Lovebox festival photos

Lovebox festival

I’ll be at Lovebox festival this weekend in Victoria Park, London doing workshops in the Folksy tent.  I can’t contain my excitement, yeep!

Innocent Village Fete: Day 2

At the Innocent Village Fete: Sunday 5th August

More pictures as promised from the second day in the Folksy tent.

Orange-headed penguin with pink front….

Fluffy cat head with big bright blue eyes. Meow!

This cat has got two sides: one pink and one purple. Looking very dapper with a pretty tie.

Turtles were the most popular plush to be made. I think this boy is pleased with his.

The first bunny to be made at any of our workshops and looking very cute in a blue jacket.

We ran out of stuffing towards the end of the day and in true re-use style we substituted the stuffing with shredded fluffy scrap fabric. Here’s some turtles hanging out together on the straw.

I am particularly pleased that we managed to get the fluffy legs out of this dog when we turned it inside out. I was worried we might end up with a 2-legged dog, but after a bit of effort and poking through, the legs appeared and completed this lovely fluffy dog.

I would have personally named this one the ‘Incredible Mutant Sheep’. It took the couple hours to make and I’m impressed with their patience and persistence to finish it. It’s huge!

Isaac and his penguin.

Starfish with suckers and pretty pink bird

This was one of the last creatures made with some striking red lips. Many eyes helps a good looking plush girl (all the better for seeing you with)…

See more photos from the fete here. If you’re photo is not on the blog, but you want it to be send me a message and I’ll put it on.

Innocent Village Fete go: Day 1

At the Innocent Village Fete: Saturday 4th August

I arrived at Regent’s Park with my suitcase full of scrap fabrics and toy stuffing and was unacclimatised to the hot weather. It was a beautiful day and the fete attracted thousands of visitors to the park to enjoy smoothies, food and a variety of activities. I felt very pleased to be a part of the Folksy tent helping the kids (and adults) to create some unique creatures. A bonus for me was being handed regular cups of free tasty smoothies throughout the fete and meeting many very interesting people, including some local crafters.

We had so many visitors to our workshop that I was very pleased to have Shaun there to lend a helping hand with the kids. I don’ t think he was expecting to be helping to sew up little fish and turtle creatures this weekend (he specialises in skateboarding lessons).

Meet the creatures….

‘Shreegon’ is a mutant sheep dragon that began life as a dragon and adopted a set of fluffy wings, possibly to allow a soft journey to any who take a ride on his back.

Laura was lovely to chat to and I could tell that she’s a natural crafter. She’s also a musician based in London, find out more about her music and talents on her website here. Here she is with her cute yellow dog that she made at the fete.

Would you believe that this little lizard began as a badger and was magically transformed into this rough n ready for anything cowboy lizard? Oh yes.

I was so impressed by this mega beetle. Having six squishy legs, a zip for a mouth and a variety of patterns on it’s shell makes it a cut above any beetle I’ve ever seen.

Parents were in on the act and got involved by lending a helping hand to complete some of the creatures. For some parents discovered they had skills they never knew existed. This was the first turtle to be made at the fete and involves some great team work.

And here’s a cute owl made at the end of the day.

It was great to see lots of happy faces when the creatures took shape and came to life. I hope the owners of the creations are pleased with their work and have found a safe home for each of them.

See more photos from the fete here. If you were at the workshop and want your photo to be put on the blog or you want your name included, send me a message and I’ll put it on.

Sunday’s activities in the next blog post to follow shortly…

Next workshop at the Innocent Village Fete

News flash: we’ve confirmed today so it’s short notice, but I thought I would let you know that our next workshop shall be at the Innocent Village Fete in Regents Park in London this weekend (4th-5th August)!

The village fete is one of many around the country organised by the Innocent Smoothie company and will include lots of activities that you would expect to find at a fete, such as welly wanging, morris dancing, duck herding, acoustic performances and maypole dancing. But this one is going to be ‘this summers biggest little fete’. The event is sponsered by lots of ethical companies and I’ve been told that Innocent was voted employer of the year last year.

I was invited by the awesome Folksy who are organising the children’s tent this year. There will be other crafters doing workshops, such as beaded-necklace making, purse and pencil case making and paper bag making. I shall be running workshops for kids to make plush toys so I’ll be bringing all my scrap fabric down with me. Folksy are soon to launch a website enabling crafters to sell their work online, you can read more about what they do on their blog here. I’m very excited about this weekend and will make sure I take lots of photos to show everyone.

Setting up for Situation Leeds

I have curated an exhibition of the creations from the last workshop in theartmarket. If anyone reading this made work in the last workshop for Ladyfest, please come down and see your work being exhibited. I am also providing information for the workshops that are coming up. Here is a small sneak preview of the exhibitions happening in the main unit of thartmarket for Situation Leeds:

A collaboration between myself and Sarah Barrett is on display and ready for use, called ‘Archive: Leeds’. It contains information about the use of venues and spaces in Leeds for art activity and is available for anyone to use. Please click the link for more information about the project.

We shall be using a spacious unit in the Merrion Centre that theartmarket have name ‘Corner in the market 1′ for the workshops. It is currently in use as an artists studio where Lil Adams and Joe Mawson are working on a project together. I am looking forward to making use of the extra space that this unit will provide.

I have been taking some close-up photographs of the individual creations that  I am going to put into a catalogue for the event.  If you want to see some of these images, click the Flickr link above on the left.

A cheeky note:  I have been asked to DJ for the Situation Leeds party on Friday night in the Faversham Conservatory and I am mega-excited!

More workshop photos

As promised more photos from the ladyfest workshop (thank you Sarah!). There’s some good ones of the workshop in progress. Here’s the stereo ready to be dismantled, well it’s ready to be dropped onto concrete after trying for enough time with the tools to break it apart…

Here’s me unscrewing parts of the stereo after having dropped it from a height onto concrete. The stereo split into two parts and exposed the insides with all the circuit boards.

Zo and Ames are beginning to make their monsters. I liked the way that Zo had stitched a bead necklace under some latex to create a spine for her creature. The latex being re-used here was from a huge monster sculpture that Dan had made for his degree show.
Dan’s monster was on display in the Leeds Met University main entrance few a few weeks, but unfortunately because of its gigantic size, it had to be taken apart because he could not find adequate storage for it. For a good view of the whole gigantic monster click here. Ames combined different found elements to give her monster a Jamaican vibe. I love the palm trees.

Dan working on some found wings…

Toby starting his monster, this dude made the mighty bird monster with wings made from reused latex.

This guy is one of the couple who travelled up from Reading for the festival. He’s using a saw to cut off sections from the found toys to make it easier to glue them together. If you can spot the tiny prodigy sticker on the table….Dan went to great lengths to cut into the plastic of the stereo just to get this sticker off in one piece so he could put it onto the back of his crab monster.

Sarah, one of our visiting ‘resident’ artists looking proud after making the first of her two robots. This one’s modestly named bot. He’s flying an art market flag. Bot is made mainly from old electrical equipment, including a cassette player for his head. Knitted resident artist sash made by Lil Adams.

If this doesn’t illustrate how happy this workshop can make someone, I don’t know what will. Great smile Dan. It does also look as though he’s wearing a big black feather at the back of his head, suitable for a cocktail party.

Zo’ monster nearly finished, with a baby doll plastic arm.

A rummage through the boxes of junk.

Dan’s second monster….I think it looks a bit like a the skeleton crab riding a monster bike.

Toby’s bird monster…

Sarah’s second creation of the day, this one is named ‘Ro’, with a circuit board for a body, a headphone-head, an old necklace for a mouth and the bit the holds a CD in place in a stereo for an eye.

A friendly artist (didn’t manage to catch his name) showing me his creation that has shaped up to look like a dinosaur. I’m impressed, you can’t see my face but I am.

A workshop regular, Rachel ‘Miss Police’ working on her fantastically camp mime cat monster. Using many colourful beads.

Crystal re-using some furry fabric.