where i’m sitting is a bit eerie, it’s slightly dark with no view of the outside world. the heatwave at the moment giving opportunities to practice making shade and keeping cool. our puppy still insists on looking out of the window.
reflecting upon my last post i see i was preparing for the open arts exhibition. i thought about writing about wether or not as a concept the open arts model needs modernising and staging in a more place by place way and i’d just started to write when the puppy started barking at someone and i totally forgot what it was i was going to tell you.
our visitor numbers were low for the open arts, which was nice as it gave us more time to talk and i had time to play with some new equipment in preparation for the up coming second iteration of silk mill non linear film.
the three works i showed proved to be interesting for visitors and they sparked many interesting conversations. on sunday we had several families arrive at once and the children amused themselves with the drawing machine while parents wandered and perused.
in the evening we gathered at home and cooked dinner on an open fire in the back garden. of all our meals this was my favourite.
while preparing for the open arts i also applied for a temporary freelance job at the derby silk mill museum. they were looking for an assistant for the lifelong learning programme, i applied and have been successful. the job is being shared between me and another assistant and as we familiarise ourselves with the summer programme i think its a good thing there are two of us.
the silk mill is currently hosting the weeping window poppy installation. on the opening weekend i was part of a facilitation team working a ‘make your own poppy’ workshop. it was also the derby book festival book fair. i’d never experienced the mill so full of people.
the making workshop uses a representation of the front cover of the local newspaper from 100 years ago to the day.
we have 6 saturdays worth of newspapers and it struck me when looking at them how life carried on at home while in central europe unimaginable things were happening. the local theatre had a different show every week.
this has underpinned an insight i got while helping our oldest daughter some years ago with homework about the second world war. her work was looking at tea dances and life at home during the war. until this my perception of war was very much focussed upon the fighting. as i’ve gotten older i have become aware of how there can be atrocity and killing happening in the country and the world while at home, life appears to remain the same.
