Quilts with a story to tell

PRESS RELEASE

QUILTS WITH A STORY TO TELL AT BUXTON MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY

A pair of quilts embroidered with the wartime history of Derbyshire is set to go on display. History arts project, Stitching the Wars, opens at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery on 7June, 1-3pm

Cover of the book complementing the project 'Stitching the Wars'

This award-winning project combines history, poetry and embroidery by older people living in rural Derbyshire, including many with dementia. The two quilts are embroidered with testimony from older people who survived two world wars.

Councillor Barry Lewis, Leader of Derbyshire County Council and Designate Cabinet Member for Strategic Leadership, Culture and Tourism said: “These beautiful quilts, and the memories behind them, make for a fascinating and moving exhibition. They are a lovely demonstration of the value of projects that combine community and local history to create art.”

Artist Lois Blackburn from the arts organisation arthur+martha is behind the collaborative community quilts. Ms Blackburn said: "This is touchable history, quilts hand-stitched by over 400 older people with fragments of their stories. One of the great joys of the project has been to witness the pleasure of people with dementia who have taken part, turning memory from a thing to be feared to a thing to be relished."

The opening event, on 7 June from 1pm to 3pm, will also see the launch of an accompanying book, containing photos, stories and poems. One of the quilts 'Fresh Air and Poverty', will remain on display until 30th September.

The project received grants totalling £38,880 from Arts Council England, Foundation Derbyshire, Derbyshire County Council, Derbyshire Dales Council, Age UK, The Alzheimer's Society and The Farming Life Centre. 

For media enquiries please contact the DCC communications office on 01629 538205.

Warm, vorm

The arthur+martha exhibition 'the warm /&/ the cold', textiles and textworks by homeless people, is at the  Holden Gallery, Manchester Metropolitan University until 25 January 2013.

(Part 1 of a two-part blog)

Philip writes:

They came straggled and frozen out of the November weather, like a line of refugees from old war footage. Clothes bundled and grey with damp, faces pale. As they got close to, I could see that people were shivering.

Lois and I had been installing an exhibition of artwork by homeless people. Our heads were full of technical details and logistics, as always when installing a show. This morning we'd scheduled a celebratory little gathering of homeless people involved. So it was a reality-jolt to see our familiar group from The Booth Centre, when they filed towards the gallery. Somehow I'd not expected them to be hit by the cold so brutally, not OUR group, our companions.

As soon as they stepped inside, they flocked to the radiators. M, was almost doubled in pain, he perched himself right on the scalding pipes and shivered endlessly. J miserably requested the loo, asking permission while squirming uncomfortably. The white faces seemed somehow tiny, reduced from the lively personalities we'd encountered during our workshops sessions at The Booth Centre, The Big Issue office and the Red Door. These were people who were now concentrated simply on living. I watched them struggling and - stupidly - I felt like crying, like an outraged kid who has just discovered unfairness.

Hot drinks were being served to students around the corner and our group filtered in amongst them, pouring hot coffee into their shaking bodies and eating snacks for the sugar burst. Their clothes and skin marked them cruelly apart from the fresh-faced students who bustled about them. They moved slowly and their eyes contained something faraway.

Then as we settled on sofas and people slowly began to warm up, there was a sea-change in mood. They started to look around them - and see their work. Curiosity replaced misery. We did a walkround tour of the pieces, first the ceramics - wry little lines about warmth, food, shelter, scripted onto mugs and plates.

A particular favourite was a big yellow plate whose enormous capacity delighted everyone - 'You could eat for a week off that.' This piece caught the attention of one of our regulars - he did a double-take. 'They're MY words.' He said. Minutes previously he'd been unable to stand up straight, but for a little while, the pride in what he'd made, the joy of that artefact, that other him, pulled him some way out of pain.

To read more, follow these links:

http://www.citylife.co.uk

http://www.artscouncil.org.uk

award winning!

Our project with St Helens Council's Art Service in Four Acre,  has just won an award! We finished runner-up in the national Lemos and Crane Bloom awards. To find out more please visit www.sthelens.gov.uk and http://www.lemosandcrane.co.uk/


Judges described the Four Acre project as: “A really good way to identify isolated older people who are not in touch with statutory services” and “a well conceived, executed and documented example of the stimulation and fun that the arts can give.”


The panel of judges were: Andrew Barnett, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation; David Cutler, The Baring Foundation; Tim Joss, The Rayne Foundation; Katherine Payne, The Mercers’ Company; Louise Telford, Northern Rock Foundation.

Thanks so much for everyone who voted for the project.

mailout.co

Thanks to the wonderful mailout.co participatory arts magazine, for writing a feature about our project a map of you. You can see it on line at http://mailout.co 

mailout.co

A lovely write up about our project in Four Acre, St.Helens by mailout.co the Participatory Arts magazine
http://mailout.co

the minds of elderly patients

In response to our new book Patience, Advance Nurse Practitioner, Fiona Roscoe has written:

Who are we to know what is going on in the minds of elderly patients as they sit dutifully in their chairs waiting for the next ward round or cup of tea?

It is a time when many are at their most vulnerable and reflective but sometimes due to disability and ill health are unable to express themselves. The artists of arthur+martha have patiently sat with these souls and helped them to unlock their thoughts. In doing so, not only do we have examples of unique creative art but also a new dimension in our appreciation of our most senior citizens. (referring to Stages of grief 1950 and Parachute Landing by Albert Burrows)

Fiona Roscoe RN DN MSc BSc(Hons) is an Advanced Nurse Practitioner (Primary and Urgent Care)

schools of nursing

In response to our new book Patience, Advance Nurse Practitioner, Fiona Roscoe has written:

The stark honesty and desperation expressed by a stroke patient in 'Ever' provides a frightening insight into her world. I would advocate that schools of nursing examine their curriculums and ensure that students are given an opportunity to experience the art produced from this project as stopping to listen to what patients are telling us is key to knowing what needs to be done to help them.

 

Fiona Roscoe RN DN MSc BSc(Hons) is an Advanced Nurse Practitioner (Primary and Urgent Care)

ever

a stroke: it’s like freezing a piece of meat

waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting
a cancellation
put me back again
a slight stroke
couldn’t move my arm
so I lift it with the other one
don’t let it lie dead
rub the back of your hand
keep it going

and then it’s un-frozen

waiting and
try to keep moving
haul yourself
with a walking stick
to your exercises
tried, tired and knackered
they train you, so
if you fall in the house by yourself
trapped

but only in part and some remains

waiting and
trying to open the door
try to get to the phone
try to climb a step, up four inches
(one bad leg, two arms, nothing 100%)
terrifying thinking about it
don’t think, try to
get on, to stand

on ice.

Anonymous
24-31 July 2009

Patients reading PATIENCE

Today was our first day on the wards with the new book PATIENCE, a deep baptism. Reading these poems in the place where they first came into being, often in circumstances of great suffering, was very moving - the response from patients was powerful and generally positive, though sometimes they too were a little overwhelmed. It was as if we were finally talking about the 'elephant in the room' - everyone's relieved, but it's an awkward moment.

"It brings a new outlook from my point of view, reading this book. It makes you think of something else in life, apart from yourself. You cheer one another up." (Madeleine)

"It's terrible in here, impossible to describe. You have to live it to understand. It can help a little to hear other's experiences. A little. Please come back again and read more poems." (Douglas)

"Very good that, very true. Pass it on... It's openness. You bring things out in people, so people don't close to you... a book like this is useful to read, helps with the patience, you need a lot of patience in here." Jean

We also shared the book with staff, many of whom remembered particular people featured in the collection. As so often happens, they said that they wished they still had time to talk to the patients as we are able to do.

"The emotional side gets overlooked. Without that, you are not treating people in depth. If a patient is in the process of getting better and they have psychological or emotional problems, they won't get better as easily. To verbalise and express their problems, they feel lighter, better... If it's repressed it affects them.


Conversing with them helps. They are away from their environment, in fear. Time is a factor. Take a minute or two, take time to listen and reassure them. Reading them this book will give them an idea of what a patient can expect to go through."

(Staff Nurse Mioji Baloguh)

On E1 the Stroke ward, we read poems to patients Madge and Marjorie, who commented:

"You feel very shaky and that, not kind of with it, you can't vision yourself. This book, it gives other people something of what you feel like."


A daughter, visiting her mother who'd had a stroke two weeks ago, said:

"The book would be nice for when they start recovering and can start reading - if they can't put their feelings into their own words, they could use the book to help." (Amanda)

We hope that PATIENCE will be helpful on the wards, a conversation opener, a comforter and perhaps a communication aid as Amanda describes. There's a point when a book, having been published, makes its own way, separate from the the makers. As we put PATIENCE out into the world, it is now starting to do just that, to have its identity inscribed by its readers.

Peoples art

In response to our new book Patience, Advance Nurse Practitioner, Fiona Roscoe has written:

Thumbing through the pages of this beautifully edited book your eyes are drawn to the different fonts and styles of expression on every page. What could have been unimaginative streams of text with predictably placed pictures is instead an attractive collection of 'people's art' that would grace any coffee table or bookshelf!

 

Fiona Roscoe RN DN MSc BSc(Hons) is an Advanced Nurse Practitioner (Primary and Urgent Care)

You can download a sample chapter of Patience at http://www.arthur-and-martha.co.uk It will soon be available for sale at Amazon.

Patience: coming into

In response to our new book Patience, Advance Nurse Practitioner, Fiona Roscoe has written:

Patience' defined as 'the ability to wait or endure without complaint'. The term suggests dignity and stoicism. Qualities that emerge from the participants in this book when their thoughts are expressed. For eg/ 'Coming into hospital for the fifth time.... (Mary Anandale)

 

Fiona Roscoe RN DN MSc BSc(Hons) is an Advanced Nurse Practitioner (Primary and Urgent Care)

Coming into hospital for the fifth time

coming into hospital for the fifth

hate to think of so many times

it’s a desperate thought

I don’t want to think it

get on and forget sadness

get on with it and remember only the

forget

who you’ve been with

where you’ve been you’re not yourself

I’m so glad that they come

I’m so glad that they come

I can’t say how often but they do

it’s action for yourself

to see someone

to see some with the same

perhaps the same difficulties

you are not alone

there are many people like you for better or worse

there are many people who like you

good people there are many

friends of myself friends of I

saw

my place

sat in my chair

saw my place sat in my chair

I can see so much from here

I wish

good

I can see I can hear.

Mary Arrandale

Anona Entwhistle

images of patience

In response to our new book Patience, Advance Nurse Practitioner, Fiona Roscoe has written:

Beautiful thought provoking images which could easily stand alone as large portraits or pieces of art. They belong on the walls of hospital waiting rooms, nursing home entrance halls, nursing and medical school refectories. Wherever somebody may pause before moving on to carry out their purpose, be this visiting an elderly relative, submitting an assignment or explaining to a patient that he cannot be discharged because he will not be safe on his own at home.
 

Fiona Roscoe RN DN MSc BSc(Hons) is an Advanced Nurse Practitioner (Primary and Urgent Care)

2 photos of Violet Gamble © Lois Blackburn 2009