New maps for Great North Museum’s interactive workshops

 

Recently, I was asked to make some additional pieces for the Great North Museum’s school interactive workshops collection. In the past I have made all sorts of weird and wonderful things for them including a full sized Egyptian mummy to be used to show the process of mummification, to a large Triceratops head, squirrels tails to run around the gallery in and large interactive map of South America to show the effects of deforestation.

Large canvas map of Ancient Egypt.

I was asked to make replacement maps for the paper versions they had been using for sometime and continually needed replacing. The maps were to be for their workshops about Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece. I choose to hand paint the maps on lovely, heavy cotton canvas which gives the appearance and texture of an old map. The maps were to be kept quite simple in design, as they were to be used with children from all Key Sages.

To ensure that the maps received the best care when used by school groups, I decided to finish them off as though they were a prized object from their ancient collection and finished them with a tie ribbon and a bag which looked and felt like it was made from soft suede. Hopefully, this will help to bring longevity to the pieces – as many of the pieces I have made for the GNM are now over 10 years old and been used by tens of thousands of school children.

Hand painted canvas map of Ancient Greece.

‘Life has Layers’

Newcastle Carers – Artist in Residence

From October 2018, I have been working as Artist in Residence at Newcastle Carers an independent charity which supports young carers, young adult carers and adult carers across Newcastle upon Tyne. This is a six month residency as part of a larger project by Newcastle City Council Arts Team to place artists within the community. I was so delighted to be picked to be part of this project as I passionately believe in the benefits of creativity on wellbeing.

One of the aspects of the residency I felt very important, was that the people involved would be able to learn new skills or rediscover old ones, and that resources would be put in place that they could develop the skills further after I have left, rather than the skills stagnating and being lost.

Over the first few months, I have been meeting with the different groups which meet as part of Newcastle Carers, from cafe’s at a number of venues across Newcastle where people meet to have a cuppa, chat to friends they have made through this support network and talk to the workers and volunteers who are able to provide the detailed information and support individual carers need.

As part of the residency, there will be an exhibition at the end of the project and we have planned to make a number of pieces which will hang in the main building on Shields Road, in Newcastle. Each group I am working with are making a different artwork for display but as we are still at the development stage, trying out techniques that the group haven’t tried before or would like to develop further.

One of the groups has decided on a direction of their artwork, which will take the shape of a textile jigsaw approx. 1.2 m x 1.4m. It came about through our initial chats about what people enjoy doing, what they find relaxing and one person mentioned jigsaws and suddenly there was a lovely long discussion about it.

On reflection, the symbolism behind the design of a jigsaw stands for a lot of things the different groups as part of Newcastle Carers mean to the people who come along: giving support to each other, making links to other resources available, without each other the picture wouldn’t be so clear. Twenty fabric jigsaw pieces have been cut out in a finished puzzle shape, which people are individually painting with images that maybe important to them or an abstract design, These will then be further decorated with beads, stitched words, found pieces etc and made into an individual mini work of art which will be stitched back together with the other jigsaw pieces.

In the New Year, I have planned to start working with the Young Adult Carers on a more regular basis and they have asked to try batik painting and lino printing during their first sessions. Another group has started creating personal pages for a possible memory book they would each like to develop and you can see some of the backgrounds for these pages above.

Over the last three months, we have had a lovely time trying out new techniques, learning new skills and enjoying each others company. I have been given great feedback from the carers who have attended the sessions, who found the opportunity to loose themselves in their creativity a chance to relax and forget about things that may have been worrying them, plus giving them something to be thinking about outside the sessions. I have also been told, that people who may not regularly attend the sessions have been coming more often and that Newcastle Carers feel that the residency has been ‘beyond their expectations’ – which I am so glad to hear as it is a lovely project I am really delighted to be part of.