Exhibition In Braille Sneak-Peek (by sarah)

Tomorrow Saturday 24th September 2011 sees the Exhibition in Braille a touchy feely art attraction set up by Centre Arts to raise money for the Gloucester County Association for the Blind. Tickets cost £5 and are avaliable at the doors which are open 12-7pm.

There are some really cool things there for you to touch and feel and an interactive braille table to boot!

Here are a few sneak peaks but you can not know the majesty of these pieces without actually going and feeling them!

The exhibition has been put together with the blind and visually impaired in mind and as such bright vibrant and therefore easier to see colours have been used in some of the pieces and there is also a bueatiful light sculpture.

Then we come to my piece - the giant coral I have been working on for what seems like forever!

Which I set up last night 🙂 Complete with beads for the molecular sand! There are also MP3s of some of my poems that I felt where a good counter point to the visual/textural piece there to listen too 🙂

One Year of Guitar Playing… (by sarah)

So it is a year since I decided to actually learn the guitar properlly and to practice each day rather than having a guitar sitting there gathering dust with like three strings on it - on which I could pluck (when it had all the strings obviously) the intro to Nothing Else Matters and play one Tori Amos song very slowly and very badly.

I was going to upload several videos but then Alaric pointed out that I might as well just up load the only one of my songs I have guitar stuff worked out for - it is the one I played at the open mike earlier this year.

I'm afraid the singing (and indeed in many places the guitar playing) is a little iffy, and no doubt the song will have song writers rolling their eyes. But I'm proud of having written this song and having guitar music for it 🙂

I also happen to have a small seven month old person trying to rip my boot off whilst I am playing!

Still Bleeding (by sarah)

Yep seven months on and I'm still bleeding - doubling the hormone tablets didn't work so they suggested the Mirina coil which I had fitted about two weeks ago - it was horrible and ouchy and then cramps had me wacked for the rest of that day.

And... well the bleedings gotten worse - I'm still taking the hormone tablets and it could take 6 months for the coil to work/settle down. I'm feeling exhorsted again and being thick so assuming I'm anemic again so have restarted the suppliments.

At this rate I'm going to have been bleeding for over a year before it settles down - which is not good - mainly though because I know I can go swimming with a tampon in but euw and yuck and I'm not going to be doing that. Now in my original plan for after birth fitness I should have been swimming from the point my c-section wound had heeled enough - and as swimming is the only excersise I can do without incredible amounts of pain this is a problem.

There are other health issues going on as well with my eyes and stuff which is making me feel a little angry with the world again but on the plus side - my pelvis is so much better which frees me up alot.

Milestone (by sarah)

So yesterday Alaric picked me and the girls up in his lunch break and dropped us off in Gloucester at the nearest he could to the City Museum. I had a crutch shoved in the basket and handle and limped my way painfully and slowely to the museum with Jean chatting. We went in and I was relieved to find seats liberally spread out though I really could have done with more but understand that they don't want to clutter the exhibitions.

We coloured dinosuars and Jean investigated urban night life and put a Roman helmet on and so on. We even went for a drink in the cafe before attempting the lift and going upstairs - this is where it went a bit wrong - it appears that my pushchair is too long for the wheelchair platform lift thingy (which mainly gets used for pushchairs). Part of me does wonder if they just expect parents to carry the puchchairs up the stairs because Al struggles with that one :/ Baby plus supplies plus decent pushchair/pram that doesn't tip over and that I can use as a psuedo frame is heavy!

Anyway it had only cost me £2 to get in so I wasn't too disheartened but the faffing with the lift had acted the pelvis up so we walked very slowely to Jean's choice of lunch Mac Donalds where I spent the rest of the afternoon knitting whilst Jean played with her happy meal toy and Mary mainly slept.

It is a milestone because though painful and one leg ended up just dragging and having to be then man handled into the car - I did it and know that this can now only improve.

And actually it was easier than when I was first attempting this with Jeany as I had a helpful Jeany there who was incredibly helpful.

Poetry-Craft etc… (by sarah)

Saturday ie tomorrow I will be doing a quick poetry reading in the Waterstones in Cheltenham with some fantastic other poets (it's a quick one as I'm running away to a family wedding!). This event is organised by the Cheltenham Poetry Festival who have been putting on some fantastic events through out the year. The readings in the Waterstones are going to be the first Saturday of each month 11-2pm.

Another event that they are running is Poetree in the Park - the last one got in the news paper along with a cute picture of Jean holding up a poetry dragon 🙂

I'm going to be running an number of workshops and courses mainly for kids for the Festival and the new Center Arts in Cheltenham on top of the craft workshops I do for festivals anyway 🙂 They are also holding an Exhibition in Braille in September which I hope to have a textural art piece in (made of papier mache of course!).

On top of that I hope to have the poetry book sorted soon and also take the Monster Writing Game to the next level. I do however need more outlets for my art work - I may get an exhibition soon but I need to be in shops and stuff more than doing craft fairs each Sunday. The trouble with that I've been finding is that you have to spend money out in the first place to buy shelf space very few places do it on commission. I would also love as I think I mentioned about three years ago now :/ to become a member of the Gloucester Guild of Craftsmen but again it takes money and I am still only braking even as I am still building up my equipement and stocks at the moment.

I will confess to having gotten carried away with making educational games and designing crafts to help the kids engage in writing workshops but I finially feel I am heading in the right direction here 🙂

Oh and also some of my local kids poetry is going to be on display at the village Flower Festival this weekend which is well just lovely 🙂