LEXI AND FRAN MEET U3A, and A VISIT TO CROFTLANDS

A full and succesful day....Members of the University Of The Third Age Mixed Media Art Group were among the visitors to Fran and Lexi's open session at the Coro today. The group meets regularly at the Coro and comprises  a wide range of skills and approaches, so  there was a lot of interest in  the commissioned artist's work, and  in the wider project .  

Comments include.." Amazing explosion of creativity in this room! Enjoyed trying to pinpoint the places in the chldren's work + hearing about Fran and Lexi's processes + seeing
their beautiful interpretations of mapping.."

John and Alex then went to Croftlands to meet a hand-picked group of the schools' best artists and introduce them to the project.
 The boys and girls began work immediately, taking photos of details of the landscape around the school which will be fed into the mix of collage material at their sessions at the Coro. We asked them to look for colour, surface and texture...this is random sample of the  lovely images that came back.  A very good start, we think.

FRAN, LEXI AND VISITORS AT THE CORO.

 

Another successful open session at the Coro, this time with Lexi and Fran  who were both putting together ideas and preparing materials for their commissioned pieces. It was great to see a group of felters and textiles artists talking about their methods,  swapping ideas and contacts, and to be able to share work in progress such as Fran's books and her versions (below) of the maps made by our schools.This is exactly the kind of interaction we hoped would happen through this project.   Furthermore, we'll be sending this blog to a school in Reading via one of our visitors, and we had another school in Sheffield showing interest too. Thanks to all our visitors,  we'll be following up your suggestions and sending out more info.

WORK IN PROGRESS: LEXI

"....First stage of felting of the Church Walk School piece, no longer a 3D sculpture Hoad as I calculated I would probably need several flocks of sheep! It will be partly 3D when its finished though........."

MEET LEXI AND FRAN AT THE CORO

Our next dates at the Coro', where you can catch up with the project , meet our Commissioned Artists and see what they are up to.

LEXI'S DYES

An update from Lexi on her fleece dye , with a nice message to the Church Walkers..

"Nettle and hawthorn blossom collected locally and dye extracted ready to begin dyeing some fleece for the pieces next week.

The finished piece of work by the school I saw on facebook this morning looks absolutely great by the way :)"

DAY SIX AT THE CORO: SIR JOHN BARROW

Our second session with SJB's Year One boys and girls was one of the best we've had...we came up with a system and it worked!

We numbered the various parts of the piece and the boys and girls formed into groups in order to add the next layers  of colour and texture to their aerial view  of the school and its surrounds.  When one area was finished, those boys and girls were teamed up with another...and gradually THIS happened...

Very impressive, you'll agree. The boys and girls were very focussed on their work, and had plenty of support from the adults that came with them. The next session will be about filling in the gaps and maybe adding a few personal touches ..

Well done Year One, thanks for your lovely work.

AT THE CORO WITH PETE DENT

A really enjoyable and productive first day in residence at the Coro with Pete.  We've been auditioning sounds and editing video, and there have been visitors in and out all day so we've been able to introduce Pete and the wider project to people from Ulverston as well as visitors to the town from Rugby and Southport.  Visitors have heard Pete's recordings and  talked about his methods and  we've also had the Church Walk piece on display, and that's gone down well too.

 Keep looking here and in the local press / notice boards etc for details of Fran, Lexi and Pete's next sessions in the Coro. 

I'll be here solo from time to time  working on the video and generally faffing around so if you see that we're here, come in.

We've been collecting comments and e-addresses  as we go, in order to get opinions on what we are up to keep people informed....here's a sample from what people had to say..

"v. creative, lovely to see work drawing on the local environment"

" Great, very interesting project! Keep the good work going!"

"What a great idea to get children (and adults) interested in their local area. Well done."

" Enjoyed seeing / hearing how sounds can be used creatively. Loved the models."