Sewing the Seeds of Creativity

For the past few years I have been working with artist Carole Miles on a variety of projects, including those with Transported Art.  We are now at the stage where we are going to set up our collaboration more officially as The Eloquent Fold as we feel there are many more adventures, places and people to engage with.

At the Green Patch, in Kettering, Carole has offered her creativity to the many visitors, young and old, to this delightful community allotment.  Walking around this wonderful space you can see evidence of her interventions with this growing space.  Our current project, "A View From Here" is set here, and at Kettering Buccleuch Academy where we engage both adults and children.  At the moment I am running, "Threads and Chatter" sessions, where participants can make and create and have a good natter.

Last night I worked with a group of eager and enthusiastic youngsters, keen to be outdoors, running, jumping and exploring their community space.  I brought to them some pencils, their previously made hand stitched books, needles, scissors and a box of colourful threads.







It was all about encouraging them to sketch their favourite parts of the allotment.  Some did quick sketches whilst others disappeared for 20 minutes before returning to the group.  As the was a reasonable evening we chose to work outside until it got cooler.

Despite a few, "oh I'm rubbish at drawing".  Every youngster produced a sketch.  Every youngster made a start on stitching their picture. Every youngster was fully absorbed until about 5 minutes before the end of the session when some had concentrated so hard were ready to go home.  Age range was about 6 - 12 years old.