Artist in Residence – New Ferry Butterfly Park

I am obviously becoming addicted to vintage caravans, when I said in my last post that every city should have it’s own caravan artwork I meant it – now I have come across this little gem opening in June 2011.

Huttenpalast in Berlin, an old warehouse, transformed into a hotel by going vintage. Each *bedroom* is a vintage caravan or hut of some form.

http://inhabitat.com/huttenpalast-salvaged-campers…

What a simple and yet amazing idea.

I’m loving it :)

I want to build a hotel now too.

I’m not sure if I’ve posted this either but here’s a link to the facebook photo’s showing my caravan visitor centre from murky start to sparkly finish.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.20234851…

I am loving twitter lately, found so many great people + ideas to follow. (inc @artists_talking obviously)

I tweet as @cazramsay but also for the Butterfly Park as @wirralbutterfly.

I’ve found @wearecaravan today. An Edinburgh based gallery/creative space in a caravan http://wearecaravan.tumblr.com/

With them + the caravan gallery (@caravangallery) and my own wee visitor centre caravan we are invading the art world, maybe this will be a new thing.

The caravan gallery have been going for a few years now and are really successful, maybe they have set a precedent and more restored caravan creative spaces will come out of the woodwork.

Every city should have one :)

Also discovered @allotinabox which does exactly what it says on the box – it’s an allotment (well, all the seeds you need to start one) in a box. I’m going to look into this more, would be great to be able to hand out allotinaboxes when I’m out + about with the mobile allotment, obviously only if some of the plants tie in with our butterfly/bee attracting ideal.

Exhaustion has led to me not updating my blog – apologies.

The New Ferry Butterfly Park Open Day last week was fantastic, the caravan was finished in time and the day went really well.

Amazingly well, we had over 500 visitors during the afternoon.

Our local MP, Alison McGovern opened the caravan visitor centre officially and really seemed to love all the work, which is great.

My lecturers came and one of the ladies from my MA course, an old family relative I’d never met that my dad hadn’t seen for 50 years turned up after finding out about it on facebook – quite remarkable.

Lots of the local shops sponsored the day in some way and so many of the people attending lived close by and yet still I had people saying ‘I never even knew this place existed’.

The headmistress of the school that i have been doing all the workshops with came by and loved seeing all their work in one place. I recognised a good few of the kids too.

A few people approached me about doing art workshops in their schools and I’ve made some great contacts for workshops in the park over the summer.

The artists all got their work up for the trail in time and ALL of them looked fabulous, so many positive comments flying around.

4 of the art stall holders let me down, one I knew about a few weeks before which was absoloutely fine, 2 let me know a few days before and one just didn’t bother turning up, how rude! When I emailed her afterwards to check all was ok I got a one line email saying, ‘sorry got my dates mixed up’…..that was it.

As it happens the artists who did come along were all so good we didn’t need the others, the work on the tables was beautiful and I just wish I had some money left to actually buy some for myself.

The caravan did look really professional by the end,(unrecognisable compared to when I started) some friends came to help that last 2 days for one last push and one (thanks Julie) stayed with me til midnight the night before to help with the artifying of it all.

It was very well used during the day, lots more childrens drawings to add to our display folders. Success and such a relief!!!!

I have spent all week trying to recover but amidst a hospital visit (I dropped a table on my foot on the open day), work, a studio Open night (light night)and making work for a charity fundraising day and a *different* charity art auction I failed to succeed with any rest so this week I will mainly be catching up with some sleep.

One week left until the Open Day and I am praying that the weather stays so great.

There are butterflies in abundance at the park this week, it’s too early for a lot of them but the sun has brought them out regardless.

If it’s cold or rainy next week we wont see a single one….however there will be a lot of new artworks to see.

Carolyn Shepherd has installed her piece of work, it looks great already though will grow with the park and will look even better over the course of the summer when the nettles at the back have grown up more. The work will then blend into its surroundings more.

Julie Dodd has begun the install of her plastic bottle butterflies, the shadows through the plastic onto the container are beautiful – more realistic than the butterflies themselves, though their simplicity is a vital part of the piece, the shadows seem to tell a different story.

Roy Lewis work is next to go in, a sundial made entirely from old motorbike parts. It’s stunning but Roy is an ex motorbike mechanic he doesn’t class himself as an artist at all, after seeing the piece I beg to differ.

Terry Hayes is having trouble with his resin casts, he assures me all will be well and will install Friday. Fingers crossed.

Leandra Holder + Chris Turrell-Watts will install Saturday, this piece is certainly more craft based than contemporary art but I’m sure once the sun catches the light on the recycled glass butterflies hanging in a tree the effect will be quite lovely.

Will the addition of craft into the trail make it a provincial art show? I’d like to think not, I think though we are a small nature reserve in an off the road Urban Wirral setting we seriously could stand up against some of the more well known contemporary art trails. I worry about the ‘craft’ effect but then I think there is something for everyone at least. The Open Day will have a small village fete kind of feel I hope but will nonetheless contain some very credible artworks.

The Mobile Allotment is growing well, I’ve only had to transplant one parsley plant and that was simply because I’d forgotten to put drainage holes in the bottom of a teapot.

The Caravan Visitor Centre is on something of a tight schedule.

SO much work has had to go into refurbishment that though all my plans are done I’ve yet to start making it into a visitor centre.

Presently it is rot free and has had a respray. The lepidoptera drawers are made, most of the art books are made , the posters, photo’s flyers, brochures etc are all done.

My husband/art technician has worked ridiculously hard just to get it in a road worthy condition, walls are going in finally today + tomorrow. I will be painting on Thursday and then have one day left to actually put everything in place before install on Saturday.

There will be very little sleep happening this week.