hi hat & snare

i’m a big fan of this time of year, i get to wear my most comfy trousers and when it’s cold outside my legs feel warm as toast.  our forest school sessions now include darkness with head torches and led lights to illuminate our base.  being in the wood at night under the lights has a warm snuggly community feel about it.

today i’ve been to see the wards on which i’ll be working to deliver an outreach project of the derby silk mill: museum of making.  i’ve mentioned this project in previous posts.  i’ve shown an image of the 1:10 model of the shelves and am pleased to now show the 1:1 model…

so far the model hasn’t been taken any further as the material we were considering was going to fail the infection control measures.  i hope in the future that i’ll be able to complete this make and use the shelves on another outreach project.

the current outreach project will feature a chair made from acrylic with drawers and a light up back.  we’re determined that our presence on the wards generates conversations both with the patients and the staff.

i’m also currently working on a film commission for the derby silk mill and have started a separate blog about it.

my forest school for men idea is gaining a bit of momentum, i have a funder interested in me applying for funds to run a pilot scheme.  i’m now starting to work on connecting with men to work with.

our recent family holiday helped me to recharge and refresh.  while we were away i played and experimented a bit …

during my silk mill residency i spoke to many people during the times open to the public.  one of the most significant conversations was with a lady who was researching her public realm strategy development proposal for the mill.

within the high energy environment of the figment festival i saw her again and didn’t know what would develop.

i don’t really understand what it is she’s working on and i’ve said so in our ongoing email exchanges.  what is  inspiring though is that my position is embraced and woven into our verbal conversations around the subject.  in conversation it makes more sense.  once again i learn about my processing of language within specific forms.

in the last 2 weeks we’ve been chatting about a brief inviting responses loosely formed around an idea of mapping.  i was invited to propose something.  i kept my shared thoughts simple, shared some examples of previous work and have been invited to create the work.  it’s important for me to record i was able to propose something because of our dialogues.   this is in line with my research in 2014 where i discovered successful proposals involved verbal dialogues within the process of responding to them.

i’ve begone my initial research for the project.

at the time of writing about the residency de-brief i mentioned the steam tots programme.  that’s been growing in popularity and i’ve been gaining lots of experience and had many conversations with parents.

i’ve taken part in a stitching workshop at the mill.  over the summer i observed at a distance groups stitching and wanted to learn more and start to bridge the gap i’d started to feel.  i’ve learnt some basic stitches and applied these to a net panel with cutouts of my hands.  visitors to the mini maker faire later in the month will be able to see all the panels from the workshop being assembled into one piece.  my panel is the one with two left hands.

as well as beginning something i’ve finished something.  a personal project in the kitchen at home.  it’s taken three iterations to complete lighting the kitchen cupboards.  one cupboard is the master, generating the changing led states and the other via a wireless connection is the slave following what happens in the master.  i’m rather pleased to have finished it.  i’ve developed some new desktop images from the documentation photographs.

there’s something else happening too.  i agreed to be part of the mobile project lab project at the mill.  the project will take the museum experience out to the derby hospital and is aiming to include visits to patients on wards as well as day rooms and waiting rooms.  the research for the project arrived at two objects being needed, one for the bedside visits and one for the room settings.  my current main role is to prototype the display unit for the room setting and to add some complimentary led illumination to the bedside chair.

the shelves many many criteria to fulfil, not least that they can be transported in a taxi.  my research has been around arriving at something made from cardboard.  the museum currently has objects on display in transparent hex pods, made in house during the re:make project.  the idea being that the object is fully observable from all sides.

i’ve picked up on the hexagon and have been prototyping a maquette that will be next worked up into a full size model for team approval.

the steam powered maker residency has now finished with one last meeting to discuss and de-brief about the time at the mill.

it was a really positive thing to do with much open and honest discussion and it was said that as a group our openness and honesty had made the residency process a very positive one for the staff of the mill.

our time finished with a gathering around maker steve’s work about process and a small impromtu party discussion feeling descended upon the mill.

and beyond … steam tots

steam tots at the silk mill.  i met with chris to have a pre-play and get a feeling for the space with all the loose parts assembled for the first time.

the following day we met again to take the steam tots activity live for the first time.  we editted the space and readied ourselves for the children and parents to arrive.  i really liked how chris made a little colouring oasis for those how needed a way into the loose parts free play session.

around us we’d created controlled scattering of parts and we liked what we saw when we stood back in preparation.

the session was well attended with a range of ages and abilities. the children got stuck in and soon we started to see new arrangements of the parts emerge.

even one of the dads became involved and i loved what he made ….

and beyond … the 12 window clock.

i’ve mentioned before the clock idea based upon the windows of the silk mill.

i’ve needed to research how to make a window at scale.  what came out of the laser cutter is rather dare i say … cute.

now i have a physical form to play with i’ve begun to research how to place the rgb led into the form.  i under estimated the fiddly ness of this and what i need to do to make it happen.

work continues…

ahead of our de-brief meeting i’ve been  reflecting about the steam powered maker residency at the silk mill in derby.

to help me through the process i’ve begun making a maquette of an idea i had in the first few weeks of the residency.  i’m interested in how 12 windows might be  used within a context of a clock.

today i’ve been working on the arduino code of the project.  by lunchtime i’d managed to create a solution to a problem and loose it again while trying to refine it.  as i prepared lunch i reflected upon the amount of failure i experience while coding and how in the past an accumulation of code not working has left me with moods that i have had to manage while i work towards finding the solution to the problem.

today i impressed myself with the no drama way  with which i dealt with the realisation of the fact that my code did not work.

is this new ability as a result of my residency at the mill?

i’ve certainly enjoyed leaving the house to go somewhere to make.  i’ve enjoyed being around others and sharing their making experiences along with my own.

being a steam powered maker gave me time off from my art practice. time off from looking rigorously at myself.

i have started to gently reconnect to how i might express something…

working at the mill has showed me to importance of somewhere to go to work.  somewhere laid out that things to make with are to hand.  somewhere where there are spaces in which to make.  somewhere where there is space to walk away from the make.

today i’ve been working inside my comfort zone and i’m happy.

during the residency i experienced times outside of my comfort zone  and was still happy.

tomorrow i’m back at the mill for a meeting and a  workshop and i’m really looking forward to them both.

while at university i attended various meetings where things were  said with passion and meaning.  these meetings overflowed into social media discussions and led into certain aspects of belief and passion.  to protect myself i connected to my right to listen.

this week i’ve practiced this at home with a request to not be read certain types of posts from my families facebook timeline.  i did this to protect myself from aspects of world events that i find difficult to process and have seen how over time the storey modifies and lessens in severity.

the whole global terrorism storey being presented to us by the mainstream media has for some time now been something that i choose to listen to when i’m ready to hear.  i grew up being fearful of going to london because of the potential of an ira bomb.  that was terrorism sourced outside of the media.  at a personal level do i defeat terrorism as portrayed by the media by simply not listening to it?

for some time i’ve quietly listened to my mobile phone at night for if a text arrived.  i’ve lived in preparation for when i receive a text concerning the health of my mum.  it’s not something i particularly want to listen out for.

i’ve not been close to my mum, i hadn’t seen her for 12 years.  i had spoken and tried to connect and understand.  i do have a better understanding.

the text i had prepared myself for so long arrived on tuesday night.  less than 12 hours later, the phone call.  i don’t know how old my mum was.