Conversations in Colour - Session 3

We played storytelling games, creating one - rather eccentric - scene in which The Beatles played a concert outside the Lyther Building with two football teams standing  by.  The pigeons pooing on their heads wasn't the only thing they were worried about. Paul McCartney was also concerned about the orange that had been picked from a huge crate of oranges with Jaffa emblazoned on the side and thrown at him. 

Our next scene was of an evening at the seaside in Goa. There, a woman sat atop a glorious hill drinking a cup of tea and watching the sun set while a cool breeze came in from the waves and fish broke the surface of the water.  On the beach, people in shacks served food to party-goers taking a break from dancing and the scene was lit further by candles and the rising moon. 

We were impressed by how well everyone remembered the details of what had been said before and how some people wound the words together to form the start of a beautiful story.

Then everyone wrote. The remit was to write something inspired by one of the scenes.  It could be what happened next or focussing in on a detail of the scene or whatever came to mind.  We had a few minutes for feedback at the end and people read out their work, which was a wonderful blend of lyrical language and storytelling.  I'm hoping that we will be able to post some of the results up here soon. In this part of the session conversations were certainly bursting with colour and there was much laughter, appreciation and applause.

After the short break, things continued just as well as we picked up the printing from last week. What was surprising was that colours from Goa seeped into the prints! They were bright, connecting us immediately to the colour and ornamentation of the Indian subcontinent. People found lino cutting relaxing and a couple of women took their block home to do a bit more, as they had not been present last week.

The room was crowded and I was worried that women might start accidentally printing each others’ clothes, but somehow everything went very harmoniously, and, other then one tiny cut finger, everything went really well.

There was lots of laughs and admiration of each others work, and plenty of friendly advice.  Next week we will finish our prints on paper and then start working on the textiles.

Milena Dragic and Becky Cherriman