It’s only seventeen days since GRAIN ended but it feels like months as there was Easter and a trip to Austria in between then and now.
I’ve got a clear head and a good distance from the project and can now focus on the activity report for the Arts Council. I need to evaluate the project anyway to see where it worked and where I can improve next time.
I got 104 very good comments in my comment book, which is very encouraging. It did go very well only that now I’ve got 30 bags of soap shavings in and around my house and I’m not sure yet what I’ll do with them. I’d like to use them in another project and certainly can’t throw them away. In addition there are about 80 soap grains left which I’m still giving out to people who couldn’t make the project. The left over soap bricks I’ll use in more soap carving workshops. The next one is with the BEAVER/Scouts.
I’ll still keep this blog going as I found it a really useful practice to summerise my working day every evening .
I’ve handed over the Grain Warehouse keys yesterday after my last workshop. The people who took part in the last workshop helped tidying up and it all went a lot smoother and quicker than I thought it would. I left the main space of the Grain Warehouse empty apart from the carving trolley and stool. My little grain store has about one hundred grains left piled up and about twenty heavy duty bags of shavings. I’ll deal with all that when I return from Austria on the 11th April.
I feel still a bit spaced out and not quite sure were to put myself. I know I’ve got to deal with the Report for the Arts Council now which will be good for me and make me reflect on what happened during the project and where it left me.
I had such a great time during my first two days of soap carving workshops with home educated children and their parents and got lots of encouraging feedback. I’ve taken lovely images of the creations children and parents made today and then realised that there wasn’t a card in my camera and all the images I took are non existant. I’m devastated. I’ll make sure that does not happen tomorrow. I might get some photos from the the parents.
I’ve put most of the soap shavings surounding the carving trolley in bags today (with the help of two of the children and the mum that came to one of the workshops) and realised that there is as mass of them to be stored somewhere now. It was lovely because it turned out that my helpers were not only from Austria but from the same province I’m from and we’ll stay in touch.
Lots of the oversized soap grains have gone but there is still a considerable pile left. There are soap bricks left too, enought to do at least another two days of workshops if not more. I’ve got another one lined up with the Beavers/Scouts later in April and possibly one at the LUSH shop in Sheffield. The have kindly offerend to help with storage when I talked to the manageress at the Finishing Event. I’ll take them up on their offer. It would be quite nice to do some soap carving there.
I feel I need some mind space to reflect on the whole month. The report I have to do for the Arts Council might help with that. It was such an enriching and intense exprience. Everybody I met through the project was absolutely wonderful and supportive.
Tomorrow I’ll be working with children and parents I contacted individually and have met through my own children and the school they attend.
Workshops today went really well. The children were between four and eleven and their parents enjoyed soap carving as much as themselves. I need some more tools for tomorrow, they were just enough but better to have more. The ones I orderd over the web still havn’t arrived so hopefully on the way. They all wrote me lovely comments, including the children.
Didn’t take enough images of their work and the workshop in general, but it’s tricky when you are hosting it as well.
Started putting shavings around carving trolley in black bags. Got some more heavy duty ones from B&Q on the way home after workshops.
Fran found it hard to take images during the event last night because of low light levels and people moving around a lot so they are too blurry she thought. Didn’t think of that and it’s a shame but it was tricky.
Michelle left after the first workshop and it was great to have her here. Maia went back to Bristol too and I’ll miss her.
Today felt special for several reasons. It has been my last day carving grain in the Grain Warehouse although tomorrow it will still be open during workshops. A woman called Vicky came and she absolutely loved the work and made me feel really good. She said she would come to the Finishing Event later. There were another few people in while I picked Michelle up from the train station. It is really great that Michelle from LUSH came all the way up from Pool to see the Project, come to the Finishing Event and the first workshop tomorrow morning.
Emma was with me in the space all day and that was nice too. She helped getting some of the stuff ready for the evening and was very supportive.
Maia and I arrived at Grain Warehouse at 5.30pm to get space ready. Very quickly after 6pm people started coming and there was a real buzz. I just sat and continued carving while talking to people and also trying to introduce some of them to Michelle and some other people.
There were Lou who came over from Hull; Julie Swallow, I’m glad she made it; Brian and Richard came again, which was nice; Utk and Suzanne revisited too; there was Helen from my MA course and Sue with two friends; Helen, Pete, Joe, Rosie and Megan; Mharie, Paul, Honor, Erien and Kitty; Juan, Jo, Corin and Anes; Sarah Wenham; David Lobo, who did some work for me in the space and from whom I rented the carving trolley and stool; Judy and Suzanne; Lynn, who I’ve known since my BA; some BA students; Mike, Mik and Richard from Nick’s work and that was lovely; Caroline, Jenny and another friend of theirs; Madeleine with her three daughters; Katie, Tilly and Phoebie; Vanessa Boddye, completely unexpected, who sorts me out with massages (a real treat); some people from the LUSH shop in Sheffield an I talked to one of them and her dad; Vicky, the woman that visited the project earlier and said she would come back for the event; the couple from Cafe 1819 with their daughter; and these are only the ones I know and remember from the night.
Maia reckonded there were about eighty people in total. Fran tried to document the evening but found the low light level tricky so unfortunately there aren’t many images that capture the atmosphere.
Although Maia made sure everybody took a grain, there is still a big pile left. More will go after workshops tomorrow.
