Sing me to sleep

Lost in the woods. Sampling for the Sing me to sleep quilt.

We are delighted to announce that the first arthur+martha international project begins this week when Lois and Phil fly out to Lithuania to start Sing me to sleep. Two group quilts will be made collaboratively with homeless people in Britain and Lithuania. It's a conversation between two cultures, a dialogue sharing the arts of traditional embroidery techniques, quilt-patterning, poems and fairytales. The quilt will be themed around bed time stories, lullabies and the associations for homeless people this brings. 

This is part of our ongoing outreach work in association with the Text Festival at Bury Art Museum to experiment with language in collaboration with marginalised communities. All cultures in all parts of the world have stories told to send children to sleep, in the same way that there is a lullaby for every language. Some fairytales like Cinderella exist all over the world with slight variations - surely proof of our common humanity. Fairytales often have a darker side, but always violence is reversed, preserving the essential part of life without which we cannot prosper: hope. These stories will be refracted through different languages and through memory, making a rich crossover between the poles of experience and innocence.

Silhouette image from research

Sing me to sleep builds on previous achievements, continuing a sequence of collaborative quilts. These major text art/textile works enlist the skills and experience of hundreds of marginalised people. There are already two arthur+martha quilts in existence - one made by homeless people discussing warmth and cold, another award-winning quilt made by older people describing the two World Wars (yet another war quilt is currently in progress).

Detail from previous project, a quilt for when you are homeless

This is a partnership between the homeless community in both countries, arthur+martha CIC and VšĮ Socialiniai meno projektai arts organisations, the national gallery in Lithuania, Bury Art Gallery and homeless support organisation The Booth Centre - all of whom have an established reputation of working with marginalised people in pioneering and creative ways.

The project is funded by Arts Council England and the Lithuanian arts and health organisation VšĮ Socialiniai meno projektai. 

We would particularly like to thank Clive Parkinson for starting the conversation and Ieva Petkute for continuing it...

Be well

We would like to wish winter warmth to the many people we have met this year, and also to those scattered far and wide across the world who read this blog. We are very aware that warmth and comfort are far distant luxuries to some and so this wish is particularly for those struggling in the storms of life.

A lot of people have said thank you to us after the art sessions we run, sometimes simply to be polite, sometimes in a very emotional way. Lois and myself would like to offer our thank you back, because your company and the insights you bring are very precious to us, perhaps more than you realise.

This year has had many high points (exhibitions, new projects, funding) but also some tough times, including bereavement. One of the things that keeps Lois and I going strong is the pleasure of being "arthur+martha", our other and possibly better selves.  The arts bring meaning to our lives; making work in collaboration with many communities has brought a sense of deeper value and human community that we would sorely miss.

All who have met with us, worked with us and shared a cup of tea and a joke, or simply some time: thanks. Be well.

Friedrich Engels as a digital projection of the 21st Century

  TWEET FROM ENGELS, projected onto the old
Produce Hall in Stockport Market Place

We are delighted that the long arthur+martha poem TWEET FROM ENGELS was projected onto Stockport Market Place last night, as part of the Big Digital Project run by External Galleries - which featured works from several community organisations including Refugee Action, ARC and Pure Gallery.

Refugee Action, shadow puppet projection

Refugee Action

Sound recordings made with homeless people in Stockport, Manchester and Bury accompanied the  event, played from hidden speakers in Blackwells Cafe. The recordings used a soup tureen and a baby's high chair as sound resonators. A second showing will take place on 29th March, with projections made at Manchester Town Hall.

Projected: TWEET FROM ENGELS

TWEET FROM ENGELS intercuts interviews and poems from people currently homeless in Manchester with writing by the 19th Century social reformer Friedrich Engels. Many people who live on the streets today have the same life expectancy as workers in Victorian England.

Sound recordings played in soup tureen

The sound recordings were made at various homeless drop-ins: The Wellspring at Stockport, The Booth Centre and The Big Issue in the North in Manchester.

The Big Digital Project has been organised by the Let's Go Global organisation. TWEET FROM ENGELS is part of a wider epic poem, Albion, made in collaboration with marginalised people in the UK.

Albion has been kindly funded by the NALD.

Projected: TWEET FROM ENGELS

Asleep in the dark wood

The dark forest or wood, is a symbol that haunts human beings - from fairy tales to horror films we go into the darkness to encounter fear and perhaps to overcome it. This is the way that we grow up and become fully ourselves, by facing fears, demons, addictions, enemies without or within. The means to challenge and disperse one's particular fears is something that we only can discover individually, but because humans are emotionally similar we can learn from the experience of others, be they Hansel and Gretel or King Arthur, Dante or Dostoyevsky, whoever. The way that some of these experiences are passed on is through the strange fabrics of storytelling, poetry, art.

The exhibition The Dark Would, which I've just curated at Summerhall in Edinburgh, brings together poets and artists who take us into the heart of the Dark Wood, as the poet Dante called it. These are pieces that look at the confusions and difficulties of being alive, balancing that with  beauty - and perhaps too, very subtly, with ways out.

a quilt for when you are homeless

I now want to “walk” you through this exhibition, because it hinges on an arthur+martha piece and many followers of this blog won't be able to visit in person.

The central piece is a quilt that is hand stitched by homeless people from Manchester (helped by embroidery students and members of the WI) describing fragments of their lives. It was made during an arthur+martha project last year called 'the warm /&/ the cold'; the piece itself is titled 'a quilt for when you are homeless'. The making of this quilt is detailed elsewhere on the arthur+martha blog; it was a long process constructing this modest-looking piece, the work of many hands and much life experience. Much of the work occurred at The Booth Centre and The Big Issue in the North offices in Manchester. The quilt is a series of life story fragments from a much longer piece, which we are editing into a book called ALBION, funded by the NALD.

After Henry James, by Tom Phillips; on shelf, THE DARK WOULD language art anthology, at Summerhall, Edinburgh, 2013 

In the main exhibition space at Summerhall, the quilt is spot-lit, and around it are satellites, other works also picked out of the dark by intense lights. I've put stuffing under the quilt, so that it looks as though there's someone sleeping beneath it. Around this imagined person are dilemmas and difficulties that we sometimes face, leading away like myriad possibilities. We see works about madness, rape, war, repression (by Tom Phillips, Caroline Bergvall, Simon Patterson) but also gentleness, love, humour, art (father and son Alec Finlay, Ian Hamilton Finlay, then Richard Wentworth, Maria Chevska). To my mind these pieces are speaking to each other. Here's the revolutionary thinker Guy Debord represented by two posters from the 1968 student uprising in Paris, in dialogue with Ian Hamilton Finlay about insurrection; in the next room along are pieces by Lawrence Weiner, Fiona Banner and Jenny Holzer which, all put together, make connections between male sexuality, power and war.

On the ground floor of the gallery we find work by Jenny Holzer, Mallarme, Richard Long, Sarah Sanders, Robert Fitterman, Tony Trehy and Laurence Lane (among many others) all of which touch on the places where we are rawest and most human. You can see shots of the exhibition and read more about it elsewhere in FLUX magazine,The Herald, Summerhall TV and other sites.

However, the two pieces I'd finally like to mention here both link back to arthur+martha again. The first is Holocaust Museum by Robert Fitterman the delicacy of which chimes with our own project involving Holocaust survivors, Kindness. Fitterman's piece takes the text from all of the photo-captions in the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC and simply reproduces them as a long "found" poem. The poem has been printed on A4 pages and pinned to the walls of an office room adjacent to the gallery.

The last room - and most uplifting, I find - contains two textworks by Richard Long. They were made by Long over twenty years apart, at very different times of his life. He suggested that I pair them. They are both circular and both describe going for walks in the outdoors. In a way they're tiny globes. They are in a long, bright room and the light changes subtly as you move from one end to the other, from cold to warm. The room has a soundtrack of schoolchildren impersonating birdsong, a recording that Lois and I made during an arthur+martha session at a school in Derbyshire, during a silly and joyous afternoon. They give the space that very underrated thing, a happy ending.   

I would particularly like to thank ACE for funding this project, all of the project participants from The Booth Centre, The Big Issue in the North and The Red Door, whose work and words made the quilt.

The Dark Would exhibition continues at Summerhall until 24 January 2013.

a quilt for when you are homeless

THE DARK WOULD: language art exhibition World Premiere

7th December - 24th January at Summerhall , Edinburgh

Launch (open to public) 7pm, Friday 6 Dec 2013

Venue: Summerhall, Edinburgh, EH9 1PL

Entry: Free 

World-leading poets and text artists exhibit works that cross the boundary of living and dying in The Dark Would: Fiona Banner, Richard Long, Simon Patterson, Susan Hiller, Tony Lopez, Sarah Sanders, Jenny Holzer, Richard Wentworth, Caroline Bergvall, Erica Baum, Ron Silliman and many others, including outsider artists. 

Summerhall and its Curator Paul Robertson are proud to host the world premiere of this ground-breaking exhibition, which has been curated by poet Philip Davenport.

Davenport says: "This is an extraordinary gathering that asks what it is to have a body and to lose it. Perhaps this is best done by people for whom language is itself a state of in-between-ness… artists who use language and poets who are artists. Here, the material of language is used as a metaphor for human material, our own bodies, our little lives. Whether poets or homeless people, outsiders or art stars - we all have to find our way through the dark.”

a quilt for when you are homeless (2012) denim quilt embroidered by homeless people, an arthur+martha project

A centre-piece of the exhibition is an arthur+martha piece: the quilt embroidered by homeless people in Manchester with fragments of their life stories, 2012. The Laurence Lane piece Uptight (2012) uses the iconography of rock and roll to describe a schizophrenic episode. New work has been made especially for the show by Richard Wentworth and commissioned pieces include Rorschach drawings by Mike Chavez-Dawson, made from the names of dead poets and live writing by Sarah Sanders. 

Uptight (2011) by Laurence Lane, unframed print

The Dark Would will also have 'answering' works by dead artists and poets including Stephane Mallarme, Ian Hamilton Finlay and Joseph Beuys, taken from Paul Robertson's Heart Fine Art collection which is based at Summerhall. For more information on Heart Fine Art: www.heartfineart.com

SING/WILD/KIND/WOOD (2012) by Alec Finlay 

The Dark Would exhibition is an out-growth of the large same-title anthology of language art, edited by Davenport and published by Apple Pie Editions 2013.

Exhibition contributors: arthur+martha, Fiona Banner, Erica Baum, Caroline Bergvall, Mike Chavez-Dawson, Maria Chevska, Matt Dalby, Philip Davenport, Steve Emmerson, Alec Finlay, Rob Fitterman, Steve Giasson, Susan Hiller, Jenny Holzer, Marton Koppany, Laurence Lane, Richard Long, Tony Lopez, Darren Marsh, Simon Patterson, Tom Phillips, Sarah Sanders, Ron Silliman, Carolyn Thompson, Tony Trehy, Carol Watts, Lawrence Weiner and Richard Wentworth.

A Warm Winter

We hope that everyone reading this has a happy, safe winter festival.

It's the end of the year - arthur+martha will take a holiday interlude until early January. This blog is by way of a hello and thank you to the many people we've spent time with in 2012.  In assorted homeless drop-ins, dementia groups, sheltered housing, universities and art groups we've been met with kindness, humour and bravery.

The warm of human company has been an abiding theme, especially as the weather grows cold and we witness the hardship it brings for some folk. But delight and fasination are also there, keeping back the dark. We're lucky enough to share in extraordinary lives, as we run workshops and discussions and all the rest. We'd like to express our gratitude to all the people we have met and worked with over the last year. This little patchwork below, of portraits and artworks from the year is a souvenir of those enounters.

Feeling

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.

Second of a 2-part blog

Philip writes:

(We were showing a group of homeless people around an exhibition of their own work at Manchester Metropolitan University...)

We moved onto the big pieces, the textiles. Here are fragments of stories, the lives of homeless people, embroidered onto quilts and painted on ceramics, often by the tellers themselves. They are responses to simple questions - which don’t have simple answers. When were you warm? When were you cold?

The group had only seen the pieces as little scraps of cloth, not sewn together into the large, communal artworks that they'd now become. They'd come in from a bitterly cold day and were suffering from the bite of winter. But as they warmed in the space, they also warmed up to the work. We started to hear expressions of delight, of pride.

People talked about being physically cold, but also emotional warmth: 'The atmospherte, people's handiwork, people's hearts. The art makes it homely in here. It's real. Makes it homely when people pour their hearts out. I feel relaxed and I'm not usually, I'm usually on edge...' (Maureen)

From shepherding a little group of - what felt to me - very fragile people we were suddenly in the presence of artists. They expanded to fit the role, the room - relaxing in the sofas by the artworks and chatting about the meaning of it all, the FEELING of being a maker. The project was devised to help people develop new skills, socialise and build confidence - and in this moment that was precisely what it achieved.

Volunteer student helpers from the Embroidery and MA Textiles Department at Manchester Metropolitan University also helped to stitch the work and made quilts in reply. Volunteers from the Women's Institute additionally lent their needles and expertise. 

The project challenges stereotypes about homelessness, combating hate crime against homeless people and emphasizing needs shared by us all – especially shelter and acceptance. Lines from the denim quilt are currently being shown as text animations by the BBC, on Big Screens in Manchester and Liverpool. 

To find out more, follow these links:

http://www.citylife.co.uk/news_and_reviews/news/10020967_stitches_timely_for_winter__hard_hitting_reminder_of_life_on_the_streets

http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/news/arts-council-news/Exhibition-tells-story-about-life-on-the-streets-of-Manchester/

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

VENDORS TELL THEIR STORY THROUGH TEXTILES: news story

The following article about our project the warm /&/the cold is from The Big Issue in the North magazine. Dawn Bunnell writes:


VENDORS TELL THEIR STORY THROUGH TEXTILES


The traditional arts of patchwork quilting and embroidery are being used to record the experiences of Manchester’s homeless community.

the warm /&/the cold  is a project run by arthur+martha arts organisation, led by poet Phil Davenport and artist Lois Blackburn.

Created out of denim fabric, the quilt is made of denim from recycled pairs of jeans - twenty-seven in all - embroidered with personal descriptions of when a homeless person was warm or cold.

The project began eight months ago and has taken arthur+martha right into the heart of Manchester’s homeless population working with vendors from The Big Issue in the North and also people using the Booth Centre. The project gathers together artwork, poetry and interviews born out of spending time listening to the life experiences of people living on the streets.

Poet Phil Davenport said: “The quilt is created by asking simple questions that have complex answers – when were you warm? When were you cold? They lead into the whole area of homeless experiences. Physical warmth and extreme cold, but also emotional warmth, or being left out in the cold of rejection.

“We work with people who wouldn’t normally get heard, yet have a lot of wisdom. Many people who live outside of society see what’s going on more clearly then everyone else. People we've met also have great humour and resilience, which is an inspiration to me personally.”

The experiences are written onto the fabric by the homeless people themselves, who have also helped embroider their own words, with support from students from Manchester Met University.

Once the six by nine feet quilt is completed, it will be displayed alongside a range of other quilts made during the project at the university’s Holden Gallery, from 3 December for two weeks. These quilts will then be donated as housewarming gifts to people who are being rehoused.

Andy (participant) and denim quilt

Phil said: “The quilts are traditional, but also represent warmth, hospitality and the home - and the stories they tell are preserved through touch. It's a very ancient ritual we've tapped into, the passing on of personal histories.”

Little animations featuring lines from the big quilt are being screened throughout November and December on Manchester’s BBC Big Screen outside the Triangle shopping centre and on Liverpool's BBC Big Screen.

Phil added: “It has been wonderful to do this; we were moved and honoured to hear the stories. And the project has obviously been a big deal to the participants, one guy we spoke to had his files lost by the DSS, he felt invisible – he told me working with us made him feel visible again. A woman today kept saying how joining in with this had boosted her confidence, just a bit of talking and sewing. Sometimes it's the little-seeming things in life that are the biggest.”

Exhibition of quilts, ceramics and prints the warm /&/the cold at The Holden Gallery, Manchester Metropolitan University, starts 3 Dec 2012.

A welcome at The Red Door

the warm /&/the cold project
Bury Housing Concern Nov 14 2012

As part of our ongoing project with homeless people, we've conducted many mini-interviews with homeless people, which are fascinating and moving accounts of difficult lives. We've also been in contact with many carers, support workers and helpers at the drop-ins and centres we've visited. One such is a volunteer helper at 'The Red Door' drop-in, known more officially as Bury Housing Concern.


Homelessness happens to anyone, any age. Mainly it follows family or relationship breakdown, that's the main one. The big problem.

We try to help people with the situation they're immediately in, whatever level of urgency it is. Have they just come in wanting a shoulder to cry on? Have they just become homeless? Do they need a bit of TLC or are there deeper problems? We work our way up the ladder, starting with what they think they need. Then we go on up. A lot of people don't understand their rights and their needs. Usually I get the tears, my job is listening. They come to me with a story and I'll ask what help they need.

As somebody who has been homeless myself, I always tell them my story and then we compare notes. We end up chatting and I find out what they need - and I tell them the rest, their rights and so on. It can be very emotional.

I get a lot of kisses and cuddles in this job.


I think you need to be a good listener; they don't need advice ramming down their throats. Someone might've come in here for months, then one day they'll say: 'We need to talk and they'll break down in tears - and we'll talk properly.

I love doing this work, the job satisfaction is so big.

From Mayo to Melbourne

The Big Issue in the North office, 7 Nov 2012
the warm /&/ the cold project

Here's an interview with Peter, a very cheery homeless man in Manchester who we met at The Big Issue in the North office today. This is one of many such encounters, documented as part of our project with homeless people in Manchester, discussing their lives. Peter comes from County Mayo in Ireland, but has his sights set on getting to as many places in the world as he can that begin with the letter M. Manchester is just the start. We've heard many accounts of just how punishing life on the streets can be, but Peter has a different point of view.

Peter

I like sleeping out, I find it natural. I've an awful addiction to television. No problem with that on the streets. I'm qualified to be a farmer, I'm just one who doesn't have a farm. If you want to be a farmer you have to get yourself a farm. It's a good life outside, it is THE life. You have happiness with the time you've spent. I wouldn't be happy with a history of well-watched Coronation Street.

It's very cheap on the streets, no rent, no heating bills – no heating. I find a log fire or a turf fire to be the best way of heating. It's a free life. I've been moving around the last two years. Money can be a problem, but I've always worked, always been able to make the money in one industry or another. I want to stay on the road awhile then at the end I'll buy a house and a farm. When I settle, find true love or whatever is out there.

I ran out of money, the cheques started bouncing. Got a heavy prison sentence which ran me out of money more. Sold the farm - got me debt-clear but I didn't have any way of moneymaking. I started travelling, doing work. Cards for cash in Dublin, had fun with that. Kept farming, WOOF-ing (Worldwide Organisation of Organic Farming) doing odd jobs and now I've found The Big Issue.

From here, truck driving or farming, see whichever comes in. See the world while I've the chance: Amsterdam, Spain, Holland, Europe, Russia, Australia – the whole lot. When you own a house you're un-free, it's restricting. It buys you a safe place to stop but you can't run out the door and be a player. You're either a jet or a homeowner.

I've never come across that rough a time on the street, I'm a fairly happy-go-lucky fella. I know what a hammering is – know what a fight is and how to dodge it. Usually it's at night these things happen. I go to sleep through all that, it's the right time to be doing it anyway, at night. Find somewhere to sleep, stay in hostels, shelters, or parks, wherever you can pitch a tent. I have a tent, never leave home without one.

If you'd like to follow Peter's travels, go to his Facebook page: Patrick J Larkin at facebook.com

The cold and the cold

We're finishing the warm /&/ the cold our project with homeless people over the next weeks. The following interview is with J who was kind enough to describe his life very frankly. The interview took place in the summer, but I've held it back til now because J spoke so powerfully about living with the cold, surviving the time of year that's now nearly upon us.  

Sleeping in snow - cold, you know what I mean. Times you are just waiting for the sunlight, for the morning to come. Are you going to make it through the night? Get up and walk around a couple of hours, get the blood moving. The worst? Being wet and cold, that's when you get pneumonia. A lot of people die in their sleep on the street.

January time, freezing. Always try to get under cover, get a bit of cardboard. Even if you're sleeping out in spring or autumn, you'll need cardboard on a stone floor. I used to know some lads who would stack ten or twelve bits of carboard, like a mattress. Wheelie bins, I've slept in them but they're dangerous. Fall asleep and next thing you're getting minced in a bin lorry.

Fella died in Brighton last year when I was down there, bled to death through his back passage. Cancer or something. I knew him by sight, seen him drinking. I stay away from drinkers, it's easy to fall into a lot of things - heroin, drink, renting. I keep myself to myself. Have a few friends. Good to have mates, three or four blokes and you're safe. Amount of people who get kicked in... Kids battered a fella to death with a shopping trolley. Madness. Some people do it for the fun of it I think, must be drunk. I try not to sleep in the city centre. Walk a mile or so, if it's dry and warm kip in the park. If it's wet, you need to be out of the wet. Somewhere where the nutters aren't.

People on the streets, Ive met lawyers, doctors living homeless. Maybe their wife died, or a kid and they've run away from it all. The trouble with the street is it's addictive. There's always something happening. No one to tell you what to do. No person you are responsible for except yourself, or your dog. Things change every minute.

Dogs are good company. I'm thinking of getting a dog. You look after them and they look after you. A dog's got a woolly coat and they're warm to cuddle. And they keep strangers at bay. The dog, he'd eat before me. If people see the dog looking nice, they're kind to you. If they see a dog looking emaciated...

One of the worst things is finding your friends are dead. I know it always comes as a surprise, but on the street it happens a lot. It can be such a lot of times. Three or four in a month. The average life expectancy is 44. If you've been on the streets since you were 16 you haven't seen doctors regularly. Lads on the street if they're poorly won't go and see a doctor. You need money first. Do you chase money or go see a doctor? You need dinner down your stomach before you need meds.

You can have some good laughs though. I remember being on top of a mountain in the Black Hills, on a sofa, taken four Es...

A lot of people take too many drugs, that's the problem. Self-harm, suicide. One lad I knew used to cut his face. I said if you've gotta do it, cut your arms. Springtime that's the last time I saw someone self-harm. This girl - I saw her arms...

I dunno, people feel sad of themselves. All running from something. Not crime, things you done to your family. Say you've got a visit with your kids and you can't see them cos you've got no money and they're crying... One bloke, my daughter's godfather, died sleeping out. He wasn't a drug addict, just a drinker.

But everyone dies, if they've got a house or not.

freezing hands in my pocket

Afternoon 1-3 @ The Booth Centre: Mcr Cathedral

Cold weather.. freezing hands in my pocket

I thought the hands theme could have become something quite amazing, the stories that came up about use of hands. One participant had had a stroke and could no long use one of his hands, he spoke of his active, able life of all the amazing things he has done and how I would never believe the things he has done. I wished I could have found a way to capture his frustration and in contrast his fatalistic attitude about his future. I guess one thing I have learnt is the fact that we can't capture and make everything right or visible but giving it our best go and persevering in the face of difficulty like these folk do every day is enough.

David painting ceramic mug

Working alongside Philip and Lois has been again an insightful experience, observing their expert eye and ear for a poignant phrase or word. Leaving the predictable, the over- done, the obvious and getting to the heart of these peoples experiences in a meaningful, beautiful, simplistic way. A great learning opportunity for me- pushing and challenging my own boundaries and ways of working... something I would like to explore more of.

Claire Parker

the hands of the friends we've made

Friday 15^th June The hands of the friends we've made

Morning @ The Big Issue Office 9-12

The stories behind the rings, the life behind the hands, the marking, tattoos and nails.

Jaoa entrusted me with many details of his life captured here on his hands- as he reminisced he seemed to be taken to some where else, his face brightening and rising up in his seat staring into a space somewhere as a memory of his sister burst forth. He tried hard to remember where all his rings came from and the stories behind them.

I drew around his hands onto a mug and onto a plate- while holding and pressing his hands I felt a warmth between us, I sensed his vulnerability and the tremendous burden of his situation through the stories he told.

Blue inside my mug for sky... smiling

Jaoa's rings

Holding, containing, warm and cold, inside and outside, half full, half empty.

Claire Parker

coded by colours

Afternoon 1-3 @ The Booth Centre: Mcr Cathedral

The afternoon session whizzed by with Steve, Peter, Yvonne, Andy, David, Ivan & Colin. Alice worked with Colin building on his interest in a stitch or pattern he was interested in... at first saying he couldn't do it and then basking in the joy of having done it...

Alice's embroidery of Ivan and Yvonne

Peter and Yvonne beavered away working on some stitching and finishing off their collaborative project 'the teapot'. Alice brought  a beautiful piece of work having stitched some of the drawn faces of participants onto fabric. I was working on a complex embroidery of my own an embroidery of words with David.... he believed we were all wasting our time here in this place that it was all a monopoly board a game in which we are trapped- either in free parking or jail...the conversation was intense and tricky to follow, I was desperate to catch the threads he was trailing to make sense of he obvious bitterness and distrust of a system he felt trapped in. He talked of us all being numbers, all coded by colours and past lives. He drew a beautiful grid or map of this thoughts with a watching eye in the middle. I asked if I could photograph it but he said no, and later I found he had pulled out the page from my sketch book.

Alice and Colin

Towards the end of the session we were able to find a way to begin a collaborative piece on the large plate- placing hands to paint around we began the piece- perhaps a bit predictable – perhaps a bit cheesy, but I felt it was a lighthearted, fun and cheery way to end the session and a starting point for next weeks discussion and work.

William painting mug

Claire Parker

taz, he's a bit of a softy

Friday 8^th June The people behind the faces The warm/&/the/cold

Morning session @ The Big Issue Office 9-12

Claire Parker writes: The morning session at The Big Issue office was quiet. I was sorry not to spend time with Joe, he did appear but seemed not to see me and was in and out. The two students were great, enthusiastic and clearly very talented having been to a session before they knew what to expect and got on with some ideas of their own. Once the ceramic painting was set up I went out on the streets with Nathan who works in the Big Issue Office providing vendors with magazines and support. I accompanied him on his rounds of the available pitches, met up with Robbo, Kev, Andy, Chris, Taz the dog. 

# Your'e doing well Kev

# Yeah I think I am anyway... you wouldnt believe the changed Ive made...

# I know why I was drinking, it was a coping mechanism....

# Once he's had a drink he turns into a different person

# A proper cooked dinner, chicken and mash and gravy, not cold sandwiches

# Dont carry cash … im sick of hearing that one

# Al the crap in my life … too many steps backward

# Every day its getting harder to get out of bed

# Im in that place where I just …....

# I dont....I try to stay content with what Ive got

# taz... he's a bit of a softy

Taz the dog, Claire Parker

the news reader

Afternoon 1-3 @ The Booth Centre: Mcr Cathedral

I am always interested to see how people approach a new medium- the pottery and glazes on offer were approached with a combination of wariness,  have- a- go and curiosity. It was clear to see that the process and sense of sharing in the afternoon group experience was enjoyed by all, a comfort for some and an empowering experience for others. A great mix of people with a great variety of skills to develop and ideas to share. It felt a privileged to be a part of this project and has inspired me to look at other possibilities and projects with this client group. 

Yvonne painting ceramic teapot

The afternoon flowed well, starting with an address to the group and a communal reading of poems and words gathered in previous weeks. Many lively and interesting characters filled to small room. Ambassador David was a cheery breath of fresh air enrobed in a positive melancholy, he threw in snippets of tragedy amidst the comedy that he acted out personally and to the group. He worked on a mug which held a glimpse of the difficulties he has faced and overcome but continues to feel pain. Malcombe (the news reader) worked on a long latte mug carefully chosen amongst the huge mugs, tiny ones and ordinary cups. He worked in between snoozes as I guarded the pottery from sure disaster.

Humour and humility reigned over us throughout the session, I offered techniques and colours in the hope that an idea would spark. The warm and the cold was inspired by The poet Ted Hughes an introduced the bitter sweet themes around the warm and the cold.

Claire Parker

Ivan and Claire