Sues collective nouns

Apparently the word for a group of swans in the air is a bevy. It's Scottish in origin while Londoners think of a group of swans on the river as a pod. A more exotic one is an exultation of skylarks.

To quote The Daily Mirror's Live Letters page from many years ago:

"Geese flying are a skein and and on the ground they are a gaggle. It's a siege of bitterns, herons or cranes, a chattering of choughs, a herd of curlews, a cast of hawks, a covert of coots - or couts - a team of ducks, a watch of nightingales, a muster of peacocks, a nide of pheasants, a wing of plovers, a clamour of rooks, a spring of teals (small ducks), a flock of swifts and a fall of woodcocks."

And I'm pretty sure it's a murder of crows.

That's all I can manage for now - must fly

Sue

The city that grew into a tree

Following on from our previous session, the tower we had constructed started to take on tree-like qualities. We used branches and willow sticks to transform the skyscraper into something altogether more earthy. 

It being the season to be jolly and all that, we decorated our tree with lights, sparkly hand prints, baubles and the trunk part had chocolate coins hidden in it too! We sang to our tree and each other, a celebration of what we have achieved together and a nice way to round things off till next time we meet in January. 

Towering Trunk

This session we used a multitude of different sized boxes from good ole Mini-Scrapbox.

The challenge - to build the boxes up until they reached the ceiling, stacking, balancing and frantically securing and binding them with gum tape and sticky tape until no boxes were left!

We began stacking the boxes until they fell over which children really enjoyed. Then we started securing them together - the children relished the whole process of tearing the gum tape to stick to boxes.

Once the structure was too high for the children to add boxes the mothers worked together holding stacking (and balancing!) and sticking. Meanwhile the children were hiding soft toys and animals in box 'dens' throughout the 'trunk'.

They did not stop, everyone beavered away together right to the end of the session.

The resulting structure is very tree like and magnificent, so we agreed to keep it to add to and transform at the next session.

Felting our way into 2012

Hi everyone!

Heres the first blog from the Marlpit Womens Art Group, and hopefully it'll be easy, like falling off a blog?! So far, its me, Jessica (artist), with Sally, Pauline, Tina, Joanne and Theresa.

We are a small group so far, feeling our way into Spontaneous Communities, so 'felting' seems like a good start. Felting around beach pebbles to make hand-held cocoons: photo's to follow on soon.

Regards, Jess

Drawing Buddies at Castle Museum.

The Drawing Buddies visited the natural history section at Castle Museum, including Frank who I haven't met before, very nice to chat with him about what Drawing Buddies means to him. So far we have consistently asked 'what we can see at or what can be seen from the Spontaneous City sites? and today I asked the group to identify which of the wildlife that is on on display at the castle might be seen around the sites. We identified a surprising range of land, sky and water based wildlife from foxes to the peregrine falcon which nests at the Cathedral. I wanted the buddies to think hard about why they choose to draw what they draw, about their relationship with that subject as an artist, intellectually or emotionally and how they physically position themselves in relation to it. I wanted them to take real responsibility for asking questions around their subject, about what they could see and what is hidden. We had a lovely spontaneous questioning session about a heron and then they proceeded to choose their own subjects as well as the appropriate scale, materials and length of time spent drawing it. We also drew 8 birds feet in 8 minutes which produced some magical little scribbles and the group critique focussed a lot on the act of choosing a subjects and the speed of drawing, when is it finished ? We were joined by an education officer who shared handling objects, including owls and a bisected squirrel which allowed us see the internal taxidermy. Sue told me about a letter (or was it an article) that she has about the collective nouns for birds e.g 'a charm of gold finches', this feels relevant somehow and I wonder what would be the collective noun for a group of drawers or a group of bird & bug boxes ? Ideas for next sessions include drawing living wildlife at Strumpshaw Fen or Salthouse wildlife centre as well as a session at the Castle study centre.

Cardboard City

Climbing into boxes, stacking, attaching and adorning. In this weeks session we played with boxes and the spaces around them and in them. All of us from the youngest (6 months) to the oldest ( 40's? ) played and created together, separately and side by side. 

This group was really interesting to document as each of the responses were very individual. One boy was immediately engaged in the boxes as a house and had a washing machine, bedroom and living room. He adorned and decorated his space and used it for imaginative play which involved doing an awful lot of laundry! Another child created a "monster truck" with pipes, tubes and wheels.  Another happily explored the materials; popping bubble wrap, stacking cotton reels, gluing etc with no intention of "making something".