musical instrument? the dinner bell. George White

On Thursday morning Joanne and I joined the arts group at Four Acre Library, St Helens. Next week will be my last session- and I am getting serious pangs of sadness. I've been getting so much from this 

group- an education and lots of laughter. 

Joanne and Marion

This week my task was siting back and observing how Joanne got on with facilitating the group. This isn't such an easy job for me, who likes to be in control... as I sat burning to ask questions myself and wanting to join in with my take on the conversation! and it was such a fascinating conversation. We were discussing schooling- the realities for children during and into the 50s.

6 on the backside in front of the whole class if you were naughty Eddie

What struck me again was all the wasted talent and crushed aspirations. A story I have heard before (my father-in-law won a scholarship to a grammar school and couldn't take up the place as his parents didn't have the money for the uniform) was repeated here today, Joan had won a scholarship;

We couldn't afford the clothes, couldn't afford the equipment, the headteacher said to my mother 'you can't afford to come'. Joan

Brenda, Marion and Sid

Marion whose parents did manage to borrow enough money for her to get her uniform, spent the whole time in one oversized coat, brought large when she started school (I never grew any taller than that first day) recalled feeling she never fitted in with the people from the middle class backgrounds. She was always aware of her frayed and darned cuffs. She would run the gaunlet of the other kids going to the local schools, who teased her 'lend us your hat, we're havin soup tonight!' She felt she didnt fit in anywhere.

Norma and Eddy

After the very lively reminiscence, the group used their memories to effect in acrostic poems. The fantastic legacy of the project here is a lively enthusiastic group, who seem willing to try any art or poetry exercise presented to them. Who support each other creatively and socially, and who will continue to meet up weekly long after I am no longer part of the group. I'll miss them all.

circular poems in cycles

As part of the Four Acre project, with St Helens Arts Service, Phil and I are offering training and practical skills for people who want to run art/poetry workshops. Last Thursday, local poet Joanne joined the Chester Lane Library group for some hands-on experience. 

We played with ideas of circular poems, based on the morning reminiscence about Royal Jubilees. We  catered for all points of view on this topic - Royalists and Royalty-dislikers alike.  Most people present were too young to remember 1935 when George mk 5 had his Jubilee; however, many had some memories of the 1977 (Sex Pistol soundtracked) Silver Jubilee. The 2002 one seemed to pass us all by.  The inspiration for the circular poems came from Jubilee souvenir coins - and the notions of societal hierarchy that we inherit.


Joanne talked people through the circular poem idea, then together we helped participants create the circularity of their own short verses. Norma took it in her stride, delighting in the wordplay and helping the others with practical solutions. Sid gave us all much to laugh about as he recounted the celebration of Lady Di's wedding, where as he puts it  'I imbibed to much alcohol'  and ended up losing his teeth  I'm pleased to say they were found the next day in the rockery, they went straight back in, without any further pause for breath. And they still look alright to me.

Combating older people’s loneliness and social isolation

In November Owen Hutchings from St Helens Arts Service, Phil and I will be of to London to talk at the Bloom conference: Combating older people’s loneliness and social isolation. November 8, 2011


Loneliness and social isolation are among the greatest sources of misery for older people living in the UK today – one in 10 older people say they suffer from "intense" loneliness and more than half of people over the age of 75 live alone, according to research by Age UK.

This Bloom conference sets out fresh objectives and provides practical guidance and inspiring examples from a range of settings for providers and commissioners of care and support services for older people – to enhance family relationships, encourage love and friendship, and promote community involvement and engagement.

You can find out more and book at place by following http://www.lemosandcrane.co.uk

pic'n'mix part 2

good old FW always been here 2/6
picknmix rummage
elastic for yr knickers 1/-

On Saturday pic'n'mix went truly interactive: we invited shoppers, staff on their breaks, children and their grandmas to add to the icing poem, celebrating memories of Woolworths, at St Helens.

if you didn’t have any money 3/6
you could spend hours in
/- Woolies = where I first tasted
a quarter of allsorts a quarter of buttered brazils £sd

Five large glass doors were covered in coloured iced drawings and writing, featuring sweeties, buttons and bows, records, Ladybird clothing, cutlery, pots and pans and 'much, much more'.

quarter toffee treacle
thought I’d die happy
licqorice stringing ~
MUST GO Woolies goin cheap sweets in cellophane 6d
lollies in cardboard 3d
aniseed balls last forever =

The artwork attracted a constant flow of people, wanting to join in and share stories. Woolies is a communal memory of more than a shop: the danger of steeling sweeties from the pic 'n' mix, or a meeting place for a first date, or where 'my mummy worked', or the counter where you got your first school uniform, or where you went because you couldn't afford anything better.

walk around town with our eyes open
[we think but]
look up see the beauty see 2/6
hooks + eyes press-studs + rings

As the day went on the windows filled, I was kept busy getting extra stocks of icing, while musical floats went by as part of the Street Festival celebration.

Ella singing =
“Diamond bracelets Woolies doesn’t sell BABY”
stood outside /- it was raining
2oz sparkly bling

While Phil and I led the icing crowd, volunteers from the Four Acre group looked after a large stall showing the embroidery, ceramics and other artwork they'd helped to create; they invited the general public to create their own poetic doilies and decorated biscuits. Over the two days the team of volunteers helped 100s of people create their own artworks to take away. Thank you so much Marion and George, Brenda, Marion, Norma, Eddy and Joan.

More photos from the day can be found at http://www.flickr.com/
To read about the rest of the project at Four Acre, please look at our other blogs...

FINAL lost in the age of retail parks OFFER
in Ladybird clothes in white kneesocks
stood in Woolies doorway.

(Group poem
Chester Lane Library
1st Sept 2011)

pic'n'mix

On the 2nd of September as part of our project in Four Acre, Phil and I took to the streets, to make an installation on the windows and doors of the disused Woolworth Store right in the heart of the shopping area on Church Square, St Helens.

pic’n’mix transformed for a couple of days the sadly neglected face of Woolies into a joyful, witty, poignant work of self-expression, straight from the community which this store once served. The poem lasted as long as the rain held of, and sticky fingers resisted.

This piece was jointly composed by the Chester Lane Library art/reminiscence group in commemoration of Woolworths. This poem was one of the outputs of community art/poetry workshops commissioned by St Helens Council and delivered by arthur+martha in 2011.

pic’n’mix was written in icing sugar, in reference to Woolies sweet counter and had a hugely welcoming and enthusiastic response from the public. Some comments from passers-by were incorporated into the piece.

The poem is one single line that stretches along the bottom of the entire shop front, so that the reader has a sense of walking through the piece, into an earlier era that exists now only in memory. It is a work of collective reminiscence, verbatim from the Chester Lane group – it is literally the voice of the community, celebrating their past and also subtly reflecting on the transience of all things.

The work layers together the everyday poetry of conversation and the act of memory: childhood nostalgia, oral history, humour, anger, celebration, commemoration. A coming together of many individuals. The poem marks a shared past, not only of people in St Helens, but of working people across a whole century in all their tragedies and triumphs.

if you didn’t have any money 3/6

you could spend hours in

/- Woolies = where I first tasted

a quarter of allsorts a quarter of buttered brazils £sd

You can find more images on-line at flickr

Four Acre Tea Party

I've just loaded onto our portfolio site taken last week at the sunny Four Acre Tea Party event. Here are some examples...

Joan and Phil

Mayor Tom Hargreaves signing embroidered tablecloth

embroidered napkin

teacup and saucer with reminiscence and tablecloth 

embroidered bunting

library group at the tea party

some of the 'working worms'

 Kathy Johnson, Head of Libraries in St Helens said of the project "...it is a wonderful project, you have really tapped into something special. Well done to you!

embroidered tablecloth (detail) 

for more images please go to:  http://www.flickr.com

Thanks must go to Owen Hutchings, Jill Lynes of Re-New, All the members of 'The Up Plonky Activities Group', the Working Worms, Pat and Les Andrew and Mayor Tom Hargreaves.

Kershaw Day Centre

Yesterday afternoon as part of the project at Four Acre, St Helens, we visited Kershaw Day Centre, working with a group of older people many of whom suffered from memory loss.

I had a wonderful afternoon - focussing my time on two participants. B & E.

When I sat down, B. explained to me 'I don't remember anything.' However as so often happens when one memory is triggered there is a rush of others. It seems that relaxation is the key, if any pressure is put on either by other people or yourself to try and capture a thought it stubbornly refuses to resurface; if you gently go round the houses, or are prompted by other people's memories, your own are released.

E had had a very bad fall and hit her head resulting in severe memory loss; gradually her recollection is improving. 'Getting memories back is a magnificent feeling. It feels like I'm coming alive. I feel I've been away somewhere. It's hard to get your brain to remember, but a brilliant feeling when it comes back. On my own I thought I was a freak, I thought I had no life left. Coming in here you realise there are other people with the same problems - some worse.  This has been a brilliant afternoon. Talking and being part of a group helps.  I'll remember all of this. It will be in my memory I'm sure it will.'

B's infectious sense of humour made the three of us laugh through some of the hard realities that they discussed. B has dementia, at one point she described the condition 'Loss of memory its terrible, frightening, its murder. I remember being terrified. My husband, he's my carer, he say's "I'm not even trying to remember." I say 'remember what?' I tease him. I say one day when I'm in my grave, these memories will come back and haunt you.... whoooo.'

Both women selected short pieces of their reminiscence to write on doilies, for our forthcoming teaparty event. Our conversation started with descriptions of cold, and led into romance and a delightful description of B's wedding day. 'Any functions coming up we all mucked in. For my wedding all we had were tins of PREM (spam) and a tin opener. It was a very good do, everyone brought something...'

Chester Lane Library - remembering into reality

11 August 2011

Yesterday we joined our regular group at Chester Lane Library, Four Acre, St Helens to reminisce, embroider and create poems.

Brenda embroidering salmon, cucumber and tomato sandwich.

'Its been something of interest to us all. If there wasn't the group would just frizzle away.' (George)

'I'm really enjoying the sessions. Great. You would never get a chance to hear all those memories normally. You hear someone and it triggers another thought in you and you share again.' (Eddie)

Eddie writing poem on doily

'You come away with a good feeling. Memories can be rose-tinted, but there were bad old days too and we look at them both. You can pick them up and you can leave them behind.' (Brenda)

Ray's Dear Mother doily

'We're turning the remembering into reality - into art.' (Ray)

'We've all made friends - we've all got something to share, something to talk about.' (Joan)

'I'm learning alot from everybody - the sessions are making me grow.' (Jeanette)

Mary and Joan working on embroidery

'I live on my own and sometimes I go many hours without speaking to anyone. This group means I can talk to someone.' (Anonymous)

For more photos from the project please visit http://www.flickr.com

Dirty knees climbing trees

The St Helen's Four Acre project of making and remembering is near to a finish and the work finding its shape. Memories have become drawings and writings, which have in turn become embroideries, postcards, cakestands - and now ceramics. In editing we've tried to walk a line between the playfulness of childhood reminiscence and the narrowing poverty that people described.

There's a tenderness in this material which finds many expressions. 'Nauty boy settle down/nauty boy settled down' tells a world in two simple phrases. They could be the voice of a mother settling a baby, they could be mischievous young man come into the settled state of adulthood. The fact that one line is present tense, one line past puts the two statements in continual dialogue. The spelling mistake 'nauty' evokes classroom boredoms and class divides.

That balancing act between play and hardship, which we've tried to find in the artworks, was a very real part of many people's lives. How do you become more than just a 'survivalist' (as one of the homeless men we met described himself)? A touching aspect of this project has been the optimism and humour we've encountered. Despite the cramping effects of economic reality, most folk recounted their childhoods with great warmth and even glee.

The ceramics are a kind of finale for the project, a formal frame for the picture of these lives. The pieces are the result of many try-outs on paper plates, which we used for maquettes. Because we only had time and resources to make enough ceramics for one teaset, we had to shortlist. I thought of the pieces as circular poems - texts carrying an idea that works happily as a loop. We drew on the concrete (or shaped) poetry tradition for this, particularly the recent circle poems of Alec Finlay, son of the legendary Ian Hamilton F.

The originals were handwritten and we transcribed from them using tracing paper. We also used some of Lois' collection of tourist memorabilia as a source for fonts and layouts to guide us. Cup and saucer sets were the simplest, using a keyword or words and splitting them between the two objects. So for instance, one of my favourites 'Tuppence' was divided between a cup and saucer Tup/pence. The plates became much more complex, with longer stories unfolding and even spiralling. One of them replicated the circularity of progress through the year in a child's life - familiar waystations like easter eggs, walking to Sunday School, a favourite coat come round again and again, indicating a movement through time and yet also hinting that time when you're young is infinite, an endless wheeling of summer bicycle adventures.

Some of the pieces melt past and present together. A nice joke about this is a poem by Joan Ashcroft, which has also become a plate: 'I am blond, beautiful, in the midst of youth five foot ten a natural fashion PLATE alright! alright! I will tell the truth I'm five foot two, mousey and pass my sellby date. The end.'

In the photos you'll see the embroidered napkins that are companions to the ceramics, like the piece by Marian White that gives the title to this blog. But the unseen presence in these works is time itself and how we all move through it, with whatever grace or grimness we choose.

A very few of the ceramics are in these photos, there are more on flickr and best of all the pieces can be viewed as part of a teaparty at Four Acre later on this month, or at the Street Art Festival in St Helens town centre, early September.

A huge thanks to Claire Parker all her help, advice and use of Kiln. More photos of the hand-painted ceramics can be found at http://www.flickr.com