Sampling Tunbridge Ware - Day 2

Today we focussed on visual sampling and turning some of these visuals into sound.


To kick things off and wake us all up, Yusra asked participants to write their first thought of the day.  Yusra will be using a selection of these words, weaving them into a poem she's working on during the week. 

Them, we started to work on two 10 metre rolls of graph paper to create our visual samplers.  We took black and white photocopies of the objects we had selected yesterday and using cut and paste techniques started to create new designs from them.  Various people worked directly onto the graph paper with pens to create patterns, images and words, again all inspired by the work we started yesterday.  With this exercise I like the fact that everyone works in very different ways and people's personalities start to emerge as a result of the process they use to create these images.  Some people are very particular and precise, some work small, others large, some are very freestyle and deconstruct patterns, whilst others work with letters and words.  The pieces will continue to grow over the week. 

  

        

   

                                      

In the afternoon, Jason led a session where he got us thinking more about sound, counting, cycles and repetition, based around learning an Indian classical ten beat cycle. Watching everyone's concentration as they followed Jason's lead and hand actions was beautiful.


Then the group started to take samples from the large visual sampler drawings we were were working on in the morning.  Using Reaktor software each of us took it in turns to create a sound from each image.
I'll post a film of the images with their sounds later in the week.  These initial sounds will be the building blocks from which to create our sound pieces.

I love the fact that everyone so far has just thrown themselves into each session or exercise we've done with open minds. I hope people are starting to understand why we might be doing some of these sessions? It feels like they are.  It was another fun and inspiring day.  It felt like everyone started to bond with some great conversations and discussions, and the work continues to grow in unexpected ways.

Sampling Tunbridge Ware - Day 1

Well today was Day 1 of the Sampler meets Tunbridge Ware project.  Four of the sampler collective (myself, Jason, Yusra and Kathie) headed off to Tunbridge Wells this morning to start a week long workshop at the Tunbridge Wells Museum and Art Gallery, working with residents from the town and surrounding areas.

On the way there we still weren't quite sure who was going to be taking part, but we were delighted to be welcomed by a group of 15 or so participants of all ages from 11 yrs old upwards.  A great bunch of people to kick things off.

Over the week, we'll be collaborating to create new sound pieces for the museum inspired by its amazing collection of Tunbridge Ware.  Click on this link to find out more about Tunbridge Ware and its history. We'll be showcasing a selection of the work we've created together in a performance this Friday night from 6-8pm at the museum.  It's free so please come on down.

In true sampler style we'll be mixing up the visual, pattern, word, sound, movement and performance and with this particular project the innovative woodworking techniques used for making Tunbridge Ware.  More on that in a future post, as I still can't quite get my head around all of the complicated processes involved in its production.  Here's a link to the museum's website giving a brief introduction to the process: Making Tunbridge Ware.

Like some of our previous sampler workshops we're exploring how we can create new collective work inspired by traditional techniques and historical objects.  One of the ideas informing the project is to explore how the museum can get visitors, in particular young people, to spend more time exploring the Tunbridge Ware collection, perhaps looking at the some of the objects in a new light.  And hopefully to get more visitors to understand how unique, innovative and significant it is.  I remember the first day I visited the museum, I spent the afternoon sat in the room watching with slight confusion and bewilderment as visitors walked through barely glancing at any of the objects.  I'm certain that isn't true of all visitors. There I sat almost bursting with excitement at not only how technically complex and visually inspiring they were, but imagining the creative possibilities of working with the collection.  Perhaps many visitors have got so used to seeing it, that they no longer see it?  Do people think it's old wooden objects in a darkened room?  That's one question I'll be asking people over the week.

Having learnt more about embroidered samplers for the last couple of years, one of the things I like most about Tunbridge Ware is its connection with Berlin wool work embroidery . Much of the early Tunbridge Ware took its visual inspiration directly from Berlin Wool work embroidery designs, with makers recreating these patterns in wood.

So it's incredibly exciting to think that we are now going to take these wooden objects, inspired by embroidery into another art form - sound - and then perhaps even turning those sounds back into embroidery and new Tunbridge Ware.

Like all the workshops and events we've done so far we started the week with a blank canvas and a group of people - many of whom hadn't met each other before; some objects (fantastic objects - it has to be said!); open minds and our imaginations.  Not knowing what we're going to have produced by the end of the week, but thinking of it as a playground for ideas.

To kick things off, we spent the first part of the day exploring the magical place that is the Tunbridge Ware room in the Museum.  We each chose a favourite Tunbridge Ware object from the collection.

We then took it in turns to explain why we'd chosen the piece.

I chose this piece: a wooden letter box for the hall.

After lunch, Yusra then led a session using the objects, that everyone had selected, as the starting point to create both written and spoken word pieces.

We started with ten words describing the object and then created written pieces where we imagined the object as a person.  That particular exercise delivered some moving, dark, funny and beautiful prose.

We then recorded each of these pieces.  So at the end of day one we've started to create a library of images, words, prose and sound recordings to play with further over the week.

At the end of day, as we all sat round reflecting on what we'd done and created, one of the participants said that she'd had a great day.  It had been really good fun and that she made made some new friends.  I couldn't have asked for a more perfect start.  A huge thank you to everyone who took part today.  Looking forward to tomorrow.

Sampling Tunbridge Ware

Just a quick update on all things sampler:

Craft Rally:
Well I'm pleased to report that the performance we did recently for the Craft Rally went down a storm.  I'm just waiting to get photos and a video of the performance, so when I do I'll post them up.  A huge thank you to everyone who took part: Kathie, Jan, Yusra, A.Dee, Pepperpot, Tom Dice and Berit - a brilliant mix of embroidery, sound, music, graffiti and calligraphy, dance, turntables, machines, song, film and the spoken word.  And of course a huge thank you to Helen Carnec who curated the event, everyone at Artquest and the Crafts Council for inviting us to take part in the day.

Sampling Tunbridge Ware:
Next week some of the collective are involved in a week long workshop (Monday 12 -Fri 16th April, sessions run from 10am to 4pm each day) in partnership with Tunbridge Wells Museum and Art Gallery.  We'll be exploring the museum's amazing collection of Tunbridge Ware, and working with a group of local residents of all ages creating new sound and stitched pieces to go back into the museum's collection.  If you fancy coming along and joining in that would be amazing.  Click on the link above "sampling tunbridge ware" for details.
There will be a showcase event and performance of the work we've collectively made during the week from 6-8pm at the Museum.

Manchester:
I will be going back to Manchester in the next couple of weeks to see some of the work that the students have made during their project exploring samplers and sampling.  Can't wait to see what they've come up with.

Sampler at the Craft Rally

Well my head is well and truly full of planning for the Craft Rally event curated by Helen Carnec, that we're taking part in on Thursday 25th March at Chelsea College of Art & Design.  Click on the link above for details of how to book tickets for the day.  Helen's pulled together a diverse range of events, discussions and workshops, so I can hope some of you can make it down to contribute.

Several of the sampler-cultureclash collective will be taking part in an improvised performance in the evening at approx 7pm, along with some special invited guests thrown into the mix.  We've no idea what we've got planned yet but I promise an interesting line up.

Look forward to seeing you there.
x

"Manchester, so much to answer for.."

I don't know why but everytime I say Manchester, I automatically follow it with the words of Morrissey "..so much to answer for" from the Smith's song "Suffer Little Children".

Anyway, not sure why I'm ramblin' on about that, but to update you on a great day that we spent, a couple of weeks ago, with students on the BA.Hons Embroidery Course at Manchester Metropolitan University.  Having spent my twenties living, working and dj-ing in Manchester I always love going back.

In the morning we gave a presentation about the sampler-cultureclash project to a packed lecture theatre of maybe 100 students or so. Needless to say, we were incredibly nervous but excited about the opportunity to talk about the project with the students. It was great that two of the collaborators - Jason and Yusra - were there, particularly given that Jason had just arrived back from a month in India and Yusra was there with her new child Azariah, only 4 weeks old.  That was particularly special!

The presentation seemed to go down really well, with lots of questions and very positive feedback from the students and tutors.  If you were there I'd love to hear your honest comments about the presentation and the project.  You see I never know whether I'm rattlin on, or presenting the story in an articulate and interesting way!  Hopefully the latter but probably somewhere in between.

We'd been invited up to help kick start a project the first year students were working on about samplers.  To help them think about different ways of sampling, what sampling is and could be, and how historical objects and traditional processes can inform contemporary creative practice and vica versa.

In the afternoon we ran a short workshop with about 30 students from the 1st year of the course, plus a couple of other students who were exploring the connection between sound and stitch in their work. The aim was to create an improvised collective sound piece combining word, pattern and sound.  We worked in three groups, with each student having a go at creating pixel drawings both individually and collectively, some of which the students working with Jason then translated via Reaktor into sound, whilst another group worked with Yusra exploring word and the voice through creating their own collective vocal orchestras.  The groups then rotated so they took part in each excercise.

Here's a link to a selection of photos from the workshop.
sampling manchester
I particularly love the way that the collective pixel drawings take shape as people contribute.  A word left unfinished then being deconstructed and dissolving into a single square.

I'm waiting to get copies of the word excercises back, so I'll post a selection of the individual and collective poems in a future post, so watch this space.  Jason and I plan to work on the sound piece the students started during the day, hopefully going back and working with some of the students further.

I can't wait to see and hear what the students come up with over the next few weeks, and I hope to go back up north to talk to them about how things are progressing, and of course to see the finished work.  I also want to to go back into the amazing room full of all manner of embroidery machines to think about how we might access that resource to inform and create future work.

So a huge huge thank you to Isabel, Kate and everyone from MMU and of course in particular a massive thank you to all the students for such a warm welcome and for making the day so much fun and for throwing yourselves into the workshop so enthusiastically.  Good luck with the project.

We left feeling very inspired.

Singing away to the click of the shuttle

Well this week is well and truly packed with sampling shenanagins, in Manchester and later in the week in Tunbridge Wells.  More about both of those in my next couple of posts.

To kick start the week, on Monday evening I started a short six-week evening class about English Folk songs at the English Folk Dance and Song Society hq  - Cecil Sharpe House in Camden.  This has been inspired by my trips to Romania and Turkey and conversations with members of the sampler collective about folk, and other popular, songs from around the world that are sung whilst either making textiles, or are about textiles.

I wanted to start my research by finding out more about songs from england, scotland, wales and ireland and for the last few months I've wanted to visit the EFDSS library and to search their amazing archive of recordings and printed broadsides.  So when I found out about the course, it seemed too good an opportunity to miss.  30 of us crammed into the room, a much more diverse group of people than I thought it might be.  It was great, so six weeks of listening to, discussing, debating and learning more about the traditional songs, in particular those recorded and collected by the likes of Cecil Sharpe, Peter Kennedy and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

We were given a number of handouts to take away and read. So on the train up to manchester later that evening I started to read through them.  The first that caught my eye, needless to say given my interest in music and textiles and the fact that I grew up in Lancashire, was an article entitled " Singing away to the click of the shuttle - musical life in the handloom weaving communities of Lancashire" - written by a R.P. Elbourne and published in the Local Historian Vol 12 No 1 (feb 1976).  In summary the article explores the nature of pre-industrial music making in Lancashire by people involved in domestic based hand weaving production, even exploring the weaver-poet.  See, it's all connected, and by now I should really no longer be surprised!!!!

It's a great little article, and I particularly liked the section about the Deighn Laycocks or Larks of Dean, named as such due to the beauty of their singing.

"In his autobiography, the cotton spinner Moses Heap places the work-rhythms of domestic industry in a fresh perspective: ' A great deal of hand-loom weaving was carried on in the homes, both cotton and woollen goods...but many of our musical friends were so fond of singing and fiddling that their looms would be idle until about Tuesday night, then they would work night and day to finish their allotted task before Saturday.'

At peak periods such as before the Christmas holidays he explains that "Play hours were nearly given up, and whole nights would be spent at the loom, weavers occasionally striking up a hymn or Christmas carol in chorus.  A few hours of the late morning would perhaps be given to rest; work would then be resumed, and the singing and rattle of shuttles would be almost incessent during the day."

Oh, and I highly recommend the book English Folk Songs by Ralph Vaughan Williams and A.L.Lloyd published by Penguin as part of its English Journeys series.

Grafitti stitch chairs for Haiti appeal

As part of the San Francisco leg of the Open Source Embroidery exhibition, curated by Ele Carpenter, that we've been taking part in we invited visitors to graffiti stitch two yellow armchairs (see images below) whilst they listened to a selection of audio tracks created by the sampler-cultureclash collective.
It's great to see how much the chairs have been transformed during the exhibition, from blank yellow canvas into a new archive of communal stitched work, with personal tags, warm wishes and even an english penny stitched into the chair requesting "a penny for your thoughts" - beautiful.

The chairs will be auctioned alongside a wide range of other contemporary and folk art on 21 February in the city of Tiburon to raise money for the survivors of the recent terrible earthquake in Haiti.  The auctioneer will be curator Ted Cohen.  Thanks to everyone at the museum and Ele for helping to arrange all this, and including the work in the auction.

We are delighted that the chairs, decorated by so many people during the exhibition, will be going to such an important cause, and we hope that they will raise as much money as possible, and end up in a good home.

The Auction takes place on Sunday 21 February
Silent Auction 12-4.30pm / Live Auction 5pm
Tiburon Town Hall, 1505 Tiburon Blvd
USA.

I'll let you know what happens.