Mums group at Midland Road

I'm working with Larna Campbell for Artworks Creative Communities on a project with a group of parents at Midland Road Nursery. The aim is to make a mosaic to promote health including emotional well-being general health and a specific health issue identified by the group.

To get our creative muscles loosened up I've been running some taster sessions to get us all geared up for designing the mosaic. Here's how it's going so far:


We had a look through some health leaflets, divided them into those that were relevant and those that weren't. We took the relevant ones home to read and the others we made jewelry from.

The following week we did some creative mapping, drawing our movements for a day or in a week or all the places we go at present.

Here's one participants 'last Wednesday' she visits two schools, family, shopping, home, and attends classes then does the journey again to pick every one up again.

We know ho good fruit is for us, but last week we found out how good drawing is for us.

We had a little exhibition of our work at the end. It's just in the kitchen but it looks good. We have a break now for half term, when we go back we have to plan a day out and then we need to focus on designing and making the mosaic for the center.

YOT Session at St Peter's House

Today I worked with the YOT team. Two young people, three support staff and a volunteer form Kala Sangam. We had a two hour art session. I'd been to the Manchester Art Fair on Sunday with Louise and Inbal( Louise Atkinson, artist Leeds, and Inbal Druval, artist Israel). It was a good research trip. I spoke to some artist led space and curator led spaces. I noticed a contrast in the kind of work they promoted and how they promoted it. So I showed some of the post cards and magazines I'd picked up to the group.

After a brief discussion about the work. Then we put that aside for a bit and then we looked at Gillian Wearings signs. They went down well. Immediately a young person announced they had the prefect sign, but they were keeping it a secret until we started making.

I'd brought with me a collage I'd done when I was 16 or so. I wanted to make an image that joined the Gillian Wearings signs and my collage of a 2 Unlimited flyer. In other words join a professional practice onto that of a young persons.

So we started with some words I'd cut from the Youth Information website. We attempted to make sentences of our own. They were surreal to say the least. We then chose images from a 2009 calendar as a base and assembled them with these sentences.

Here's what we came up with:

The Law

Disabilies in different cultures.

I don't want your money I just want change.

Finding my niche.

M A N U F A C T U R