Threads

I’ve not written on this blog for a while, what with making short but daily entries on Shedding at the moment, and having things happen with Julie and Franny on Going Public, I can see you all getting a bit fed up with me.

But tonight, I feel the need.

I’ve just sung my song, live, in front of real people. I played the scissors. Dan played his guitar for me. I have to try hard not to be too overwhelmed by this. He’s great, and generous with his talent. I feel really privileged to have him sat next to me. At the end of this month, we’ll be recording this song together, and I’ll be performing it as part of my final show. I feel like I’m hanging on his fast moving coat tails, and I’m learning so much each time we work together, I’m trying to soak it all up and remember as much as I can.

After my final show, I shall put a link here so you can listen if you want to.

I’ve had wobbles with this singing lark, crises of confidence. But you know what, they don’t get you anywhere. To make the most of the opportunities I’ve been given, I have to forget embarrassment, bite down the nerves, not worry about the occasional bum note. I have to dive in, wallow in the experiences.

It makes you feel good you know, alive, young, zippy, full of vim and vigour.

Long may it last!

Dan is to be found at www.dan-whitehouse.com Go and listen. It’s great.

Good day today.

Lots of creative decisions made.

Booked the project space to play in the basement, complete with scaffold tower so I could climb up and dangle things from the ceiling.

I must say the combination of hard hat, glasses and various items and tools meant a good deal of juggling went on. I had to have special training to use the tower first, then adjusted the hard hat and up I went. The usual place for me to store my glasses is nestled in my hair. Not possible, so ended up shoving them down my bra. Stylish huh? Then once equipped, I climbed up the tower. The addition of an extra 4 inches of height, due solely to the hard hat meant I had no spatial awareness and kept bumping my head, necessitating the need for the hard hat.

So it appears that I am even shorter than I thought, as even with the tower I couldn’t reach the ceiling. I fashioned a sling-shot affair to enable me to get the string over the bar, so I could tie the knot. I did this using a pair of scissors. I can hear you saying “Thank goodness you had the hard hat Elena!” Ah yes, well. Trouble is every time I had to look up to deploy the scissor weighted slingshot, propel it over the bar, the hard hat fell off. Which actually was a good thing, because once I had caught the scissors in my unsafe, ungloved hand, I was able to retrieve my glasses from their warm nesting place and get on with the job!

Please see attached photos. No artists were harmed during the hanging of this work.

Interesting… well, I think so. You might find it totally tedious, and you have that right!

Anyway… shoe sole rubbings…

It started out as a means to an end, a way of finding a shoe sole pattern the right size, shape, pattern and state of wear, to transfer and embroider onto a dress, disguised as embellishment/decoration. You’ve no idea the variations that present themselves! So many were rejected because they were too worn, not worn enough, not shoey enough, too booty, too big, too small, too boyish, too girlish…

What’s happened is, people are giving me baby shoes, and sending me rubbings!

So, I’ve started embroidering the dress now, I’ve worked out each sole will take 6 or 7 hours to stitch… and there are 13 of them. Bit of a task really.

What to do with the left-overs then? I do like these rubbings, more than prints I’ve taken. There’s soul in these soles I feel. There’s also a slowness and a particularness and a sensitivity of materials with the rubbings. The paper has to be thin enough, sometimes wax crayon works if the tread is deep, but a soft pencil picks up the shallowest, slightest pattern. I have a yen to upend various children and rub their shoe soles with tracing paper and lyra crayons. I have no idea why, but it seems to follow on somehow. I’m sure the purpose will eventually present itself. I have more confidence these days to follow these whims in the knowledge that a reason will turn up later. I think the upending of children might get frowned upon, but you get the gist I’m sure. I now see in my head a Quentin Blake scratchy character, tall, thin and stooped, dangling a small child by the ankle, sticky things falling out of pockets. I may have to draw this. But not like Quentin Blake… and it might be a short fat art teacher rather than the tall thin man.

I still find this thought process fascinating. I have an idea and I pursue it. In that pursuit, other opportunities present themselves. Sometimes the detours are more interesting than the original idea and take over. I do try to record this zig-zagging in my sketch/note book, and now here of course, too! But sometimes it happens fast, and I forget the origins, so they get lost. Sometimes they burble up again, months later, and I gasp in amazement that I could forget such a thing!

I’ve done the drawing (at 1.50 this morning, there must be something wrong with me). I’ll take a photo in a bit, once I’ve got myself organised.

This blogging lark’s great innit?

A few posts ago I wrote about the lack of baby shoes in charity shops. My blogging friend Kate Murdoch has come to the rescue, basically doing my research for me and sending me photographs of shoe sole rubbings, complete with photos of the shoes, set of measurements and an offer to post them should I require them. Brilliant, Kate, thanks! And if I can return the favour at any time, let me know.

I suppose you could call it collaborative research if you were being poncy?

I call it good, supportive, friendly practice. Love it.

Arts week is going well…

Today I made a 7ft cardboard giraffe with y4, and bugs as big as your face with y1.

We had a laugh.

Tomorrow I’m painting with sticks with reception class, and printing with y2… possibly on wallpaper, or I’ve got a big roll of thin pink paper that’s not much good for anything else. I might get them to do wallpaper printing then find a wall on Friday to hang it on…wonder how that’ll go down?

Has anyone else been thrown by the fact that half term was a week late?

One of the only bits of my school job that I hate is the fact I have to get involved in data analysis of results, target setting and the submission of key stage results to the local authority. In previous years the pattern has been… order materials week, half term week, materials arrive week, planning timetable week, arts week, data week. It runs very sweetly until they switch half term and suddenly arts week is also data week. Not a problem if it’s 2 different people, but not if it’s both me!

People have asked me if I’m tired/stressed etc because it’s arts week. No. I’m not. Arts week is brilliant. What stresses me is the half hour at the end of the day when I had to send off the Foundation Stage Profile.

I feel as if my blog has been predominantly schooly lately? Has it? Or is it just me? Anyway… once I’ve finished arts week, and the data has gone, (until this time next year) I can concentrate on transferring these beautiful shoe prints onto my dress, record some songs, and get on with my own life.

Ooh!

P.S.

Had a phone call from the newspaper ad lady… she apologised for the appearance of ad, as she had been away for a few days and hadn’t realised what they’d done. All is now well, and she’s sending me new proof within 24hrs. And she’s bringing all her friends to LOAF too. Didn’t need to use the script! phew!

I just wrote on my facebook status:

Children should be encouraged to be bravely, un-self-consciously, actively creative in as many different ways and as often as possible… I love arts week. You see many of the children at their best, when sometimes, stuck behind their tables, you see them at their worst.

It’s true you know. it’s only Tuesday and I swear that line of usual suspects outside the headteacher’s office has been less.

Those children instead, I’ve spotted them dancing, not just in the hall with the dance tutor, but on their way to lunch, and in the classroom, stood up at their tables, cutting and sticking. I’ve heard someone else singing, constantly, and uninterrupted, while the class make masks. Someone else doodles… on the interactive whiteboard, then another child shows them how to duplicate what they’ve done and make a pattern. I watched someone totally absorbed in the ribbon like trickle of pva glue onto a piece of corrugated cardboard. I watched a child who usually is in 4 places at once, stare intently into a mirror and draw the reflection, for about 45 minutes. While I’m talking to one child, the boy next to him is beating out sycopated rhythms on his chair with a ruler. I manage to stop myself from being irritated long enough to realise how clever he is being.

It is clear that these particular children can concentrate. We’re just asking them to concentrate on the wrong things at the wrong time, in the wrong way. And as soon as they get interested in something, a bell rings and we ask them to move on to something else.

Recently I have been questioning the whole social control/bell related educational remit. Of course we need to teach children the rules of our society, that’s a no-brainer. But do we need to do all of it in the educational sphere?