Community Arts in the High Peak
We have now unveiled the lovely ceramic clock in the lounge of Charis House, made by residents, staff, volunteers and artist Angie Hardwick. The clock was unveiled by Councillor Jean Todd, as part of a celebratory morning with coffee and biscuits.
Here it is – being installed, and covered; then unveiled!
And here are a few images from the sessions:
This project ran for two years, with a slight overspill caused by covid! This year, once the sheep were sheared, the best of the fleece was sent to Griffiths Mill to be spun into Aran yarn.
This has now been returned, and together with one / two skeins of chunky hand spun wool from last year, is ready for sale!
Some will be kept back for the staff and residents to use in ongoing craft projects, using the skills learnt in the workshops, with a few ‘reminder’ sessions as needed. Last week , several women started to learn to crochet.
For more details of the 2 year project, see below.
We were delighted to run a 2 year project, ‘Sheep to Craft’, with the residents of Charis House, Buxton, and Oldfield Farm, a safe place where homeless women, including those escaping from domestic violence, and women recovering from drug and alcohol dependency can find rest and recovery.
This programme worked with artist carol Wilson, and residents and other women in the community in a wide range of creative arts.
Workshops were held at Good News Family Care’s Family Centre or Oldfield Farm.
Funded by The Ashley Foundation, The South West Peak Landscape Partnership, and the John Booth Charitable Trust, the project seeked to provide a fun, creative way of learning new skills, socialising and doing something different. The main ingredient in this project came straight from local fields, courtesy of our four-legged fleeced friends at Oldfield Farm! Local Lleyn sheep took centre stage, with women learning all the processes about how to transform a sheep’s fleece into carded wool – washing, sorting, dying, and carding – and then using the carded wool for wet felting, needle felting and weaving, as well as spinning the carded wool into yarn.
In order to learn about how to earn some income from the fleece / yarn, we have created our own brand ‘Good Ewes’, and made needlefelting kits, for people to make their own sheep or robins – sold for £10 from High Peak Community Arts or Good News Family Care. These kits contained all you needed, including needles, needle holder and foam blocks, and we also sold top up kits for those who already had needles and foam at £7.50. We had themed bags of dyed fleece for £5.
We also sold the first batch of Good Ewes yarn.
Here is our display at ‘Made in New Mills ‘ on September 28th …and more pics from workshops, below that..
As part of National Writing Day, Bella Hardy (BBC Folk singer of the year 2014) ran a creative writing workshop with the women at Charis House. Everyone had a go at writing poems and song lyrics and also enjoyed a sneak preview rendition of a song from Bella’s new album, due out in November. Funded by Writing East Midlands, we are now fundraising for a longer project.
In May, we held a Celebratory Event to unveil both the Willow Angel, Gabrielle, made with artist Christine Redstone, and two ceramic bird baths made with artist Caroline Chouler Tissier. We also enjoyed looking at the Canal Boat Art, weaving and printing done earlier in the year.
Busy making an amazing ceramic bird bath with artist Caroline Chouler – Tissier. Funded by Santander Discovery Foundation.
Willow Angel
Participants worked to create a large scale sculpture of a Willow Angel, working with artist Christine Redstone. They decided she should be curvaceous, not skinny, and called her Gabrielle. See above! This was funded by the Jefford Wellor Fund of Foundation Derbyshire.
Canal Boat Art
Wit artist Debra Tracey, the group learnt the skill of canal boat art – such as Roses and Castles – and then painted jugs,planters, cans, and other items for sale and to use to brighten up the farm. This completed the 2 year project funded by Lloyds Bank Foundation.
Weaving
With artist Carol Wilson, the group enjoyed weaving, making small hangings for their own rooms in Charis House and Oldfield Farm.
Printing
With artist Sandra Orme, participants learnt a variety of printing techniques and used them to make cards, print onto aprons and bags.
We created a wonderful Tree Of Life in Ceramics for the Dining Room / Lounge of Charis House, which was unveiled in February by The Chair of Derbyshire County Council, Cllr Steve Freeborn and the Mayor of the High Peak, Cllr Sewart Young.
We also made lovely tiles for the hallway, with flowers and the word, Peace, Freedom and Flourish.
Back in September 2014, We started with a felt making project with artist Carol Wilson – to create large hand felted wall hanging, and a table runner using naturally dyed wool from local sheep.
The group also had much fun with shadow puppets, with the Babbling Vagabonds, creating 2 shows for Easter, and singing with Rose Hodgson.
The group has now also completed a mosaic project to create plaques for the bedroom doors at The Family Centre in Buxton – on the theme of ‘Flowers that Heal’, and a large Welcome Sign for the farm.
The group worked with artist Deborah Pitman, had a lovely time, with great results.
We have planned and delivered a neurodiversity project led by and for neurodivergent adults, with accessibility built in. We considered how to make it accessible as possible by creating floor plans, the use of colour cards with moods on them, as well as information cards and videos explaining neurodiversity. We did a baseline questionnaire at the beginning of the project to assess what participants’ need in order to access the project, as well as what they wanted to achieve by the end of the project.
We delivered art projects on Tuesdays that express the thoughts and experiences of the participants, helping them to set life goals and improve confidence and wellbeing. The projects ranged from a series of mixed media projects focussing on participants’ special interests, to digital projects like photography and 3D rendering that expressed their experiences of monotropism. As a result we produced zines, unique stand alone pieces, blog posts, information cards on the key themes, and accompanying videos.
The outcomes so far have been not only the beautiful artwork, but tangible benefits to the participants, and pointers from our steering group about how to make it even better. Participants gave continuous feedback about what they liked about the project, many saying they enjoyed the social aspect, the extra support from the workers, and producing high quality end products:
‘I enjoyed that, I went home and proper chilled after that’
‘Gave me the confidence to continue my creative writing, and make something of it.”
‘Gordon made me feel really listened to… included… genuinely it made me really happy and wanting to come back every week’.
‘I feel all woo…a double paged spread sounds really professional’
‘I enjoy it, it gets me out the house…’
The feedback from the steering group and feedback forms lead to creating subcategories of art projects, and set clear individual goals. This allows us to help participants to achieve personal goals through going to the sessions, and match participants to the artists in the field they want to work in. This has informed what we want from artists applying to deliver sessions in the coming year.
