The Big Green Recycled Queen
Myself and Richard Dawson worked with local kids to make this amazing sculpture to celebrate the Jubilee in Hyde Park, Manchester. We made it in one day and everything is made from recycled materials (except for cable ties, brown tape and plastic tags).
The milk cartons mostly came from The Flying Teapot Cafe at Woodend Mill and the bottles from New Charter Housing Association. A few of the group worked all day on the sculpture with others dropping in and out throughout the day.
Here’s the finished Queen after we had a mini-coronation…
Manchester Day Parade
Image from http://www.themanchesterdayparade.co.uk
It’s all go at Woodend Mill today with a large number of the artists getting ready for Manchester Day Parade, which is on Sunday 11th June in Manchester City Centre. I didn’t go last time but as a lot of my fellow Woodenders are working on something for the parade this year, I’ll probably go and have a look…
Salvage! the ‘junk sculpture project’ will be there parading their amazing kinetic fish and bird sculptures built from scrap and salvaged materials by young people in Failsworth. Last seen at the Illuminate event, both sculptures need bikes to power them but they were static last time – I’m interested to see how they will be moved along during the parade. See my fellow blogger CatalystJunkSculpture for some background and great photos of the project.
For more info about the Manchester Day Parade click here. It starts at 2pm this Sunday and follows a route along Deansgate and then back along Cross Street and Peter Street via Albert Square.
Hyde Park Community Orchard mosaics – the next stage
All the mosaic fruits for the outdoor classroom mosaic floor are completed to the first brown paper stage. Here are the parts I’ve been doing…
Next week, we’ll be laying it out and, once we’ve reversed the completed parts (so they’re back to front), we’ll be starting on the fill-in colours using unglazed procelain tiles.
RHS Tatton – Withy Sculptures
The withy sculptures for New Charter’s show garden at RHS Tatton are starting to come together. Here’s a couple made by the young people I’ve been working with but currently perching on the sofa in my studio…
Hyde Park Community Orchard – mosaics design
Here’s the final design for the mosaic flooring of the outdoor classroom in Hyde Park Community Orchard. At three metres diameter, its a fairly substantial undertaking but will look fantastic once completed. The design is inspired by artwork produced in creative workshops we facilitated with local schools and groups. Ann (from Green Monster Arts) and I have just started the making…
Useful information and resources for freelance artists
If you’re looking for advice and information on how to work as an artist and freelancer or you do already and just want a bit of support and reassurance, there are some great resources to be found on t’internet. Here’s a list of blogs and sites that I think have some really useful stuff on them and make interesting reading…
Freelance Advisor – up to date and UK specific news, information and resources for freelancers. A really informative site and I like the mix of serious stuff and irreverent comment. It’s not aimed at creatives, artists or designers but does bring together a huge amount of content from the freelancing world.
Being A Starving Artist Sucks – this is written by a designer in America called Jeremy Tuber. There’s lots of information about how to deal with clients, how to negotiate and how to price your work; especially based around graphics and design. What I like most are the rants about working as a freelancer – they’ll make you laugh when you’ve had a bad day. There’s also a downloadable resource called ‘Verbal Kung-Fu for Freelancers’ which I love. I’ve got it on my iPhone for meetings with ‘challenging’ clients…!
Freelance Factfile – this is my most recent discovery and is a great resource for both new and existing freelancers. The blog covers everything from getting started and finding new clients to financial matters, how to stay motivated and keeping said clients. Much of what’s written may seem obvious but it’s nice to know someone else out there is experiencing similar situations.
Freelance Switch – pretty similar to Freelance Factfile but aimed more towards the Creative Industries. It also has a Jobs Board and some useful online tools, like an hourly rate calculator etc. but probably more relevant for designers and webby people.
ArtQuest – ok, this isn’t specifically about freelancing but it IS about working as an artist and they help artists to ‘make work, sell work, find work and network’. Though this site is aimed at artists living and working in London it does have some good information on (there’s a brilliant ‘how to’ section) and is worth a look even if you do live outside the capital.
Compiling this list has raised the question of being an artist versus being a freelance artist – the same thing or two completely different animals? Hmmm…. maybe a question for when I’ve got more time and brain power to dedicate to it.
Mosaic lettering test panels – Hyde Park
As part of the Hyde Park Community Orchard artwork, we’re creating a 3m diameter circular mosaic. This will form the central part of the outdoor classroom and is a substantial part of the commission. Part of the design is a circle of text that includes all the names of the fruit trees planted in the orchard.
I’ve created some test panels of text to see if the style/font I want to use is achievable and that it isn’t going to be too time-consuming to create almost 200 letters from mosaics. As the lettering on this outer ring of text is only 50mm high, there’s not a lot of room for error but the most fiddly bit proved to be filling in the background colour.
The second panel is the test piece for a central ring of text that reads ‘Hyde Park Community Orchard’. This will be done in the same font but is slightly bigger with 80mm high lettering.
Johnson Fold Lantern Parade
Three weeks of frantic lantern making ended on Friday with a brilliant lantern parade on the Johnson Fold estate in Bolton. During the three weeks leading up to the event I worked with holiday clubs, Johnson Fold Primary School, a mums and tots group and the Youthopia Youth Club to create a multitude of lanterns. Most groups made the traditional pyramid lantern – we had almost 80 of these at the final count!
Youthopia also created some large-scale lanterns – the only rule was that they must be small enough to get out the front door of the youth club! Everyone really got into it and worked really hard to make some amazing shapes and characters out of withies – we had a fish, a shark, a dress, some headphones and an ice-cream amongst others.
I had to have a few late nights in the workshop (music as loud as you like once your neighbours have gone home – yippee!) tweaking, securing fastenings and adding LED tealights to get them all ready for the big day. I then had a tense couple of hours on Friday bringing the lanterms down on our (outdoor) hoist whilst the wind and rain raged but finally got them successfully delivered to Bolton At Home’s newly finished UCAN centre on the estate. Here’s some photos of the parade and the lanterns with the children and young people who made them.
Lantern Parade and … it’s suddenly become Withy Central
For the next couple of weeks I’m working with lots of groups in Johnson’s Fold, Bolton to create withy lanterns for their lantern parade, organised and funded by Bolton at Home. Here’s one I made as an example…
I’m also about to start making some withy / willow sculptures with a New Charter group in Mossley, Tameside for the RHS Tatton show garden. One of them is going to be an enormous snowman, which feels entirely appropriate after the snow we had last week! I’ll be using brown willow for this so I’m currently soaking the withies in my lovely new ‘water trough’ – a perfect shape and size for the job. I’ll post a picture when I remember to take one…
Mosaic Snail – completed
Realised I hadn’t posted a completed image of mosaic snail paving slab. Here it is alongside some images of process – dampening brown paper and then removing paper from mosaics before cleaning up grout. I suppose I should take one of it in situ too…
Being A Freelance Artist 