Day 4 – Final Interactions

Dreamy Day 4

Day 4 was the last day of Make-Do and Mend in Malvern, our Coffee Morning catch-up and joining in session and it flew by.

We’d barely pinned our hair (in a 1940s style) before our first participants were knocking on the door.

Tea, coffee, cake and biscuits served in a tea set purchased from a local charity shop were all on offer and gratefully received on what was, after all, a soggy Saturday.

Heads down and hard-at-it

Within an hour we had a group of three who stayed long enough to make their own creative patches for installing in the town.

The gents used French knitting and the lady, a keen craftsperson from the USA from a long line of quilt-makers, opted for purple stocking stitch.

Two gents' intertwined installations

The two gents decided to install their French knitting on the same Belisha beacon; they are father and son which maybe influenced their decision to intertwine the two pieces.

Both were French knitting for the first time, although they remembered a Grandmother passing some knitting skills in previous years.

They found the session therapeutic after a hard working week.

Finding a spot for the purple stocking stitch

The lady chose to install her purple creation nearly out-of-reach, not quite out-of-sight and definitely not out-of-mind!

Participant tying crochet to bunting

A mother and daughter came to experiment, first with knitting plastic bags then with crochet, having never really got the hang of it before.

As you can see from this pic on the left, the lady produced a super little fist piece.

More crochet skills

Another talented knitter we’d spoken to over the week came to try some crochet. Both myself and Ruth tried out different ways of holding the hook and thread with her. Everyone holds the thread and tools differently – there are so many different ways to try.

This lady took her work away to install later and let us know.

Plastic bag knitting

Another participant took on some plastic bag knitting with big needles. His niece learnt how to knit in a few seconds and made a nice little blue piece which she installed near Elgar’s statue.

Elgar's double-knit toasty hat

Elgar himself ended up with a very brief installation on his head which was removed after a minute or so in case he got too hot. He now stands cap-in-hand.

Soggy Saturday

So despite the early rain, people came, made, mended and chewed the fat as we had hoped.

Day 3

Hurrah!  A totally brilliant day – filled with lots and lots of interaction with people, lots of impromptu knitting and interesting conversations and a fair amount of installing.

I don’t really know which details to pull out from today, it’s been so jammed with good stuff so I’ll go for a scatter-gun approach.

We installed some knitting pieces at location 1, got invited into the back of the next-door shop to meet Connie who was having her hair done. Connie made some French knitting for us in a trice despite not having tried it in many years and swapped stories, memories and tips about the 194os.

Location 1's new additions

A passerby stopped to talk to us, we shared our skills and chatted about George Harrison’s mansion as he knitted a few final stitches for our Location 2 installation.

Mr Scooter skills-up

We met a man on a bench who led us to Darwin’s daughter’s grave for a bit of Make-Do and Mending.

Coverlets

And now my computer is dying so more piccies tomorrow of phone booths, graves and bannister bunting.

Roll on tomorrow!

Day 2 – catch-up

Ok, I’m behind – we’ve been so engrossed in making, installing and meeting and sharing and art-making etc. that I’ve not managed to get to the computer.

So, Day 2 was mostly a making day – it was raining so it suited our needs. We made a bunch of patches, French knitting cords, a bit of crochet and some knitting to start us off at some locations we’d measured and wanted to ‘mend’.

Is it a boxing glove?

Joining sleeves for a surreptitious coverlet

Unravelling an old jumper for installation re-creation!

Day 1 – Quick Bits

What a day! No rain, bit of sun, lots of friendly people interested in what we’re doing.

We followed our schedule of mostly orientation and measuring-up.

Tomorrow’s schedule involves lots of making out and about in the town after a solid couple of hours making some one-size-fits-all patches.

More blog entries tomorrow – if I can get a connection.

Project starts tomorrow: bring your skills and a jumper!

Tomorrow is the start of our Make-Do and Mend in Malvern project. Ruth and I will spend the morning setting up shop and preparing the rest of the day and week. So if you’re thinking of joining in with our textile interventions (knitting, patching and generally creating with hand-me-down yarns in all sorts of spaces and places) come along in the afternoon.

Ruth and I will post a schedule of our Thursday whereabouts here and on the shop door so anyone can come and see us at anytime. We will also post a mobile phone number on the shop door so you can give us a buzz for our exact position to save you traipsing round needlessly. The shop address is 3-3a Worcester Road, Great Malvern (by the zebra crossing at the top of the town). We will be open/around Malvern from 10am – 4pm from tomorrow until Saturday.

We’d really love people to come and find us and take part. So if you’re thinking of joining in, get on over to Malvern, check out our latest postings on the door and come and find us. We’re really friendly and want to share our creative skills and learn some too from you. So please join us.

Bring a jumper if you’re a bit nesh – it’s fairly parky this week.

R & R – Thread

Thread @ MECA! Make-Do and Mend in Malvern

As MECA draws to a close Thread will be running Make-Do and Mend in and around Great Malvern from 3 Worcester Road from Wednesday 21st till Saturday 24th October 2009. Over the weekdays we will be creating textile interventions in spaces and places around Malvern culminating in a open celebration event on Saturday. I will post more details next week including the schedule of where and when to spot us, join in with us or just follow our project.

Thread at work, copyright of Rachael Griffiths' own collection

What’s in a name?

Thread is a collaborative partnership between Ruth Turnbull and myself. We’ve been working together for a while now and decided it was high time we went and got us a name – so Thread it is. We chose it because of the obvious reference to Ruth’s practice as a textile artist, the connections between her work and mine (including our interests of working in the public realm) and the connections I like to make in my practice between the past, present and future. So many connections, so many threads…

A bit of nice silky thread from one of my home projects

Interrogation Walsall: Consultation

On September 16th I took part in the Consultation Mission of Interrogation Walsall – a series of events at the New Art Gallery Walsall that bring artists and the public together to explore the role of arts and culture in the post-industrial world.

Identity Card

As serious as I took the business of activating public space around the gallery in such a short space of time (one day), I have to say I had so much fun, an absolutely brilliant day and I think I discovered a new passion for role play as I revelled in my secret agent identity. Maybe it’s just a moustaches and uniform thing.

Agent Griffiths' Personal Effects including a photograph of herself and co-Agent Kemp

Unfortunately my camera was playing up on the day so most of the documentation I have is either in my head or from the final display of our results.

Our colourful display

I discovered so much about my collaborative practice from the day – I might post my reflective piece soon. I’ll see how the symposium on 2nd October goes first in case I have more to add. Got to get more dialogue thrills!

The process is far from over and I am very excited to see how the last Mission goes on Wednesday 30th. I shall be following Agent Pitt’s covert operations in particular via the Interrogation Walsall blog.

Metaphysics and Memory

Anthony Boswell and I have started a collaborative project exploring the metaphysical space of an interior and the individual and connecting threads and approaches to it. We have set up an a-n blog called Collaboration Space in the artists talking section and I shall try to record more of my explorations on this blog too.

Anthony’s work is really interesting, the way I understand it (and he might well correct me on this!) his approach is metaphysical and intuitive; he draws interiors that have ‘feel right’. AIn our conversations so far he has told me that a fine balance of a set of conditions need to be in place for him to start the drawing process; the way light falls can tip the balance in either way. This fascinates me: What does he feel when contemplating these interiors – the vibrations of life long-gone, warmth and light, or is it about a frame-of-mind? Whatever the answer something familiar to me is manifest in the drawings, I sense his intimacy with the scene. They feel alive.

Unlike Anthony, I start with people and their personal, private and collective histories and then usually embark on a research-grounded process to try to get to the mettle of them. I too strive for intimacy with the subject; I need to experience what the person/s experienced, reenact the moment, relive and revive the memory and, in turn, become a part of it and it of me.

Sometimes the spark is missing from this process. I enjoy working in socially engaged projects and often find myself craving that kind of dialogue in my non-socially engaged practice. Collaboration could breathe new life into this area of my practice.

Fingers crossed!

Postcard of Haden Hill House where our collaborative project starts. Image is taken from the Black Country Genealogy and Family History site www.blackcountrygenealogyandfamilyhistory.co.uk

Shiny new

Hurrah for my shiny new projects blog! My website is in major need of an overhaul so I am devoting my time to this blog for a while (and countless others no doubt, such is the quagmire-like nature of blogging I find).

But for now, hurrah! and welcome!