keynotes and pathways

I spent another day outdoors today at Stave Hill Ecological Park. This after a whole day yesterday spent indoors at The Albany, when I attended a symposium organised by Entelechy Arts on ‘Older People, Isolation and Civic Engagement’. The key issues raised by the speakers, all relevant to Meet me at the Albany and other projects I’ve been working on with the organisation, were still very much on my mind today as I walked through the park.  Here are some of these…

How can the arts, museums and library spaces be more fully used as places where isolated people can become valued, contributing and visible members of their neighbourhoods and communities? – Entelechy Arts

Is it possible to construct a new vision of ageing? – Alan Walker

On shared vulnerability between artists and older participants: how can we allow for falling (and failure) and make a space for this in our practice? - Vicky Amedume

Telling stories is a means of survival – David Slater

The best part of a relationship (personal and professional) is the fantasy of what might be – Jai Channa

What makes life worth living (when we are old and frail and unable to care for ourselves)? – Danny Ruta

The older participant challenge: How can we individually make change? If not now, when? What we do now is our inheritance, let’s not waste it! – Lillian Bartholomew

painting for paint's sake

Painting again, at last! When I was studying at art college I stopped myself from specialising in the subject; so seduced was I by the medium I thought I'd lose myself in it, and never produce anything worthwhile, only frivolous decorative meanderings in paint.

Well, that is exactly what is happening now and, I’m loving it. Thanks to the enthusiasm of the members of Meet Me At The Albany I’m painting again, and making collages using the scraps of painted paper left over after the Matisse Cut-outs inspired workshop (see previous post). I love the accidental, aleatory, chance nature of these, and that the outcome is the result of a co-production between myself and the MMATA members.

It's also a relief not to be thinking about weaving for a change. That said, I still get a sense that I’m weaving with colour and shape on paper. Hmm... Off to the framers with these two anyway…

the Matisse model

Seeing the Matisse cut-outs at Tate Modern was such an inspiration! I instantly got over stimulated and could hardly look at the works for wanting to get back to my studio and make my own collages. As a  result I now have a very sketchy memory of the show!

As it happens, I didn't get back to my studio that day to make a start on my own collages, but instead considered using the collage technique as an activity for one of the Meet me at the Albany Tuesday sessions. I knew that my friend, collaborator and colleague at Entelechy Arts, Zoe Gilmour had tried and tested collage with painted paper cut-outs at one of her own workshops, which encouraged me to pursue this for the planned activity.

My plan was to work large scale. With brushes and rollers attached to wooden sticks, participants painted paper on the floor while listening to live music, courtesy of pianist Arthur Lea and double bass player Ben Hazelton (Spitz Jazz Collective).  This worked a treat! Accompanied by the musicians, people danced and sang around the paper as they painted. Others cut the painted paper and, under their direction, I pinned them to a hanging fabric screen creating a large temporary mural.  A photographer from Arts Council England came to record the activity and if I get hold of some of these shots, I'll upload them on post here later. Too busy as usual to take any pictures myself.

What I enjoyed the most (apart from splashing paint around freely, which is always such a joy!) was to see how the act of painting became dance and movement, solo or in some kind of group formation. The idea of choreographing making is something I have been thinking a lot about recently, as I have been involved in choreographing dances for David Littler’s YanTan Tethera project and exhibition. I am now currently developing a fourth and final dance for the show to be performed on September 25^th at Cecil Sharp House. More about this later. Meanwhile, merci Matisse!

don't tell me, show me!

Words are false friends when introducing a creative activity. You can easily fall into the trap of being too prescriptive and as a result 'end-gaming' the outcomes that should be about discovery and giving participants a chance of finding their own voice and means of expression. There is always a desire when leading an activity to constantly provide, to fill every minute with things to do, stuff to handle. This sometimes gets in the way of participants generating material themselves with autonomy, authorship and agency.

Meet me at the Albany is a program I am involved with organised by the Albany Centre in partnership with Entelechy Arts, providing creative activities from singing to sewing and from circus to photography for the over 60s.  My desire is to put creative collaboration (see also previous post) at the core of these sessions. I also think making art here should not simply be a means to enhance well-being, a sense of self and the building of a community, but be an end in itself.

The strategy I’m adopting is to rely heavily on visual resources, such as these illustrated, so to curb the reliance on words to initiate the activity. I also aim to have the work displayed as it is produced, negotiating this with the participants and working with them as curators as much as artists.

One month into the program there is already talk of hosting a Meet me at the Albany exhibition in 2014 (I’m also secretly holding out for a publication!). Thinking of these sessions not as workshops but events, one might think of the exhibition next year as a retrospective, showcasing moments of the Meet me at the Albany program.

Objects in the images above are the resources brought in at the start of the last session at the Albany on October 29th.