A couple of weekends ago I was delighted to travel to Woodhouse Eaves in Leicestershire and attend the Cultures of Care Gathering hosted by artist Ruth Singer.
Cultures of Care is Ruth's ACE funded project. I worked on the Care Collaboration element, alongside Mandeep Dhadialla.
It was so good to reflect upon and revisit what inspired the making of, and experience of wearing my handmade Walking Skirt with attendees. After giving my talk I spent a wonderful hour in the company of lovely humans. Participants bought along a garment and stitched words about walking and shapes representing the landscapes they live in into their clothes.
Image by Ruth Singer
Photo on screen by Clare Logan
Celebration is showing at the QUAD Gallery in Derby until 29th August 2025!
The exhibition showcases the creative achievements of children and young people from Virtual School and QUAD's Schools in Residence Programme funded by the Paul Hamlin Foundation's Arts-Based Learning Fund.
I was delighted to work with an amazing group of year 3 pupils from Pear Tree Community Junior School! The group created these fabulous 'Semotion' flags, inspired by semaphore: a visual signalling method to convey information at a distance.
Visitors are invited to select a flag and share their feelings - the semaphore alphabet is displayed and using two flags messages can be spelled out for others to interpret in the gallery. What would you share?
Big thank you to QUAD and Mandy McKirdy, Schools in Residence Producer.
The weekend of the 5th & 6th of April served sunshine in a brilliant blue sky! We were so fortunate!
It was wonderful to share Dare to Dream, the mass participation element of Derbyshire Makes: an opportunity to stitch hopes and dreams for the future in Derbyshire using sustainable fabrics from the Play & Recycling Centre - Derby.
15 participants kindly left their work to be added to the pillowcase banners, shown below - stunning! Some wrote down the motivation and thoughts behind their stitches, and I added these to the work using a wooden typeface set - wise and generous words. There are more textile patches out in the world, taken home to be treasured and worked into - I like to think of these as 'siblings' of the textile patches below, becoming part of everyday life, mementoes of a shared expression of hope in Heanor.
YESSS! I'm all prepped for the Derbyshire Makes Festival - Heanor this weekend (5th/6th April), programmed by Make/Shift 🖐️🪡🧵
'Dare to Dream - Inspired by Heanor's rich textile and making heritage join artist Karen Logan and create a unique hand stitched textile patch to share your stories and hopes for the future. Pin your precious patch to the Dare to Dream repurposed pillowcases and take a selfie. At the end of the festival the patches will be stitched to the pillowcases to create stunning flags showcasing hope in Heanor. Let's fly the flag for Derbyshire!'
FREE. Drop-in, no booking required. All materials provided.
After a fabulous three years I've handed over the hosting of Draw Derby into the safe hands of DD regulars Jenny Stevenson and Tom Burley. They had a super January 2025 gathering last month and I look forward to updates @drawderby, please give them a follow on Instagram 🙂
For 2025 dates and to book a free place - see eventbrite.
A huge thank you to Jenny and Tom for stepping forward in their busy lives to keep DD going, I really appreciate that.
I'm spreading my wings and have become Draw Derbyshire. I'm not actually sure what this will look like or become - lets see... I have a new sketchbook, so there's a start. My intention is to share drawings and drawing related thoughts and ponderings and any creative activities I run with a drawn focus or element.
Taking a moment to reflect on my recent self-portrait/photography project inspired by Maria Rivens at St Martins Horizons 6th Form last term.
It was an absolute pleasure to offer starting points and invitations to the young people, then stand back and be amazed by their ideas, sensitivity and creative confidence.
Below are works in progress: drawing, photography, collage, masks.
Students who have given permission for their work to be displayed will be showing at Young Format - Schools In Residence at FORMAT25 in Derby March 2025 - can't wait!
Thank you Derby QUAD for asking me to lead this project.
