Hurray for Social Networking Sites and Creative Procrastination!

Its been a while since I last blogged - combination of factors, involving busy-ness, lack of something tangible to say and also an awareness that it has been a difficult time for many of my colleagues within Curious Minds and its wider network who have been grieving the loss of Chris May - a significant leader within culture and education across the North West which has left myself and I suspect many others, simply lost for words.

So - why hurray for Social Networking Sites? - well first of all it has been a space for significant support and connection throughout the last few weeks but also it greatly improved the weekend just gone! As a direct result of posts from a variety of people I had the information and enthusiasm to get out of the house in my 'down time' and go to three very inspiring and diverse events:

1 - Friday evening was a launch event for GMMAZ, Brighter Sound's first album, Living To Our Habitat - a really great example of youth music and creativity!
2 - Squeezed into Saturday morning a quick visit to Manchester Art Gallery to catch the end of the exhibition by Anish Kapoor: Flashback before a long but enjoyable day of shopping and dress fittings (planned long before the urgent gallery visit!)


(Sitting on the steps of the gallery with my Dad before it opened for the day!)

3 - Dashed from a full day of selling jams and chutney's for our friends at Reedy's Naturally to the Lake District to experience the awesome Harmonic Fields organised by Lakes Alive!

Its only a very rough cut on a basic mini cam but this explains far better than I can just how awesome Harmonic Fields was - and why it was worth every second of driving behind slow slow drivers on a Sunday evening without much idea of why or what we'd experience!....



Its difficult to discuss my experiences of each of these events because they were simply beyond words but all hugely inspiring. Simply to say that I am now ever more keen to share those experiences - by trying to build connections between such high quality youth work and my local community and my realisation that every school should have a 'harmonic field' and yard of experiential sculpture inspired by Anish Kapoor and other greats! In a time of looming evaluation deadlines it feels all the more important to celebrate our inspiration and reason for starting it all in the first place!


PS. Thanks to Phil for the photos!

Product of play...

Show your working...

How often do adults show their working? i.e. the process which leads to a complete product/ successful project etc.

Increasingly creative practitioners are asked to reflect on their processes which lead to products (without necessarily showing it, although documentation often happens for other reasons) but in primary schools children are regularly asked to show their work. Why?... its scary!

I suppose that is the aspect which I find most engaging about this whole blogging thing- I'm creating time outside of 'drive time' to explore my own 'workings' and challenging myself to go further in my thinking and delivering; but I also have the opportunity to understand how other people reach their 'products' through their own blogs which is fascinating. This morning I have been playing with photoshop - just because I can!.. its fun to work out how to do knew things and its also a way to enjoy creating new pictures out of old favourites...

original photo from Vienna...



I'll be honest - I quite like this photo and have no problem sharing it. I'm no photographer so any photos I like I can be proud of!...

so now I play with the image...



Not incredibly original - mixture of Van Gogh style colours and Warhol style 'posterizing' but still fun to explore. I've wanted to play like this ever since I saw the 'Refuge' exhibition by Yasmin Yaqub at Mid Pennine Gallery a few years ago. - it was a truly inspiring exhibition (still inspiring me five years later) which led to a great education project working with Daksha Patel and Lord Street Primary School but its only now I have got round to playing in my own time!

Another one?...



This time I've explored more 'realistic' colours but still using a fairly limited palette - not unlike the poster paints a child might use. You may notice that there's more detail this time though - its a smidge more finished. I've zoomed in to fill in smaller elements of colour as well as taking the time to separate the person and give him his own colour so he doesn't get lost in the background. As I started to consider sharing these images on my blog I couldn't help but try and make it a little bit better!

So - I guess that's why we endlessly encourage children to show their work. If its ok to challenge children in this way though - surely we should at least recognise that its not always comfortable to share our work, make sure that there is a genuine reason and a safe place for doing so - and maybe challenge ourselves in the same way from time to time! Perhaps adult work should be alongside children's as we look along the walls full of displayed work in schools?!

PS... a final image from the 'Inspired by Refuge' project which I referred to earlier. Where digital media merged back into 'real/tangible?' visual art using collage of photographs, newspaper cuttings, charcoal and pencil drawings...

Time to create!

It seems obvious but the temptation as a practitioner is to fill up the diary till you can't see the space from one term to the next but having finished work at Sing Up last week I am LOVING the space to reflect, relate - with impromptu coffees and lunches - well overdue chat that leads to creativity and as a result I can't help but buzz with excitement about the work ahead next term.

Everything needs more planning of course but for once it is good to let ideas germinate - here are some of the things I'm hoping to develop next term...

1. Tauheedul - last term to really consolidate the last two years of learning and build resources which the school can progress with next year. Currently writing an arrangement of Yusuf Islam's Nasheed - I look, I see for that. Tempted to see if we can link into next project at Clitheroe...

2. Contemporary Heritage at Clitheroe Castle - Mid Pennine Arts have commisioned Ailis Ni Riain to create a sound installation using humming and I'm quite excited to be one of the twentyish people who will be recorded humming this Friday. Depending on the outcome I'm really keen t1o then explore how school groups can engage in the installation and create their own humming composition!

3. Marsden Primary - continuing to develop my learning around South Asian song and building it into collaborative storytelling process with Jackie Harris, school staff and hopefully others! This will involve lots of fabric, a labyrinth with space for children to experience individual time in a reflective space , variety of musical instruments, possibly a tea party and hopefully a trip to the beach!

4. Early Years Network - facilitating training days and residency observations for MusicLeaderNW who have developed a Workforce Development project to accompany the Music Boxes Project which is all part of and funded by MIF.

5. Brighter Sound Primary Network - shared some of the exploration in blog yesterday but is full of potential!

6. Springhill Primary - collaborating with Thea Soltau to devise celebration of all things Brazil! - looks as though it will involve a samba/celebratory dance/festival 'type thing' which has stories inserted exploring rainforests/ the uncontacted tribes of Brazil/ traditional tales from the connecting cultures etc...

...just a taster - there's also ongoing Creative Agent work (am really enjoying challenging myself to find more creative ways of evaluating with people in response to pod conversations), Sing Up legacy and the minor matter of a wedding to prepare for - which has numerous exciting creative projects connected - mostly textile and sculpture inspired rather than music! What was that about time to create?!! - had better get on and make the most of it!

Stronger than the sum of our parts...

Had a fab day today - was working on behalf of Brighter Sound to facilitate the development of a practitioner network.

Began with mapping exercise -


- literally! (may have got a bit carried away with my flag making preparation!) We also mapped our current interests/experience mapping common ground and celebrating diversity with the obligatory post-its and flip chart categories!



Following that I dared to facilitate an open forum style session where people brought their ideas and interests forward to develop conversation and explore potential for using those within the network and primary school delivery. Have never tried this before and I'll be honest it's quite scary to trust the concept of people bringing things forward but since witnessing the amazing process and results which came out of the Vocal Force: Sangeet project which was facilitated in this way by Beccy Owen, I was convinced it was worth a try!


I remain convinced - really inspiring and a rich pool of ideas and skills to draw upon. Really looking forward to seeing how the network evolves from here. And we managed to fit some singing in too! - Songs from the Baka tribe and Gospel roots.

David Nash at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Having watched the excellent documentary on Nash, I felt compelled to revisit his exhibition at YSP before it closes on Friday. It is just sooo lovely -and there is so much to see! I've visited a few times over the year and absolutely love the deep connection between his art work and the nature from which he borrows his materials.

Following the documentary I was considerably more aware of the text dotted around to accompany the exhibition. I tend to enjoy responding to art without text and save reading about it till after the visit. The language around his artwork is so poetic and beautifully presented I thought I'd share a couple of gems as they can easily feed into ideas for education, reflection on practice etc...



Doesn't that echo various models of evaluation and reflective practice?! (not least Paulo Freire's 'Pedagogy of the Oppressed' from which so many ideas around co-constructed learning have been developed)...



... I feel a song growing out of that one.....



...and that is just fabulous! My Grandad used to teach carpentry and loved exploring all the different types of wood and creating things (mostly furniture and functional pieces but also creating for the sake of it). He would really have liked this 'kind of art'! - and he would have let Mr Nash know that he approved!

Maths, maths everywhere!

This is an aptly named project as there is a trend in Lancashire, if not nationally, where schools all seem to have realised that its time to become more creative in their approaches to delivering numeracy. I'm hoping that this is because the learning from the recent mass of literacy based projects has been successfully disseminated, making those approaches the norm in every classroom!

Anyway, this year I find myself working in three Creative Partnerships enquiry schools all exploring numeracy. I love the diversity of my job so to be honest, working in the same area of enquiry in three schools didn't thrill me at first. Lesson learnt though - they're all going to be completely different and really I should have known that from previous experience! Context is everything!

The first project got underway last week with a fabulous launch day, during which 70 year 3 pupils from a large urban primary school visited Reedy's Naturally, where they found out about business enterprise and food production - and it was fantastic to see the children enjoying themselves so much at the same time as realising just how integral maths is to daily life when running a business. There were three areas of the unit to explore - each with different activities and aspects of numeracy:

In the kitchen they made jam tarts!
Numeracy links: multiplication/doubling: of recipe ingredients, measuring and weighing...



In the warehouse they explored packaging and logistics of transporting jam jars and boxes throughout the north west. This included packing as many different sized boxes into an estate car as possible without crushing any!
Numeracy links: Estimating and problem solving, counting, exploring shapes and space, multiplication (3 and 4 times tables)...

In the office they dealt with orders - receiving phone calls and emails from mystery customers (you'll never guess who got that job!)
Numeracy links: data handling, subtraction, problem solving...



In the next few weeks Lisa be going into school to help the pupils research and design their own jam which they will then sell throughout the school. They will also be working with a musician who will be helping them to compose a jingle to advertise the jam as well as exploring the links between music and maths. As if that's not enough, they'll also spend time with a dancer and visual artist exploring triangular connections between numeracy, topic based learning (Birds and the Ancient Greeks respectively) and the practitioner's art form. As always, this project is closely centred around building teaching skills and confidence so that these techniques and approaches can be sustainable in the future.
Numeracy links: fractions, multiplication, sequencing, measurement, shape and tessellation

The numeracy links are not exhaustive but give you a flavour of the ways in which the project will highlight the value and necessity of understanding and using numeracy in daily life. In additions to numeracy, this project will offer an insight into business and enterprise as well as a variety of different creative career paths which may well inspire the children into the future!