Tag: Creative People and Places

Creative Chat ‘n’ Blog – Ric Savage

Posted on by Alice Cramer

Listen to Ric’s podcast episode here.

Art and video in lockdown 

I have been an artist illustrator for about 30 years or so.  My work has covered a fair bit of ground from figurative to wildlife pictures and childrens’ illustrations.  In a way Covid and the various lockdowns over 2020 haven’t affected my actual art making process, but it dramatically altered how I teach art and the way I make my living from art. In my pre-lockdown world, I was teaching in schools, libraries and in my own studio. 

In March of last year, my conventional teaching work and face to face projects, stopped overnight. It was a heck of a shock and it profoundly changes your perception of your self-worth. How exactly do you make a living when you are not seeing people?

I had never tried teaching via video link before, and the only videos I had made before were very short promotional art videos. I am an old dog, and this was going to be a new trick. It was a very steep learning curve for me, the only equipment I had was an iPad, no editing software, and no real budget to do anything about it.  I cobbled something together.  I remember feeling like a door-to-door salesman, trying to push myself into any job that would have me. 

I was lucky that there were a couple companies with projects that suited how I work as an artist.  20Twenty Productions CIC asked me to take part in two of their digital projects which got me started, and then later on a video link art mentoring class which I am still currently working on.  In addition to that, MarketPlace offered a commission for three videos on the subject of book cover design.  I loved working on that as a project and interacting with people on Facebook and Instagram.

I am profoundly grateful for all the support I received from friends, artists and arts organisations during this time.  

So, what does the future look like? At this point, I feel very optimistic.  We adapt, we grow and we look at new things and new ways of doing them.  Teaching via Zoom is ok, but there are limitations, I know this is an area that a lot of us have struggled with, reading the body language of the people we are teaching.  Video is a very interesting medium and I am going to be developing that a lot more in the coming months.  All of these new tricks will form a new part of my practice, but I can’t wait to get back to face to face teaching, being back in the studio with fellow artists will be great! 

Written by publisher and illustrator, Ric Savage.

Listen to Ric’s podcast episode here.

Read about Ric’s The Book Cover Club project here.

Creative Chat ‘n’ Blog – Sally Rose

Posted on by Alice Cramer

Listen to Sally’s podcast episode here.

What has lockdown meant for me?

I will be honest: to begin with, I didn’t miss the frantic journeys to and from the car, arms laden with P.A. equipment, with bags… bags of songbooks, bags of instruments (shakers, foot tambourines, hand bells, boomwhackers), bags of tea (3 kinds of), coffee, milk, squash (2 kinds of) and biscuits (numerous varieties).  Then came the realisation that all my future work and income had gone. 

Gone!  

At first, I tried to continue as best I could – positively – and like so many , I spent time recording videos and posting online.  I wanted to continue to reach out to the communities that I had established over the previous 4 years.  I wanted them to have something to refer to – a kind of guiding light in the face of growing darkness. Listening to the birdsong in the garden, throughout last summer, I spent wondered for hours thinking about the people who I no longer saw; those with whom I no longer had a physical connection; those whose collective voices had been cruelly silenced by an unknown killer.  

Unfortunately, the very nature of my work meant that not everyone could access and interact with online content. This got to me and gradually, I eased back.  Sometimes, for no reason at all, I felt the unstoppable, overwhelming urge to weep, tears rolling down my cheeks with the realisation that I could not connect fully with others through the internet.  I missed connecting in person: in real time.  Several people who attended my groups have lost their lives since last March. 

If they do return, my communities will not be as I knew them.

When lockdown eventually lifted last summer, the March Can’t Sing choir met up for several outdoor, Covid 19 secure, singing sessions. On those days, my heart burned as brightly as the summer sun and tears flowed down my cheeks, yet again, as I heard the collective voice soar as one with the buzzing bees overhead.  It is something I will never forget! 

People sometimes ask me why I lead people who ‘can’t sing’.  Well, all I can say is that the very act of singing is a magical thing.  Having a focus, having a purpose, connecting, breathing as one, having a go, laughing when things go wrong, being proud of something that you achieve, lifting depression, raising self-esteem, learning to use your body to sing, all brings people together in no other way that I know of… and it is so worth it!

As I reflect, I know that keeping my passion for singing is one thing that I will do.  There is a new dawn on the horizon, yet the world on which it will shine is still uncertain.  I still have my moments. I only hope that singing will rightly take its place, centre stage and re-unite communities once more.

Written by singer, Sally Rose.

Listen to Sally’s podcast episode here.

Read about Sally and the March Can’t Sing Choir here.

Creative Chat ‘n Blog – Michelle Brace

Posted on by Alice Cramer

Listen to Michelle’s podcast episode here.

Imagination – Connection – Voice

This past year has challenged me to refresh my practice and align with new priorities. The world got into a slower gear but I felt a renewed sense of urgency for my work to be relevant and in some way useful and meaningful. For it to connect.

In ‘the age of isolation’ a priority human need surely has to be connection. We’ve all needed to reach out to others for mutual support. As a solo artist I’ve found working and connecting with communities of like minds online to be a lifeline. Virtual meet-ups, courses and skills sessions have been so valuable in helping me to meet new people, keep up to speed, deepen existing skills and, believe it or not…. get excited about the future!! 

A lockdown commission opportunity with Marketplace prompted me to realise an idea which I’d had on my mental shelf for years gathering metaphorical dust. Mantelpiece was about creating a community of voices, displaying treasured objects together – on a digital Mantelpiece – and sharing the stories they told. Mantelpiece – now in a new phase of research & development – was adapted for Marketplace to be a neat little creative conversation starter for online group work. The hope is also that the process of sharing such unique and personal stories helped to promote greater empathy, insight & understanding between the people involved.

I think that living through a pandemic has sharpened everyone’s awareness of the fragility of life. The change in pace we experienced gave us a rare chance to much more fully appreciate its beauty and constantly changing states. In the piece of work I made for The Library Presents at the end of 2020, Let the Leaves Change, I was trying to visually communicate something about the magic of late autumn / winter. With my camera and my homemade light box I got deeply into looking at the incredible and intricate detail, colours and textures appearing in the leaves and in the natural world around me. I thought about the inevitability – Covid or no Covid – of change.. of nature moving with ease and without resistance, from one season to the next. 

This continuously evolving visual mix, produced by Collusion, was created to be back-projected at night into a town centre shop window in Wisbech and the library window in March. It included a layer of leaf drawings and designs made in collaboration with local communities. I really loved the raw quality achieved by mixing hand drawn and coloured leaves with layered filmed clips and I could see the potential for working more in this way….

My most recent piece of work Where Are We Now? was the product of an experimental 8-week programme, ‘Mindful Making’, designed to support adults experiencing mental health difficulties. We used a range of creative activities to explore the idea that if you immerse yourself in the creative moment you can temporarily suspend your worries & fears. Our aim was to create a relaxed, pressure-free environment and offer an open, fun and playful approach to making art. This project got very close to the heart of Unlocked Creative – encouraging people to be courageous and make instinctive decisions about what comes next. If we can let go of pre-conditioned ideas and get into the process of making something we can feel totally liberated & renewed. This is a healing, empowering and adventurous place to be that opens up all kinds of possibilities….! 

Written by artist, Michelle Brace.

@mich_unlockedvj

Director, Unlocked Creative CIC | VJ & Digital Artist

Listen to Michelle’s podcast episode here.

Read about Michelle’s Mantelpiece project here.

Evaluation Case Study: Writing the Landscape

Posted on by Alice Cramer

This case study is part of our project evaluation for 2019/2020

Writer Bel Greenwood was commissioned as part of our Creative Conversations in Isolation programme to bring together a group who were interested in creative writing with a landscape and environmental theme. Everyone had to get used to being on Zoom rather than meeting in person, but the group enjoyed getting to know each other and experimenting with their writing guided by Bel. People were finding new connections to their local environment and nature through lockdown, this group were no different, giving them lots to write about. They produced a blog to share their work and have continued to meet and write.

Read the Writing Inspired by the Landscape blog here.

Download the full Writing the Landscape case study here.

Read the full 2019/20 evaluation report here.

An excerpt from the case study:

Recognising an increase in people’s connections to their local environment, this commission was a way to develop interest and community audiences connected to this theme.

Images reads "It's about generating a sense of imaginative connection with the landscape - they have a very strong relationship with the landscape and I want them to generate a successful collection of work. I hope I'm building confidence in people in their own stories and starting them off on an adventure." - Bel Greenwood, writer.
Images reads “It’s about generating a sense of imaginative connection with the landscape – they have a very strong relationship with the landscape and I want them to generate a successful collection of work. I hope I’m building confidence in people in their own stories and starting them off on an adventure.” – Bel Greenwood, writer.

The group had mixed previous writing experience from academic papers and books to one creative writer. Their passion for the natural environment unified the group.

Each workshop consisted of a combination of surprising writing challenges and the opportunity to collaborate and share. As well as the experience of having a professional writer critique and support edits in work produced.

Key outcomes for the group were to improve their skills in writing creatively through their connection to the landscape. Also to support them to increase their confidence in sharing their work publicly.

Graphic showing participation and audience numbers. Facebook: 1191, Participants: 9, Twitter: 4417
Graphic showing participation and audience numbers. Facebook: 1191, Participants: 9, Twitter: 4417
Pictured: A photo of a robin singing. Text on the image reads: "Dear Robin. If I'd only sat up and taken the time to smell the damp earth and appreciated the beauty of my garden instead of considering my work a trial to endure, things could have been different. By Jaqui Fairfax".
Pictured: A photo of a robin singing. Text on the image reads: “Dear Robin. If I’d only sat up and taken the time to smell the damp earth and appreciated the beauty of my garden instead of considering my work a trial to endure, things could have been different. By Jaqui Fairfax”.

Download the full Writing the Landscape case study here.

Read more about the Writing the Landscape project with Bel Greenwood here.

Evaluation Case Study: Creative Collective and Mantelpiece

Posted on by Alice Cramer

This case study is part of our project evaluation for 2019/2020

We brought together a group of volunteers from communities in the local areas we work with. Known as the Creative Collective, they have worked with us over the last year to co-commission creative practitioners and plan arts activity in their towns and across the area. They got involved when we changed our programmes in response to Covid-19 helping us in decision-making for our micro-commission programme.

For one of the commissions, we wanted the group to have the chance to be participants too. They chose Mantelpiece by artist Michelle Brace. The project explored our connections with objects and their personal significance through recordings of each person telling the story of their object. Michelle encouraged the group to consider the meaning and memories behind their chosen objects and they worked together to learn and share digital skills needed for their recordings.

Download the full Creative Collective and Mantelpiece case study here.

Read the full 2019/20 evaluation report here.

An excerpt from the case study:

The Creative Collective directly builds on work developed in Phase 1 to give opportunities for local voice to feed into MarketPlace programming. The group had newly formed at the end of Phase 2 Year 1 and had begun joint planning a new programme of activity to roll out across the seven towns.

This year the Creative Collective has been integral in the commissioning process, user testing potential roll-out projects and matching artist ideas with relevant communities. The MarketPlace team identified a commission with the potential for cross-generational roll out across the towns. In discussion with the Creative Collective, they selected the commission as one they would participate in themselves.

Mantelpiece

Mantelpiece is a project in which groups share stories associated with objects to create a collective digital portrait of who they are to accompany their oral stories.

It has a very clear simple structure – set a group a brief to choose an object in their home and to share why it’s important, what it says about who you are, and a memory associated with it. In the sharing of the story, it gets recorded. Each object is photographed and composited into a group shot around mantelpiece, a place known for showing prized possessions.

Pictured: Left: The final image of the groups items in pride of place on the mantelpiece. Right: Screenshot of the audio files of the group telling the stories behind their chosen object.

Download the full Creative Collective and Mantelpiece case study here.

Read more about the Mantelpiece project with Michelle Brace here.

#SeeYouSoon!

Posted on by Colin Stevens

Developed with support from public funding by Department of Culture, Media and Sport. We spent March, April and May 2021 exploring creative ways to address loneliness and social isolation resulting from the impact of Covid-19.

We threw the obvious title “The Loneliness Project” out the window. After a year of near-constant lockdown we felt it was important to offer people a more positive outlook. How could we help people break out of their ‘bubbles’ in a fun, colourful and positive manner?

After not been able to see or touch their families and friends for a year people needed a sense of real connection. What better way to make meaningful contact than with the simple forgotten Art of Writing? In a world of mobile phones, email, text and WhatsApp, how many of us take the time to put a pen to paper?

The #See You Soon pack of postcards was designed to encourage people to send creative messages and ideas to family members, friends and neighbours.

We took time to have our now familiar “creative conversations” with a diverse range of contacts who are working with families, seniors, young people and people who are experiencing isolation across Fenland and West Suffolk. We worked with community leaders and creative practitioners who understood how their localities and neighbourhoods had been affected by the pandemic.

Connecting is what #See You Soon  was all about – making a move to do something positive. Smile, Reach Out & Say Hello! Our new See You Soon section of the website is coming soon!

To stay up to date with all our project news sign up for our newsletter.

Evaluation Case Study: Tea and Tasters and Going Digital

Posted on by Alice Cramer

This case study is part of our project evaluation for 2019/2020.

We’ve worked with Shelby, owner of the lovely Barleycorn Cafe in Mildenhall on creative projects over the last few years. Before the pandemic, we were running a series of taster sessions with local Meet Up Mondays group and creative practitioners from the region. The group enjoyed the activities and the company, feeling less isolated and more connected.

The Covid-19 pandemic changed everything and we had to stop the live programme. To keep something going, we worked with The Barleycorn and artist Marian Savill during the first lockdown to create a series of ‘make along’ videos about Art Journaling.

Find out the difference this project has made and the challenges of delivering online as we all adjusted to doing more things digitally.

Download the full Tea and Tasters and Going Digital case study here.

Read the full 2019/20 evaluation report here.

An excerpt from the case study:

The Barleycorn Cafe in Mildenhall is only three years old, but has become a hub in the community. They decided to start a Meet-up Monday group, hoping to tackle loneliness and isolation by offering a free cuppa and a place to chat and meet people. Working with owner Shelby and a group of regular Meet Up Monday members a taster arts programme was established to reach new audiences, create new art opportunities locally and increase well-being.

Tea and Tasters

A series of taster workshops were delivered with different artists for the group to choose one they would like to work with the longer term. 

These workshops included: 

  • creative journalling 
  • singing 
  • printmaking 
  • ceramics 
  • expressive drawing 
  • A photo from one of the taster workshops. For this workshop, the group were trying singing with singing teacher, Sally Rose. In this photo Sally is grinning while sat on a chair with a little guitar.
  • A photo from one of the taster workshops. For this workshop, the group were trying pottery. In this photo, Clare the artist is showing a member of the group how to throw a pot on a potters wheel.
  • A photo from one of the taster workshops. For this workshop, the group were trying screenprinting. The group are sitting and standing around a large long table, with rollers, paint and printing stamps scattered on the table.

Pictured: Three photos from the taster workshops. Left: For this workshop, the group were trying singing with singing teacher, Sally Rose. Sally is grinning while sat on a chair with a little guitar. Middle: The group were trying pottery. In this photo, Clare the artist is showing a member of the group how to throw a pot on a potters wheel. Right: The group were trying screenprinting. In the photo the group are sitting and standing around a large long table, with rollers, paint and printing stamps scattered on the table.

Graphic showing participation and audience numbers. Participants: 14, Engagements: 50, Artists: 5.

Graphic showing participation and audience numbers. Participants: 14, Engagements: 50, Artists: 5.

The group decided to pursue additional singing sessions alongside holding a longer creative journaling project using a democratic vote.

The plans for additional journaling workshops were curtailed by the pandemic. This resulted in a commission for mixed media artist Marian Savill to produce four online tutorials to journal from home, using resources you would find around the house.

Extending the commission in this way was a means of continuing to maintain the group’s connectivity. As well as to manage further isolation for this vulnerable group and transition activity into digital outputs in a meaningful way.

  • A photo from one of the taster workshops. For this workshop, the group were trying pastels. In this photo, a large piece of paper has been covered in drawings in pastel, including images of coffee cups, flowers and words like "sun" and "hope".
  • A photo from one of the taster workshops. For this workshop, the group were trying art journalling. In this photo, a table is covered in magazines and collages.

Pictured: Two photos from the taster workshops. Left: The group were trying pastels. In this photo, a large piece of paper has been covered in drawings in pastel, including images of coffee cups, flowers and words like “sun” and “hope”. Right: The group were trying art journaling. In this photo, a table is covered in magazines and collages.

Art Journaling with Marian Savill

Screenshot from Marian Savill's Art Journalling video workshops. Pictured is the opening image for Marian's workshop. It reads "Art Journaling with Marian Savill" in collaged letters.

Pictured: The opening image for Marian’s workshop. It reads “Art Journaling with Marian Savill” in collaged letters.

Initially the commission was developed as an experience for the Meet Up Mondays group to continue their journlling activity with Marian, during the first national lockdown through April – May 2020.

Marian was commissioned to make a series of four workshop tutorials and an introductory promo video. The tutorials cover how to make a book, creating backgrounds, adding text and embellishing your journal.

To mirror in-person experiences, the videos were launched weekly, on a Monday at 10am, within a Facebook event on the CPP MarketPlace account and the Barleycorn Facebook page.

Graphic showing participation and audience numbers. Event Attendees: 11, Views: 319, Videos: 5.

Pictured: Graphic showing participation and audience numbers. Event Attendees: 11, Views: 319, Videos: 5.

Pictured: Two screenshots from Marian Savill’s Art Journalling workshops. In the images Marian experiments on her desk with paint, wax crayons and collaging in colourful handmade books.

Download the full Tea and Tasters and Going Digital case study here.

Read more about one of the online taster sessions Art Journaling with Marian Savill and the Barleycorn cafe here.

Work with us as a Freelance Producer

Posted on by Alice Cramer

MarketPlace Freelance Producer

Contract: Freelance, fixed term.

Timescale: May to September 2021

Project fee: £5,400 (equivalent of £180 per day for 30 days)

Location: We envisage a combination of remote online working and, government restrictions-permitting, delivery in locations in Fenland and the Forest Heath area of West Suffolk.

Deadline: Please apply by 10am, Friday 9 April 2021.

The Project

We have commissioned Dance Theatre Company Casson & Friends for a community engagement and audience development project as part of our programme for 2021.

Originally scheduled for 2020, this project was postponed due to Covid-19. As a result, we have an opportunity to learn from the ways Casson & Friends have developed their work in response to the pandemic, and produce a participatory choreography and dance project with local communities in Fenland and the Forest Heath area of West Suffolk. 

The Producer will work with the MarketPlace team and Casson & Friends to manage the following planning and delivery schedule phases:

1) Planning – logistics, creative planning, engaging community members and artists

2) Creation – the activity itself, practical engagement with the community, live performance and filming

3) Post-Production – premiere and promotion of any filmed elements, follow up activity, signposting and evaluation

Interested? To find out more download the full brief here.

+

Subscribe

* indicates required
I am interested in activity in