Artist in Residence – New Ferry Butterfly Park

I can’t quite believe that its only a month until the Open Day.

Sunday 8th MAY

So much to do yet, panic is starting to set in. The Caravan Visitor Centre actually has no floor at the moment as it was so rotten it fell through but I have every faith in my amazing husband/technician who is the worker of miracles.

The Butterfly Park has a work day tommorrow with 20+ volunteer workers coming from UniLever to help out, this is great and means that I can get some help with some of the projects. I have a whole day workshop making butterflies with schoolchildren Friday so can’t be there but my husband has taken the day off work and is going to supervise 2 volunteers to fix and fill the twigwam as it has some storm damage and 2 other volunteers will help him finish off the partition in the mobile allotment and make a roof cover so that I will actually be able to transport the trailer without the plants blowing away. I’ll be poppong to the park in the school lunch break just to make sure it’s all going well.

The only downside of Friday’s activities is that I’m missing the Opening of the Jaume Plensa exhibit at Yorkshire Sculpture Park AND the opening of Rebecca Chesney’s work there too, I was really looking forward to both, gutted that the date clashes.

I will be going up next week but would have loved to attend the open day, have my ticket ans everything :(

On another note, I really need a lesson in how to reverse with a trailer on the back of the car too, I’m all over the show at the moment.

I did a talk at a primary school assembly this week for the whole school, that was a bit daunting but actually went very well. Lovely kids and a really good reaction to the project.

I presented them with a buddleia plant for them to put in their school garden so that butterflies will be attracted to it when in flower. Then in April I have a full day of making butterflies with them and a further half day of them assisting me in planting up the mobile allotment.

I have an old wooden trailer and when I say old I mean truly knackered, it fell apart when delivered! So it needed a total rebuild but is now looking pretty fabulous, ready to have an A-frame fitted (primarily to protect any plants when in transit)

It will contain edible plants that attract butterflies and bees and will be used as an educational tool to tour local schools and community groups to show how easy it could be to plant in any small space and have butterflies and bees come to visit.

Will be planted with Marjoram, Thyme, Mint, Sage, Garlic, Chives, Oregano, Sorrel, Cabbage, Courgette, Runner Beans, Fennel, Strawberries and Lavender. I have local people growing seedlings at the moment.

Part of the trailer will be partitioned off with small self under which I can store small gardening tools/gloves/watering can and sat on top if the shelf will be planted items such as an old tin kettle, a boot (think Wall-E) and some pots/cans to prove to people that this can be done.

People can grow their own food and be at least partially self sustainable in any environment.

I had to give a presentation about the project as a whole last week as a trial for a much larger presentation this week and so did some research into other mobile allotments. There is some really great work going on out there.

Nils Norman’s ‘Geocruiser’ I have long admired. It’s a mobile greenhouse and educational resource centre, I think this was probably where my ideas first originated for both the visitor centre and the mobile allotment. Since I heard about Geocruiser in about 2006 I wanted to work on a project that had similar ideals.

www.a-n.co.uk/p/82423/

Kim Holleman’s ‘Trailer Park’ an amazing public park INSIDE a caravan that includes a park bench and a waterfall!

http://kimholleman.com/home.html

Lisa Cheung’s mobile allotment is another. http://www.mobileallotment.blogspot.com/and

Also there are plans for a mobile garden in Chicago (on a train) this has a particular resonance to me as the Butterfly Park was once an old railway sidings and is still situated right next to Bebington Train Station.

http://www.themobilegarden.org/mobilegarden/welcom…

I had so many other fantastic projects I wanted to talk about in the presentation but will do so for my Contextual Report that accompanies the project as part of my MA.

Still not well so no more work done but Butterfly Bunting for the van arrived today, thought I’d post a cheerful pic.

i posted all this in my MA blog rather than this one by accident so for the sake of continuity I’m reposting it.

I keep referring back to this blog for my course work and don’t want to miss bits out, apologies for anyone who read it twice but I’ll add a nice photo of the sparkling clean caravan too. My fabulous (tall) husband managed to reach up top and clean the roof, it took him all afternoon!!

RPT:

Best laid plans got scuppered due to vile illness , been off work and off working for this project all week.

I officially hate being ill.

I do not do it well, my creative thinking vanished!

In the midst of this, just as I began to feel ‘slightly’ human I had to take a group of school children on a tour of the park, pre arranged ages ago so had to go.

It went really well, the kids were all so polite and very interested, they followed me around listening intently and asking lots of questions. We talked a bit about the visitor centre that they will be making work for. I go into their school on 24th to do an assembly and discuss all this in detail with the rest of the kids.

Then because I’d been out in the rain, I got ill again :(

I did however manage to speak with my old lecturer at Wirral Met college and they’ve agreed to loan me one of their old plan chests for the duration of the summer. I’ll re-furb it into a lepidoptera cabinet for the visitor centre saving a small fortune not having to actually buy one, major bonus staying friends with other creatives.

The entries are in for the Butterfly Art trail, some really interesting ones amongst them. I’ll be presenting to the team this week (pending my feeling better) and looking for a decision on who to invite to join with us this year. Very excited.

I spent the best part of a full day jet washing and who knew – the caravan is indeed white!!

I’m now at the stage of wondering whether to paint it a jolly eyecatching colour or leave it white, theres a strip down the side perfect to put a vinyl sign with the Butterfly park name on and I could get vinyl’s of my drawings to go onto the white van which might be more inkeeping.

I’ve won quite a few old butterfly books on ebay now, really do need to get to more charity shops though. As I’m self funding everything I have a limit of £3 each on books but I do seem to have found some real beauties within that price range.

These will all be used as part of the little library within the centre, some to make into artists books for display purposes and some to use as part of the mini reference library itself.

I’m going to Liverpool Community college in the next 2 weeks to give a presentation to the tourism students who will be designing paraphernalia and re-branding the butterfly park as a centre for tourism. I’m really quite excited to see what we can all come up with to be honest and hoping it will be something that is ultimately useable and not just project based for the benefit of the course.