In the Artlink building there are four stained glass
windows depicting the four seasons. What we found out today is that the theme
of four seasons continue within the building, making temperature on each floor
higher than the one underneath, so by the time we climbed up the stairs, to the
studio, we entered the beautiful summer’s day.
It was so warm that we opened all the windows and the
sunshine streamed in making printing colours glisten and shine. The prints came
pouring out, with a fantastic array of colours. People were astonished, and
even the most perfectionist and critical participants were soon taken over and
carried away by the unexpected beauty of their own work! One woman who said she
only liked one of her prints changed her mind and said – I like them all now !
Soon everybody finished their linos, descended back into the spring temperature
of the room below, and the second group came up to enjoy the summer!
They started
tie-dyeing cloth. Most people have never done it before, but were amused with the shapes of the bundles of tied cloth. They
looked like some strange creatures, which were then painted with textile
colours. We dried the cloth with a hairdryer and soon we were all opening the
cloth and seeing what effects we were getting. It reminded me of the emergence
of the butterflies from a cocoon. We are going to tie dye some cotton bags next
time!
On this gorgeous day, the writing group began with an icebreaker – ‘which weather do you feel like today?’ Then we proceeded to discuss emotions and states of mind and to write group poems. We did this by finding different metaphors for these emotions, in the process discovering some strong images. The rough drafts were all excellent and had a lot of potential so the problem was choosing which to develop. When editing, one group of participants initially tried to find a narrative in their words but finally decided to focus mainly on condensed images, which meant that it was up to the reader to fill in the gaps. Another group put emphasis on the narrative in theirs and discarded words and phrases that didn't fit. Condensing is a key element to writing poetry and I was pleased that the participants discovered this through the process of working together.
As we moved towards the end of the session, one
participant commented that she hadn’t thought she was creative but that the
project was allowing her to see that she had been repressing that part of herself
and that really she was extremely creative.
Milena Dragic and Becky Cherriman
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