Interviews with Ali Clough, The Looking Well and Fran Coates

Creative Communication

In part this whole journey into my local creative community is a way of looking back in acknowledgementand homage to the manifold skills of my Mum, who died in June this year, and my Grandma. In particular my Grandma performed a huge cultural link to the pre-war cultural skills quite literally of "make do and mend." Grandma arrived, Mary Poppins-like with mending bag in tow whilst we, as a household, in the meantime, had built up a neat pile of darning, mending and altering waiting for her  arrival!Both, however were significant in terms of their creative home making skills which included rag rugging, plaiting rugs, making lampshades, draft excluders, mosaicing with broken crockery, crocheting bedspreads etc, knitting, tapestry to name but a few of the skills they would turn their hands to.



Meeting and forming creative relationships within my local rural community of High Bentham in the Yorkshire Dales I am researching and exploring the:-

* social context in which we share and communicate
* skill of makers. New skills to learn and re-interpret
* empowering nature of making
* instinct to create



Making?

Why?

* survival
* way of learning
* enjoying life
* solving problems
* Fulfilling a need
* Expression

I want to look at the distance between the maker and the user. Today fewer people know how to make things they  use, need or want. 

But are we experiencing a craft renaisssance? Growing numbers of people are increasingly interested in where their food, clothing, furniture building materials and cultural products are coming from, how they are made and by whom.....

                                                                

Meeting Ali Clough, Creative director of Pioneer Projects, The Looking Well, Bentham.

 http://www.pioneerprojects.org.uk/our-approach/working-with-individuals-groups.php

Pioneer Projects (Celebratory Arts) Ltd was formed in 1996 by a group of artists previously trading as Celebratory Arts for Primary Healthcare.  Its first workspace, Looking Well, was created to serve the needs of Bentham following an arts-led health needs assessment in 1997.

In 1999 the company was awarded the prestigious Smithkline Beecham Impact Award award for excellence in community health and become one of the first healthy living centres funded by the New Opportunities Fund.

In 2005 the company moved to its current premises, Looking Well Studios, a newly converted former warehouse in the heart of the town.

In 2008 Creative Director and founder member Ali Clough was awarded an International Arts and Health Fellowship by Healthway, the Western Australian state health promotion agency and given the inaugural International Arts and Health Award for her contribution to the field of arts and health in the community.

Pioneer Projects (Celebratory Arts) Ltd continues to thrive and extend its unique approach to the art of living across rural communities in the North of England and Internationally. 

Ali started out her creative career working as a costume designer for the Lancaster based “Ludus” , dance group. She realized she loved team work and initiated her first community project, the Ulverston Street Procession, in 1980. Ali brought this inspiration to Bentham and the 'Bentham Bonfire' and Lantern Procession became a highlight of the Bentham calender and a real draw to the market town, the combination of creative spectacle, community collusion and festive atmosphere bringing holiday makers and locals to enjoy a fabulous firework display with entertainment and awe inspiring creativity.
 
 People loved the atmosphere of the lantern making workshops and on the first night a hundred people joined in. Having built something 3D and beautiful and then collectively become something bigger inspiring connections were made and health benefits came to be acknowledged.

The Looking Well’s latest community celebration is the May “Car”nival (photo below) inspired by the need for clean transport and a move away from ‘packed’ roads and the recently established “Way of the Roses” bike route.

 
 Ali also acknowledged that “things” happen in people’s kitchens and expressed a desire to emulate this kind of practice within the Looking Well ethos and practice. On Tuesday’s a banquet lunch for sharing takes place. The “drop in “ nature of the Looking Well fulfilling a networking role and one of shared experiences is important but the dichotomy between survival expenses versus inclusiveness is a difficult balance/challenge to maintain. 

Ali discussed the fact that as a charity the looking Well has to operate ‘outcome measuring’ and respect diversity and differences within the social interaction of the creative groups. The Dementia Support Group understandably operates completely within the present and we discussed the unconscious copying of processes that are clearly not cognitive but embodiment and mimicry. Ali spoke of being aware of lost intuition and that it has taken her years to trust it and recognize her reactions. Training oneself to get more in-touch with ones own senses, oneself and to give people the opportunity to practice this is very important.

We talked about providing people with a connection to new people and that learning to trust is not easy within the world we operate within. The Looking Well was formerly never insured as all took responsibility for caring for things and overall considerations.

As an Arts and Health Practitioner the Looking Well  tries to manage intuitively their operational dynamics with insight enabling and including individuals to ‘go with the flow’ within a created/creative space through which there is understanding, accommodation and a ‘letting go’ of an organic/natural process in which ‘things’ can happen.  

I also looked at the projects developed by the artist group in Ulverston known as "The Dead Good Guide to Art", see link for their details.

 http://www.deadgoodguides.com/pages/pastprojects.html

Fran Coates

Spinner, Dyer, Weaver, Knitter, Felter, Baker, Cook, Cheesemaker , Veg grower,Upholsterer, Soap Maker,  Poultry rearer and so much more!

Redshaw Farm, Widdale

15^th October 2012

Fran is a friend of mine who is probably the most intensely creative person I know. If I were suddenly thrust into survival mode she would be the first person I would want on my team! A number of years ago Fran felt compelled to learn as much as possible about self sufficiency. As a farmer’s wife she was in a good position, however to see the altitude and situation of her farm is to realise the challenges of terrain and weather. This makes her many achievements all the more noteworthy.

Fran’s mother worked as an upholsterer for Waring and Gillow in Lancaster. Her Gran taught Fran to knit and Fran would pester her to show her more. For Fran knitting is pure escapism and relaxation. Fran uses a variety of wool including wool from their own flock which she washes, cards, combs and spins. She has both a carding machine and a spinning wheel.Fran introduced me to weaving.

Fran and I spent the afternoon together learning how to Resist Felt which Fran had some knowledge of and was also keen to put into practice. We chose to form 3D vessels something I have been keen to learn to do. I opted to use local fleece, pebble colours for piece completely grounded in the local landscape.

Instructions

Cut out shape/disc from thick plastic (old cattle feed bags are perfect for this!).

Bear in mind that your piece will shrink by 40% so take this into consideration.

Splay your felt onto your disc/shape. The first layer will form the inside of your vessel.

Spay with water and overlap the edges onto the other side of the disc.

Turn over and splay felt, like sun rays on the other side and follow same process.

Pop a net over to compact fibres and gently rub over with olive oil soap to help ‘glue’ all the fibres together. Take care here as if you felt too far at this stage you will not be able to get the layers to felt together.

Follow this process four times.

Decide where you would like your opening and cut accordingly. I used a small jar lid but this was a larger opening than I had hoped for. An alternative would be just to make a small cross slit and gently ease out the plastic. Then work around your form to draw up the shape from its flattened form. Dry. 

 

Joyce Knapp

Thursday 11^th October 2012

Rag Rugger

Joyce grew up at Lack Fell House, an isolated farmhouse situated on a wild fellside below Gregareth and the three counties cairns or Three Men as they are locally known. This beautiful setting

Saw the development of rugging as a natural process of need and recycling of old worn items into warm and welcoming rugs beginning their lives in the first position at the bedside and gradually as wearing set in being moved from least posh room in stages!

Joyce is related to the famous “Terrible  Knitter’s” of Dent who knitted as they worked on the land. Joyce explained that they wore specially adapted belts which held their needles and wool so that as they needed to they would be able to release their hands and it would still hold the knitting in place.  Tizzer, Elizabeth Middleton, her Dad’s cousin was one of the last two “Terrible Knitter’s” of Dent.

Joyce’s mother taught her husband to rug. As her first duty was to make the family clothes it was left to Dad to then show Joyce, aged eight how to cut up material and make a ‘proddy’ or ‘pegged’ mat. Dad demonstrated a small section and Joyce followed using old corduroy, tweed and heavy cotton twill clothing with an old hessian sack put to new use as the prepared pieces were pushed through this backing. Joyce explained that her Dad used to say “by the ‘gegg’ of my eye” when he incorporated the different colourways of fabrics to best effect and to keep the pile even a thicker fabric could be cut narrower though the same length to ensure an even depth.

When Joyce returned to rugging to make her son a bedroom rug he took the rug into school to show his teacher and class and the teacher requested that Joyce taught all the class this technique for a Victorian themed project that was being studied. This led to their parents asking to be taught the technique too and Joyce became a rag rug instructor! Joyce studied other techniques and attended workshops herself by an accomplished rugger in Reeth, Heather Richie and in all developed approximately ten different techniques.

Joyce has used natural dying methods such as using daffodil heads, onion skin and red cabbage to

plain woollen blankets and only ever uses pure wool out of choice for natural authenticity and its hard wearing nature without attracting the dirt as man made fibres tend to do.

Joyce was kind enough to show me all her frames, tools, yarns and fabrics and explain the main processes of hooky and proddy rugging giving me her workshop handouts to enable me to learn the techniques

http://marionmitchellembroidery.blogspot.co.uk/

  http://actionweaver.com