Conversations in Colour - Session 2

Milena's Group
After distributing materials, lino and paper, designs were drawn on lino then fixed with permanent felt tips and printed on different colour papers.

 

There was an air of excitement and surprise as the paper was peeled off the lino to reveal the finished print. All the previous comments – ‘I’m no good at drawing’ were forgotten, as women started to compliment each other on their work.

We are printing using reduction technique, so there will be very little lino left at the end, but we should end up with some fantastic work!  After printing on paper we are going to repeat the technique on canvas.

During the session, time just flew, but at the end we had a room full of prints!’

Becky's Group

We played the 'let's' game where people say 'let's' followed by an action and we all grew excited about holidays in the sun where we would build sandcastles, scuba dive and wear nice clothes; we imagined diving into rock pools and falling asleep in beautiful gardens filled with bird song.   Although we didn't actually do those things we took one another on such a verbal journey that we felt that we had!  Then the groups were given a choice - to free write in response to an image or to build on their ideas about the Artlink environment from the previous week.

People developed their sensory images into poems, bringing in a character or an animal.  Participants read out their work and we were treated to men of the cloth who had sired many children, industrious bees and spiders, vivid descriptions of the building's decor, a seaside visit and philosophical meanderings through a rock garden.

We talked a little too - about how some of us need books to get us to sleep at night while others find it difficult to concentrate on longer works.  We hope that the free books from the previous evening’s World Book Night will get those in the latter group reading again. 

For several women this was the first creative writing they had undertaken since school and participants expressed their fears about spelling and use of 'proper' English.  'It was wonderful to be able to write creatively again' one participant commented while another said 'It was nice to listen to what other people had written'.  Inspired by the conversation, I decided to end the session by playing a poem by Daljit Nagra who often uses snippets of Punjabi and different syntax in his poetry.  I think it challenged the idea that there is only one 'correct' way to write in English.