Fun Palaces Gloucester (by sarah)

Sunday was the first ever Fun Palaces weekend in Gloucester with events all over the UK. The event in Gloucester was organised by the accessible theatre company Two Can run by Nickie Wildin.

I was pointed in the direction of Fun Palaces by a mutual friend as it's ethos is similar to the Cuddly Science (my puppets and sci-craft activities) mission statement - Science for All and the idea that everyone should and can be part of science, art, music, sport = culture.

As a grass root, community driven event it needed contributors so we took the Puppets and did Cuddly Science and junk modelling and I did a poetry set.

Alaric helped with bunting and the girls did a lot of colouring!

There was a wide range of people who came along and took part which is absolutely ace as part of the issue I have is our society is increasingly segmented meaning people find it hard to relate to others as they have never had interactions with people who are different to them.

This included Phillip who sleeps in shop doorway most nights and who was excited to help decorate his home as we stuck the artworks up in the window. Mary decided he was her new best friend and cried when he left.

The space itself ie the shop was donated and the furniture for workshops was loaned from the community enterprise The Furniture Recycling Project.

Ada Lovelace the puppet came out and even did a few little jigs on the street to let people know we were there! Also it is coming up to Ada Lovelace Day again so it was good to let people know about Ada!

The puppets and sci-craft help engage people who have a tendency to be scared of science and is part of how I break down barriers but my workshops are also flexible so I also did general junk modelling and spoke to people about junk art and upcycling - I even have a booklet on the stuff I've written now!

Some truly amazing pieces came out of the workshop from tweeting pop out birds...

To fire breathing dragons and thanks to Mary lots and lots of night vision goggles!

Running workshops is exhausting but fun and everyone seemed to really be enjoying themselves 🙂

We also got to promote the Cheltenham Hackspace as there was a skills exchange board, Jean also kept trying to put my on it to teach stuff like knitting! People were asking about the Hackspace and I found several people had initiatives that could do with junk modelling, comic book creating or cuddly science 🙂 So it was really kind of epic for us!

Then there was the bingo! With Beryl 😀

Turns out I suck at bingo but the lady who won one of my Love: A Stranger Dream candles loved it and Phillip won the cake and then insisted on sharing it with us all. It was an epic cake I am kind of sad I failed to get a photo of it!

Two ladies from Gloucester Cathedral came along to tell us about the projects that are and will be happening there including letting people know about their breakfast club and that they are getting solar panels!

I love the Cathedral space so it was great to hear about things especially how they are planning on turning the front bit into a community garden.

They had also bought with them pictures of stained glass windows and some of the green men carvings for colouring in which went down well with everybody but especially with Mary 🙂

Then it was Spoken Word time - I opened the set with my visual poem and narrative piece Reclaim the City which is part of my Found Poems of the Concrete series. People seemed to like it - I went for the Gloucester theme rather than Fun or Palaces.

I had made booklets for everybody to take away with them as it relies on the images and also I know I personally find it hard to recall stuff when you get bombarded with a lot of cool new things - so it is there for people to look at later if they wish.

Of course I then made the audience participate in Windy Gloucestershire which I was going to read but kind of transposed into singing without me actually noticing!

I also did Summer Sun another song-poem but this time I did do the spoken version. Jean took some photos the one above of Al and the one below of the poet from Food for Thought which is a poetry night that happens at Cafe Rene.

Then we had the brilliant Donna Williams who is a sign poet, in Donna's case she uses British Sign Language or BSL. Sign language is something I've struggled with since the head injury - according to my kids I used to sign nursery rhymes and things for them and my husband says I was quiet militant about this incase any of them ended up with hearing problems like I had as a child, I wanted them to be able to communicate - because not being able to communicate is the MOST frustrating thing. My mum says the main issue is that I knew the rudimentary of 3 different sign language systems, enough to help in classrooms and when I used help her at the day centre but I was not proficient as it were, and now I've got all three of them all muddled up in my head.

Interestingly I understood what was being signed but would not have been able to sign back at all. And also Donna did run through what some of the sings meant as well as vocalising some of the poems.

Mary's favourite was about cats 🙂 I did video it but have since found a better recording on Youtube.

I have written about sign poetry before including here, though interestingly I can't find the stuff about the American poet who started my interest. I am wondering if it was in an essay for my PGCert or something.

Donna was lovely and I think I've seen her/met her before but I am still really struggling with face recognition at the moment! To the point that I could not work out who Nickie (the lady who had organised the event!) was when I arrived.

Twitter @DeafFirefly

Mary loved the event and Phillip so much that she had a melt down when it came time to pack up and leave. (And I mean melt down)

It was an amazing day and I hope we get to do it again next year. I met lots more creatives and found out about stuff in Gloucester - this is something I suck at - I will end up going off to Swindon, Bristol, Brum, London etc... and then finding out that there was a big culture spoken word, art etc... thing happening round the corner but only AFTER it has been and gone!

One last thing the decor of the shop was fab!

The Rock Pools (by sarah)

(Back blogged due to server migration issues)

On the last day beach outing in South Africa we came across the rock pools with many and varied creatures, some bright and some not so bright.

There were anenomes, barnicals, fish, clams, many bright shells and so on. Though some where deeper than others and all had fresh (though sea salty) water washing over them as we stood there watching. Some were deeper than others.

Mary was most taken with the red anenome 🙂

I liked the fact that the ripples in the sea water cast little rainbows even over the more subtly coloured creatures like this clam.

And as promised here are the fish 🙂 or some of the fish anyway 🙂

I probably would not have found the rock pools if Lionel had not pointed them out as they are sunk into fractures in the rocks which are slippery with algea. They were worth the slipping risk!

The girls loved the rockpools

Alaric spent ages with them looking in their wibbly wobbly depths 🙂

I just loved how you could see a whole little ecosystem there contained in a cradle of rock 🙂 It made me miss Ewan Laurie lessons and paleobiology and being shown byssal threads on field trips 🙂 I may have board the kids with all this along with dentition and muscle scars on shells which apparently I tell them everytime we are at a beach (oops!).

We actually came home with a book on the oceanic life in South Africa and I will attempt to look up some of what we saw. It also made me determined to do more with the poems and stories I've written about rock pools in the past 🙂

Beach Treasures (by sarah)

(Back blogged due to server issues)

We saw much wonderful bird, animal and plant life in South Africa, even the beach was teeming with it and I don't mean a few insipid jelly fish. No there were bright green little birds like the one in the just above - I was literally just walking along the beach on our last day trying to catch the rest of the family up as I'd stopped to take photos of rocks when it came and said hello!

This bird wasn't the only thing that was bright green - this succulent sea grass reminded me of the edible beach walks I used to have my my uncle Jim down at Stone. I did not attempt to see if this was edible - I'm not stupid honest!

Life just seemed to be bursting out of the seams and the cracks and I often did not know which this to take the photo of first!

I loved this root bent and barren looking and then at points like this... wham! Lots of new leaves and the struggle for life to get a choke hold continues 🙂

Even the sand had an attack of the algea - little Mary who truly came alive in South Africa though she was home sick bless - hurtled into me to announce she had found special green sand and could I tell her how a rock could be green! I probably would not have seen the green sand if she had not have done this 🙂

Each of us found a different aspect of this glorious shore to explore from Mary and her green things to Jean and the wave patterns to Lionel and the anenomes (more on them later!).

The Boulders Explore (by sarah)

(Back blogged due to server migration stuff!)

On the last day of our fantastic visit to South Africa we did not do much, we got up, I painted and the girls packed and then we headed out to the Boulders Beach. This was the first place the girls had come on the day we arrived - it is walking distance from Alaric's parents house. I'm not sure if there whole area is called Boulders or if each beach/bay thing had a separate name but none the less this was the beach and it has boulders on it!

On the first day me and Alaric went shopping with Lionel so we did not go to the beach but the girls did and they saw a penguin catch fish and feed it too its babies (once Mary had move back and was convinced to be quiet!).

We'd come here on other days too and Jean always insisted we went in and paddled - the water is cold enough that my feet went blue neither of the girls seemed to notice though and had a grand time making up games of the sea chasing them and little sea goblins and splash you with extra high waves that sneak up on you!

We found all sorts of treasures along the beach and hidden in the rocks and the girls asked questions and me and Lionel could general answer. I got very excited about the rocks!

I took many many photos and after discussion with Alaric have decided that I will split photos of events etc... over several blog posts to make them more managable for people and also to stop you all nagging me as it takes longer to make the longer posts!

Before the lens… (by sarah)

There was the brush...

I took a little set of travel water colour paints and a sketch book with me to South Africa, and I painted, generally from memory. I also sketched in pen bits I saw around me especially when the camera kept running out of battary!

Lynn an Lionel's garden or a montage of bits of it anyway 🙂

I know you are all eager to see the photos of penguins and lions but I thought I would share the paintings and the non-annotated pen sketches. Turns out I can't help but keep a field book and I will confess I had to keep reminding myself that correct angle and scales were not needed for photographs either!

Here at least are some paintings of Mary's animal friends 😉

Now I wasn't taking particular care with the paintings, or sketches part of it is trying to over come my fear of being watched when creating art. I loose my ability when I feel I am being scrutanised.

On the plane I looked out of the window and imagined what it was going to be like - I looked at the layered sky and tried to hold the image until we got to the hotel. I also tried to think of what symbolised the journey.

Also I am still learning how to paint water colours - still learning how to paint and draw one handed (though I am determined to get left hand back properly at some point!).

There were lots of plants and flowers and landscapes to paint. Alot just at the house itself.

I found myself thinking of the exquisite pictures that Darwin and other naturalists produce and whilst at Lynn and Lionel's I read a book about whales by artist Noel Ashton. I know I can not produce those sorts of images at least not without taking a long long time on each and then colouring pencils would be my choice. But I wont to learn water colours and I want to get better at live drawing and quick drawing - to get my freedom of the mad dash image back.

I like doing precise things but also to just take the impression and the feel of the thing. I love mucking around with styles and mainly I was aiming to just capture the essence of the day.

The Aquarium offered me birds as well as fish and a rookie mistake with a flat battery and no camera.

I loved the variety of shapes and colours everywhere - I was worried I'd have a large seizure and forget it all, all this wonder so I set about capturing as much of it as I could - I took nearly 2000 photos!!!

Cowfish are yellow by the way but I only had a green pen on me for the sketching. I had a limited pallet with the water colours too but that was fine really.

And of course there are a couple of kids stories I have written which I feel can only be illustrated by a certain style of water colour painting and so I need to learn how to paint that style.

I also wrote a few more whilst out there and had ideas for even more!

Rocks of course feature heavily in the painting, drawings and photography - well I am a geologist by training... love.

This ammonite mug was my favourite coffee mug and was there most of the time I was painting.

This is a cycad or "dinosaur tree" it is not the best but I can tell what it is and I put dots underneath it as we saw many cycads on the day we had our faces painted.

If we ever manage to get back to South Africa - something we would all dearly love then I would also take my sketching pencils and my mapping pens/fine liners (as well as a spare battery for the camera and a back up camera!).

Catching the mood also meant being inspired by the place and one such place was the Redemption Cafe in the Biscuit Mill. I loved the skull prints they had on the walls and it got mixed up with the surfing Jean had done as we talked over lunch.

The image was a montage of thoughts that wanted to be together.

There were things we did not manage to do and see including getting to the Cradle of Mankind and a few more sanctuaries and we hardly touched the museums, galleries or theatre stuff.

Textures can be hard to achieve in water colours I find so I did quiet a bit of experimenting - mainly at the side of the pages but I did do a few pictures that were all about texture.

Some paintings had multiple layers of wet and dry paint which reduced how quickly I could produce the image I wanted.

I painted the mood of sunset below the mountain in front of a wonderful pizza place. But most of the paintings where merges and mixes of what I had seen, I have taken many photos which I plan to paint more detailed and accurate images from now that I am back in the UK.

But I still have a head full of images so am still painting straight from the brain!

I would have liked a chance to find more local literature to read or listen too 🙂 I read most of a collection of Speculative Fiction which contained local authors and will be ordering a copy if I can to finish it.

Even without getting to galleries etc... we saw some amazing artworks but more on them later 🙂