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I had a sunny Sunday in the Hepworth Wakefield studio working with artist Nichola Pemberton on ‘Scenic Sketches’ (2D-3D) – turning the studio floor into a giant 3D sketch, whilst also doing some string drawing on the windows. The workshop encouraged participants to be inspired by the landscape/cityscape out of the window and have fun experimenting with 2D and 3D lines and forms.

It was another busy weekend and, alas, there was no time for any outdoor adventures whilst the sun was out. Fortunately, Sir David Chipperfield had the insight to position the studios so that the windows faced the path of the afternoon sun. The studios were filled with light and the work was fully illuminated!

The Hepworth Wakefield: http://www.hepworthwakefield.org/

Just a quick one…. am loading up some pictures taken from half-term ‘Surprise, Surprise’ workshops this week, taken at Manchester Art Gallery.

We responded to Max Ernst’s ‘Petrified City’ and asked families to play surrealist word games in front of the painting in the gallery. We also asked them to try out Ernst’s frottage (rubbing) technique before creating a surrealist ‘chance’ composition in the studios…

Families’ interpretations of the ‘Petrified City’ were fascinating! Here are some of their surreal, poetic responses:

It’s a ritz cracker

Like a piano

Sad

It’s a full fat piece of cheese for the people playing multiple chess games underneath 

It’s a cloud falling onto a dolls’ house

It feels smooth

People watching a football match

I like this picture because it looks like a town with a sunset in Bedouin Land! Warm!

The moon revealed happy thoughts from the castle as it glistened in the sky

The hill was filled with petrifying memories as the destruction of the moon howled

Junk and horrible stories clattered together as they steadily expressed hopes that never came true 

The warm moon is lighting up the trains and the city

The icy sun makes the world dark in the country

The sun warms my heart in this warm picture

The water freezes in my brain

The fire burns in my eye

The bright moon shone over the fast trains that were passing underneath

The dull sun lacked light underneath the slow trains that were stopping overhead

The glaring moon bellowed out its glorious light at the speeding trains that were shooting past below

To see Max Ernst talk about the frottage technique, click on the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHdU4JfY-bU

More work (Facebook): http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150825399644128.510733.68496394127&type=1

It’s that time of the month again and I’ve had a great weekend working at Manchester Art Gallery with artist and film-maker Jessica Wild on our joint venture – interpreting surrealist artwork through sound, composition and montages!

Taking Max Ernst’s ‘Petrified City’ and other surrealist artworks in the permanent collection as the starting point, we invited families to embrace random collage-making and chance… on vinyl. Families were invited to create their own collage compositions on records which would, in turn, interfere with the way the stylus moved around the groove. Families could play the records to discover how their colourful collages created unique ‘chance’ sound compositions.

Families were also invited to create weird and wonderful photo-montages using the record covers to cut ‘n’ paste . Check out some of the cool and crazy artwork (above).

The message here is embrace the random and let your imagination wander, whilst developing a unique soundtrack for the artworks in the Modern & Contemporary gallery!

Vid clip uploads coming soon….

One of my workshops next month will tackle the theme of loops, lines and lace, so I decided to take a train ride to Birmingham to catch the ‘Lost in Lace’ exhibition at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, before it finishes next Sunday 19th.  The range of interpretations to the theme of lace from the 20 contemporary artists featured in the exhibition is impressive, and the level of concept, skill, scale and attention to detail keeps the average visitor engrossed for much longer than anticipated.

Quite a few of the artworks respond specifically to the exhibition space within the Gas Hall at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, as threads, panels and lacy forms literally slice through space, forming new perspectives, delineations and boundaries for the visitor to walk around and peer through. Responses range from the microcosm of a thread of lace – ‘Black Lace’, a video-sound installation by Kathleen Rogers; to the dark, otherworldly installation ‘After the Dream’ by Chiharu Shiota, featuring a row of white dresses floating in an intricate, webbed confusion of hand-woven threads (complete with a surveillance camera’s view which demonstrates how the space was painstakingly constructed).

The exhibition space itself is curated in such a way that the visitor can choose their own route around the exhibition, almost as if they too are weaving their own lacy path. There is much to see and walk around and plenty of to-ing and fro-ing, so it would be great if this could have actually been recorded and mapped out in some way!

To travel down by train across icy/snowy landscapes and find myself ‘Lost in Lace’ for nearly two hours was a great visual distraction and inspiration. My fingers were left twitching for needle, thread and paper to play with, pencils to scribble with and my head buzzing with ideas and possible responses. A trip to this exhibition is highly recommended and a pre-conceived idea of lace will be ripped apart and intricately re-threaded.

http://lostinlace.org.uk/

http://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/collection-and-exhibitions/exhibitions/lost-in-lace/

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Crafts-Council-UK/136690769684701

I’ve had a great day playing with colour in the atrium of the Children’s Hospital Manchester, as part of the +Culture Shots week!

Working with artist and Culture Shots volunteer Louisa Hammond, on behalf of Manchester Art Gallery, we invited people to have a go at playing with coloured acetate on the windows in the main entrance of the hospital. The idea behind Colour Pop comes from previous workshops, playing with acetate on windows as part of the ‘Interactive Laboratory’ and ‘Imagine’ – Anish Kapoor weekend sessions at the gallery (to see examples, click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/michikofujii/5525858773/in/photostream ).

The idea behind Colour Pop was simply to use the amazingly tall hospital windows, as a natural light box, upon which to place the acetate colours. As the sun began to move around the building in the afternoon, the most amazing colourful glow began to stream through into the waiting area, bathing visitors and patients in colourful light and projections. The acetate could be cut up and used as a way of creating colourful lines, images or abstract compositions. All ages took part, including a group of 30 children and their carers from the hospital nursery. We had quite a few compliments from staff, visitors and parents who enjoyed looking at and through the colourful windows… we also had a request to leave it up for the whole week!

Click here to listen to the Colour Pop audioboo: http://audioboo.fm/boos/658728-colour-pop

+Culture Shots is an innovative initiative of creative activities run by different cultural institutions across Manchester, taking place in all of the 5 Manchester Hospitals this week. Click here for more info:

http://www.healthandculture.org.uk/about/

Culture Shot blog: http://www.healthandculture.org.uk

Twitter (for audio boos): http://twitter.com/health_culture

‘The Guardian’:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/08/art-hospital-trust-culture-wellbeing

Manchester Art Gallery: http://www.manchestergalleries.org/whats-on/culture-shots/

Manchester Art Gallery Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150831844424128.511346.68496394127&type=1

Louisa Hammond: http://louisahammond.tumblr.com/

Lime Art: http://www.limeart.org/

Here’s a selection of ace photos taken by people who took part in my ‘Imagine’ session at Manchester Art Gallery this weekend – playing with cameras, mirrors, angles, etc. Each month the session aims to encourage families to experiment with a chosen theme or ‘material of the month’ in a gallery space. In this case, the starting point was in the atrium – a light, airy space filled with views inside and out, tiles, shapes, patterns and plenty of things for a camera lens to focus on. Those who took part were set on a mission to capture some inventive shots!

Can you guess what’s in the picture? Can you also guess the age of the photographer of each photo?

BTW, a great big THANK YOU to Rob Blundell, Emily Songhurst and Grace Sutcliffe for all your help and bright ideas!

Manchester Art Gallery Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150833900339128.511567.68496394127&type=1

http://www.facebook.com/ManchesterArtGallery?sk=wall

I’ve just been reviewing my year in Flickr photos. I have had my Flickr account since 2006, although various hard drives and shoe boxes are crammed full of images I’ve taken throughout my life. What a peculiar exhibition that would make!

Basically, the rule is there is no rule. I like to have my camera near to me when I go out for walks, etc. and shoot subjects/objects of interest whenever I feel the urge.

Here’s my take on this photographic habit I have developed:

“I like to sow seeds for story-making and ideas, capturing traces of activity, movement, shadows, lights, blurs, figures, etc. I also like to respond to emotive landscapes and provoke curiosity when snapping strange details or interesting objects. I create intriguing titles to add another layer of meaning to the image. The words/titles work in relation to the images and at times the viewer must work to understand the connection. The photographic image is not neutral, nor is it a document of factual evidence. Rather it forms a gateway into a more subjective, super-imposed reality, which emphasises a particular observation, mood, emotion or personal response.”

To peruse my photos, click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/michikofujii

Mini Art Club is a monthly session for children aged 0-5 and their parents / carers at Manchester Art Gallery. It runs as 2 sessions from 10.15am – 11.15am and 11.30am – 12.30pm every 2nd Friday of the month. The aim of the club is to encourage young children and their adults to creatively explore and respond to artworks, spaces and materials both in the gallery and in the learning studio.

Mini Art Club has really grown as a project space for working creatively with young children and their adults, mainly through:

good team work, careful planning, time and space to set things up, making observations, documenting sessions, reflection, evaluation, paying attention to details and maintaining a desire to keep things fun, child-led, family-friendly and innovative (phew!)

We’ve also tried to develop new ways to engage with artworks and gallery spaces, so that families/carers with young children can feel comfortable visiting the gallery. The aim is not to simply make and take something home, it’s all about having the time and space to play, explore, encounter, discover, engage the senses, get messy, have fun and develop new expressive vocabulary.

Looking through my photos, I realised I have been developing and delivering Mini Art Club since 2008. This month it’ll be our 43rd club! I was going to wait until the 50th club to blog about it but I’m a little impatient so I thought I’d make a start now!

Please click on the link (below) to see the wonderful Mini Art Club film created by filmmaker and fabulous Mini Art Club Assistant, Jessica Wild (Wild Bees Production). Jess filmed our recent ‘Light Trails’ Mini Art Club session and created this wonderful video clip. Also here are some stills from the session:

In this session we asked families to explore the light and dark spaces of the Craft & Design Gallery, using torches and coloured acetate to find objects, shadows and different light features on the top floor of the Art Gallery. We then invited everyone to explore a specially created light laboratory in Studio 1, where there were a number of materials to explore (touch, crawl into, shine torches through, hide behind, etc). In Studio 2, we also played music in a fairly dark, empty space with a small blue-light projection screen, which provided the opportunity for families to interact with each other, move around, dance with torches, listen, look and just enjoy spending time together relaxing:

Please click here for the Mini Art Club film: http://vimeo.com/30916255

For Mini Art Club ‘Light Trails’ stills, please see the pictures below!

Related links:

http://www.grassrootscreative.co.uk/clients/cce/miniart.swf

http://www.creativitycultureeducation.org/our-programmes/story-catching/mini-art-club,448,AR.html

http://vimeo.com/17795478

http://vimeo.com/wildbeesproduction

http://www.flickr.com/photos/manchester_city_galleries/sets/72157628036606333/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/manchester_city_galleries/collections/72157606686346575/

http://www.kidsinmuseums.org.uk/

http://www.earlyarts.co.uk/ http://culturebaby.co.uk/

Here are some pics from the Crafty Fox Fair at the Brink, Parr Street, Liverpool last Saturday…. Thank you to Lisa from Lost Plots for taking the photos!

Other stallholders included: Lost Plots, Geekcycled, Chelle Shocked, Kizzy’s Unique Fashions and live music from Nick Ellis

Next up… I’m making some stuff and helping out with the ‘Grotto’ Pop-Up Shop at Chinese Arts Centre, Manchester, which opens this Friday 25th November  and coincides with the opening of Jessica Longmore’s exhibition:

http://www.chinese-arts-centre.org/general-news/grotto-shop-the-best-local-art-and-design/

http://www.facebook.com/grotto.shop

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=200758710000819

As a break from running my usual workshops I will instead be running a market stall at The Brink, Parr Street, Liverpool city centre this Saturday!

I will be selling some hand-made cards, origami / paper folded decorations and framed / mounted photography (please see pics below for examples of origami stuff and photography!)

Please also see the Crafty Fox Facebook page for more info:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.101077593340792.70.101065683341983&type=1

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Crafty-Fox-Fairs-Liverpool/101065683341983

The Brink, Liverpool:

http://thebrinkliverpool.com/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-15154646