I’ve been asked to run two workshops for young people ( 16 -24 year olds) Any topic, as long as its something I’m comfortable with.
The first one is on making hand made books, but now the organisers think it might be ‘too old’ for that age group. Although its not til September, I’m reluctant to change it. It is on the Museum website, but young people generally don’t search webpages, so I’ll have to make sure it goes on social media and vamp it up a bit.
I’ve just thrown in the random topic of ‘junk jewellery’ for the second workshop , desperately hoping that’s more appealing to their age group.
16 -24 is such a difficult age group. Younger, and you can make ‘fun things…older, you can teach virtually any skill… but in between…. ??
So my task this afternoon is to write some blurb that makes junk jewellery sound absolutely amazing…. without sounding desperate .
On Tuesday afternoon, I took down the installation at Chester Cathedral.
Really, it was a case of just putting them all in boxes, trying to keep colours together. Still a back breaking job though.
I noticed that some were starting to come apart. It was probably partly caused by the damp in the cathedral and partly the glue that was used by some of the people who had made fish at home.
I suspect it was pritt stick or something similar. Its great of course for doing simple, clean workshops, but not good in the long run.
Also, a few fish were squashed , despite the barriers. I guess that’s young kids running into it. No ones fault – we all know what kids are like and it can’t be helped.
Just means extra time needed for repairs when it moves on.
Yes, its going to one of the churches I ran a workshop at. Much smaller obviously, and it’ll be going in front of the altar which means I’ll have to re think the design again.
Suggestions have been made for it to tour to larger places out of the area, but I’m really tied to my contract and have no say in what happens to it.
Next time though …….. !!
Yesterday was both the opening AND closing event for the #CastTheNetWide #vision project.
It was held at Chester Cathedral where they had set up four large screens which linked with several churches in the Diocese.
There was a service and each of the churches were able to say how the project went . Afterwards, everyone went to look at my installation and the wall of comments/thoughts that people had written about the church.
The aim of the project – in my eyes anyway, was to encourage people to go back to church and most of the vision cafes were to encourage people to talk about what was holding them back. What put them off.
My installation was really a chance for people to get involved and encourage conversation and then perhaps get others to come along, look and maybe learn.
I don’t know what the outcome will be. I hoped my input helped.
One of the churches at which I ran one of the workshops, asked if the installation can be shown with them. I’m more than happy with that as it seemed such a lot of work to be only on display for two weeks.
The only issue is though that my contract ends at the end of the month, so if help install ( which I would rather do) I would have to do unpaid.
Well my installation is up and running, after an exhausting 6 hours of hard work yesterday.
The new site for the work ( which I hadn’t seen until yesterday) had been temporarily used as a chapel / prayer space, so the altar and chairs had been hastily removed before our arrival. This resulted in a woman getting quite cross with me during the install, asking where should she pray now – and when was that ‘stuff’ going to be removed (!)
She did come back later and apologised though.
Although slightly smaller than the original room I was planning to install in, it was much brighter and better access for the public.
A steady stream of visitors strolled past, asking questions the entire time we were there.
It was also great to see so many taking photos of the work as it was nearing completion.
Although the exhibition is only on for a relatively short time, I think more people will get to see it than they would if it were in a gallery space.
Also, Chester Cathedral have promoted the project on their Twitter and Instagram pages, which have a huge amount of followers, so hopefully lots of people will get to see images if they can’t visit in person.
I’ve accepted the new space now.
No, I still haven’t seen it in person, but what’s done is done.
My latest concern was about publicity. I did a search and apart from one piece on a Chester website , in which there was a bizarre quote allegedly from me – where on earth did that come from ??? There was no mention about the exhibition anywhere as far as I could see.
So I set up a facebook event.
I can only assume (hope!) that a newsletter had been sent out to let people know what’s happening .
The whole experience has been so different to how I would approach things if I were to do a self led exhibition. I have to learn to stand back though and accept that this is how some organisations work.
