Burgess Park May Fair

On May 18th we will be taking part in Burgess Park’s May Fair, an annual celebration of Burgess Park and the rich and unique history of the surrounding area.

This year the park is traveling back in time to the industrial revolution, capturing the spirit of the 19th Century and the transformation of this area from market garden villages to a manufacturing focal point.

At Art in the Park we will be running a collection of workshops and activities in and around the studio.

• Ceramic Brick Making with Decorative Victorian Elements
• Silk Screen Printing on Bags
• “Flow” Temporary Sculpture Trail

Elsewhere around the park you’ll be able to find:

• Heritage photography trail around the park
• Victorian games and costumes for children with 1st Place Nursery
• Vauxhall City Farm – mobile farm
• Dogs Trust micro-chipping and dog activities
• Stalls by local community groups: Walworth Society, Peckham Vision, Cambridge House and more

For more details about the May Fair and what else is going on around the park visit Friends of Burgess Park.

Children’s Pottery Workshop

Art in the Park runs a special pottery class for children every Thursday, run by the lovely and talented Frances Wright. Below are some of the charming pieces created in these classes!

Garden Sign Workshop

Some lovely photos from a recent ceramics garden sign making workshop run by Art in the Park artists Frances Wright and William Hudson in Glengall Wharf Garden. Looks like a great day!

The Sustainable Plot

Things to Make and Do

Hello there! Things to Make and Do posts have moved to Fridays – to get you ready for the weekend and the week ahead.

It’s a busy weekend at Art in the Park – both Bill Hudson and Leyla Folwell will be in the studio, running a woodworking class and a plate or bowl making workshop. After that, Monday will be woodcarving with Bill again. On Tuesday Andrea Sinclair will be running a one day pewter workshop, where you can learn to make your own jewellery. And Thursday will be pottery with Leyla Folwell – with classes running in the afternoon and evening for kids and grown ups alike! Phew! To find out more and book your place, click here!

This weekend is the last chance to catch the World Photography Awards at Somerset House a great exhibition of contemporary photography, spanning many different subjects such as current affairs, sport, portraiture, landscape and fashion.

Museums at Night, the annual after hours event happening at hundreds of museums and galleries up and down the country takes place this weekend. The Royal Observatory, National Gallery, Design Museum and more open up their doors at night for special events and workshops!

Ways with Words, a festival or words and ideas is happening this weekend in Opera Holland Park. Each day will feature around five events, with speakers such Alain de Botton, Jeremy Paxman, Maureen Lipman and Jimmy Carr.

This week will be your last chance to catch the Lucian Freud Portraits exhibition at the National Portraits Gallery. The exhibition runs until the 27th of June, make sure you don’t miss it!

Looking for a weekend project? How about these fantastic Hanging Mason jars lights! Quite an advanced project, but a stunning result if you have the time and patience.

And how about something tasty for the week – doesn’t this lemon tart look good? Yum!

Whatever you are doing this week, have a great time!

Things to Make & Do

Happy Monday all! It’s a beautiful start to the week, a welcome change from all the rain. Fingers crossed it stays that way…

There’s so much going on at Art in the Park this week. Tonight is woodcarving with Bill Hudson – learn which tools to use, health and safety, how to best design and plan your carving, carving techniques, different uses of materials and much more… This Wednesday is the first in our new Lino Printing lessons with Simon Veis, a course which will guide you through all the stages from design to printing. Thursday is pottery with Leyla Folwell, with different classes running for all ages and levels of ability. Try your hand at ‘up-cycling’ old clothes with Jill Newman’s new Eco Fashion workshop on Friday evening. And this Saturday is Life Drawing, a class for anyone who wants to learn life drawing or enhance and work on their practice. For more information click here. How will you be getting crafty and creative this week?

There are some great new exhibitions on this week. A new exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci’s study of anatomy opens at The Queen’s Galllery this Friday. This groundbreaking work was lost for 400 years after his death in 1519, but can now be enjoyed in the largest exhibition of his studies of the human body.

A new exhibition of Bauhaus, ‘Bauhaus – Art as Life‘ opens at the Barbican on Thursday. From expressionist beginnings to a pioneering model uniting art and technology, this London exhibition presents the Bauhaus’ utopian vision to change society in the aftermath of the First World War.

If the sun stays out, what a better way to spend Sunday than taking a walk through the bluebells? Take a guided walk through the Bluebell woods within the Garden at Osterley Park and House!

Are you looking for something crafty to do this week? I absolutely love this stunning doily lampshade, why not give it a go this week?

Have a wonderful week, whatever you’re doing.

Things to Make and Do

Good morning and happy Monday! I hope you had a lovely Easter. The holidays may be over, but there are still plenty of fun and creative things to be done over the next seven days.

There’s woodcarving with Bill Hudson tonight at Art in the Park – a great course for learning all about the art of wood carving and producing your own functional objects and works of art. Experienced carvers are also welcome to drop in to use our space and materials. This Saturday is a one-day plate and bowl making class with our ceramist Leyla Folwell – all you need for  making and decorating you’re own unique plate or bowl from scratch! To find out more about the courses we are running and to book your place please click here.

We’re very excited for Art in the Park artist Andrea Sinclair, whose choir is singing in a free event at the Globe Theatre this Sunday. Sonnet Sunday launches the Globe Festival with singing, dancing stalls and readings of the sonnets. Congratulations Andrea!

Animal Inside Out looks like a very interesting exhibition (though probably not to everyone’s taste!). This curious exhibition at the Natural History Museum displays the astonishing, and often quite beautiful, anatomies and inner workings of different animals. Ever wondered what the blood vessels in a shark or the nervous system of cat look like? No? But here’s a chance to find out!

This week is also the final week of the Alchemy Festival at the Southbank Centre, a festival celebrating the music, debate, film, dance, literature, fashion and design of India and South Asia. Attend a jazz concert, a poetry reading, or drop in for some morning yoga.

There’s also a great retrospective of YBA Gillian Wearing currently showing at the Whitechapel Gallery. Wearing’s work is an exploration in the way we present ourselves to the world, and this exhibition features her famous series, Signs that say what you want them to say, and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say where strangers were offered paper and pen to communicate their own messages.

And if you’re feeling crafty this week how about having a go at this simple and elegant mobile. A great (and surprisingly easy) way to brighten up a room!

Whatever you do this week, and a fun and interesting time!

Things to Make and Do

Good morning. Spring is here and Easter is on it’s way. Make the most of the sunshine and have a wonderful Easter with Art in the Park’s list of things to make and do. There will be no Things to Make and Do blog post on Easter Monday, but there should be enough here to keep you entertained for the next fortnight!!

There is a smaller number of classes running over Easter at Art in the Park – Monday 2nd and 9th is still wood carving with Bill Hudson – a wonderful way to learn how to create your own objects and sculptures from wood. And Gil Mutch will be running a life drawing class on Saturday 14th of April. Click here to find out more about our courses and book your place.

There are some great exhibitions around London opening this wek. A new exhibition about the brain has just opened at the Wellcome Gallery.  Brains explores the inner workings of the brain and what humans have done to the brain throughout history.

The new Damien Hirst retrospective opens this Wednesday on April 4th at the Tate Modern. The exhibition will include the Natural History series, including the shark suspended in formaldehyde, Pharmacy and In and Out of Love,a room filled with live butterflies.

It’s a great time to get out in the sun and enjoy the spring. Visit the newly hatched ducklings at The London Wetland Centre – there are activities running during the day, talks and a special Easter Egg Hunt.

Chirp, who run pop up choirs and singing workshops are holding a special Spring Clean Sing on the 15th of April – dust off your vocal cords and get in the mood for spring!

And make sure you have a wonderful Easter. There’s an enormous Easter egg hunt currently on all across London. Visit The Big Egg Hunt to get maps and clues – and start hunting!

Kew Gardens is running a special Maya Chocolate Adventure. Learn all about the history of chocolate and how it is made in workshops and follow the Easter trail through the gardens.

And get crafty this Easter with these instructions for Easter bunny finger puppets. So cute!

Why don’t you make some beautiful eggs for Easter. Dye your eggs in some pretty pastel colours, a fun activity for kids as well!

Or how about these embroidered Easter eggs – very pretty, but wow, they are a lot of work!

Have a wonderful Easter and plenty of chocolate!!

Things to Make and Do

Happy Monday! What a lovely, sunny start to the week – fingers crossed it stays that way…

It’s a full week of workshops and classes this week – a great time to come down to Burgess Park, enjoy the weather and get creative! Tonight is woodcarving with Bill Hudson, learn all about the art of woodcarving or drop in to use our space and materials for your own work. On Tuesday, Andrea Sinclair will be running a pewter casting workshop – creating unique pieces of jewellery using the ancient art of pewter. Thursday is all pottery, Leyla Folwell will be running drop in classes all afternoon and evening for children, beginners and advanced potters. On Sunday Jill Newman will be running a Remake/Remodel Recycled Fashion workshop. Learn how to update and ‘up-cycle’ your old clothes to create new and original clothes and accessories! For more information about all our courses and how to book your place, click here.

Have you seen the Dale Chihuly exhibition at the Halcyon Gallery? Chihuly works in glass, creating stunning installation pieces and elevating the medium from craft to groundbreaking fine art. This is a beautiful exhibition of Chihuly’s work, truly breathtaking to see.

It’s the final few days of New York crochet artist Olek’s exhibition, ‘I do not expect to be a mother but I do expect to die alone’. Olek has covered a gallery space and all the objects within it in colourful crochet. A strange and stunning sight to behold, finishing on the 25th of March.

If you missed the Natural History Museum’s Wildlife Photography exhibition, there is still a chance to see some of the highlights displayed in the ground of the museum. On the 23rd of March, 80 of the photographs will be displayed on the Museum’s East Lawn – so enjoy them on the grass and in the sun!

Are you looking for a fun, crafty project to try this week? How about these diy garden markers? A great way to keep track of your herbs and greenery.

Are you doing anything exciting? Let us know what you’re up to, and have a wonderful week!

Experimental Sensory Project

In 2011, Kitty Schuhard and I designed and delivered some very experimental workshops to an after-school club for teenagers with complex special needs.
We had 6 sessions, each one exploring one of the 5 senses: Touch, Taste, Smell, Sound and Sight- and the 6th session would be suggested by the group of young people themselves.

We focused on the experiential: An exploration of what can be felt and learned through the process of the activities, rather than working towards making competed, tangible pieces of art. In this way, we allowed each individual group member to connect in their own way and time.

A lot of the activities were about Trust: giving and receiving, gauging responses of self and others, and  learning the art of relaxation. They so enjoyed the relaxation and meditation techniques shared at the close of each session that they voted for “a chill-out party” to be the 6th and final workshop.

Each workshop was a vibrant, playful collision of art, science, therapy and play and an exploration and celebration of ourselves. We wanted the group to be stimulated, to interact, engage, relax and have fun.
We made Barefoot walks, sound mobiles and sound recordings, an improvised shadow-puppet show, clay sculptures, wore blind-folds, mixed herbs for our baths, made (non-alchoholic) healthy cocktails , U.V  and aromatherapy paintings – and lots of other things.

We received a glowing testimonial from one of the groups’ regular staff:
“We would like to congratulate Jill and Kitty for their inspiring and rewarding workshops……..they have provided an excellent  approach of how to address the particular necessities of each member…enabling them to interact and to communicate with us….., revealing changes in behavior and helping to be calm….. a fantastic opportunity to see  the success of such workshops”

I recently gave a talk At the Art in the Park studio about the project to students from Birkbeck College and I have been encouraged to write a Research Paper which I am currently doing. I would love to be able to further develop this kind of work with Kitty. We both feel that we can progress far with our ideas. Everybody got so much from this project.