TinkeringTimes

Secrets & Codes, an ending and a beginning

So Secrets & Codes is nearly complete. After 8 or 9 workshops the pupils' works are almost finished. Soon I'll be framing all their textile pieces, and putting together some sort of interpretation booklet.

In the meantime a consultation event will take place, sharing the work of all the local schools involved in the project with their local community. Here's ours. I'm so proud of them all, they've found parts of it challenging in different ways and have all wanted, so wholeheartedly, to persevere and get it done.

But this isn't an ending, as my work comes to a close, the village will open a brand new heritage trail which all the children and teachers involved now own a piece of through their efforts and endeavours. The future and the past of the village are all theirs to look after, and a new heritage trail will soon be launched to commemorate the area.

Sewing Suffolk Puffs / Yoyos with Year 6

Last Friday's Secrets & Codes workshop was all about starting actual sewing, at last! After some prep for the children's artwork two days earlier, in which they began to draft their final designs, we finally moved on to cracking out the needles and thread.

Firstly I must say someone has done an excellent job of this with them already as they were able to thread the needles beautifully and knew what a running stich was, which saved us all a lot of time. They were very excited about being able to choose the colour of felt for their Yoyo (as it's known in the US - Suffolk Puff in the UK). I took along this little sample (above) which I'd prepared so they could pass it round and scrutinise it to give them some gist of what to expect; and a few of Jennifer Collier's paper versions to give them a feel for some more creative options. 

It was wonderful to see the few who felt they couldn't do this at the start proudly finish their little works and ask to take them home, we did start off with a few 'I can't sew' murmurings, but I promised them they would be able to by the end, and they worked hard to see if actually they could. The teacher said she really enjoyed the session and found it very theraputic (which was also lovely, as the group is quite pleasantly excitable - I imagine a little injection of calm now and again is no bad thing for Miss!)

To make life easier for everyone I prepared a cheat sheet which we had up on the smartboard the whole time. I thought since I'd made it, why not make it available for any other teachers or stitchers who wanted to try it alone or with their class. So you can see it below or download it here You are welcome to make copies and use it as you wish, though please remember to credit the source if you do, thanks.

Mapping stories: a school textiles & heritage project

Session 1 of Secrets & Codes.
After looking at a variety of visual codes and coming up with as many different types of codes as they could, we moved on to the preparatory stages of mapping and pattern making. The children (year 6 / Age 10) got into the gist of the idea well and start mapping some stories by thinking of a special place in their village, writing a story about it, then hanging a corresponding tag on the map where there story took place. Their knowledge of the village geographically, their ability to read maps and generate ideas, and their pride in the things that are important to them were all hugely impressive. The children will continue adding their tags until I go back for session 2. It was really interesting that of those we got through, all but two were in a big long line down the middle of the village.

Next week, weather permitting, we'll be going for a walk to the local, abandoned church hall, which used to be the school, before the newer one was built. I'll be asking them to look at details of the landscape and architecture with the aid of viewfinders, and to use their imagination to think about what it would be like inside, and what the walk to school might have been like in the 'olden days'. I wanted to find a local guest, a member of the community who went to the school, to bring the place to life for them and talk about their experience of it. A quick chat with the headteacher soon revealed that he would be the very person. Serendipity...We might walk a bit further to look at the 1960s estate nearby and talk about why those houses were built; or the big old house on the corner which used to house the family who owned the village's mills. They'll have disposable cameras to photograph the things that are visually attractive to them, for when we start developing our abstract patterns via image transfer and textiles later on.

Secrets and Codes: a textiles and heritage school project

 

Secrets and Codes is the name of a project I mentioned a few weeks back. I wanted to find ways to entice the children into becoming keen detectives of their local area, both geographically and historically. I'm employed as the resident textile artist for the project and will be working with them over nine sessions and curating an exhibition of the work involved (mine and theirs).

We'll be using session one to start thinking about the hidden messages carried in visual codes, and how pictures and symbols can tell us more than we first see.

I have a huge map of the children's village which I'll be asking them to plot events and stories onto, and we'll be exploring some specially made bunting, in which each flag shows a different code. We'll be talking about the use of codes and how they work, and what codes the children can think of themselves, which hopefully we'll have time to add to the bunting. I'm hoping that we will also be able to draw in the wider community by collecting stories from parents and grandparents so we'll be starting that process too.

I want the children not only to learn about thinking visually, but also to understand that heritage is a human thing, something to be connected to, proud of and inspired by. And so one of the flags of the bunting will use the piece above. At first glance its just a swirl of coloured lines, and this is what will be shown on the bunting. As we talk about what this might mean, I'll explain it's actually a map. A map of solar eclipses over forty years. It was charted by my grandfather in 1954. The coloured lines I've recreated are the movements of the sun in each of its eclipses. And I'll be taking the original map in for them to look at too.

I want them to feel the vibrancy of the project, but also to feel something precious all around them. I hope this simple felt tip line drawing and a shabby old special map will help them begin this journey. 

Textiles and the Trail

I had an interesting and very exciting invitation out of the blue. Would I like to do some work in a rural primary school, working with children to explore a new heritage trail that is being produced guiding walks around their village and the neighbouring one. The school has worked with textiles before and think they'd like to do more in this project. That was pretty much all I was told, except for "oh, and we really like the QR project you do, could we incorporate something like that, maybe with QR codes?"

It was a lot to take in, and to be honest, a tad vague. So I went over to the village to walk the trail and talk more about it. I came away in a complete creative spin - so much potential, so many ideas. It's a stunning place and the school sounds wonderful. We may or may not stick with QR codes but I'm fairly set on codes generally, and some sort of wayfinding, trail marking, navigating, signposting type idea.

The photo above shows the disused church hall which is attached the church which is attached to the school. The more I look at it the more I feel there's something special in there waiting to break out - lost stories, pieces of missing architecture, changed usage. Like a secret waiting to be discovered. I hope it will feature a lot, though I want to work with the children to see what ideas they have and what they find interesting so we may move on from this. But it calls me. 

Meanwhile a hundred textile ideas rush through my head faster than I can catch them. Exciting times. I'll be keeping photos as the work progresses right *here*.