Butterfly House

The Butterfly House is here! It's been exciting coming and seeing it being constructed, and finding out more about the reasons behind its construction, and it's great to see it finished and ready for the public to interact with.

As well as the house, old local photographs lined the unit walls. Kelly left notebooks handy for visitors to jot down names and locations if they spotted any familiar places/faces on the photographs. I saw lots of the visitors to the space seeking out old friends and family members, and trying to identify classrooms and schools. There was a photo walk around the mill too, for people to capture modern images of the area.

 

Cath Ford ran a lantern making workshop in the space, and lots of houses and buildings of all shapes were created in the session. The finished ones were filled with battery operated tea light and fairy lights...and placed inside inside Butterfly House.

 

The space inside the Butterfly House acted as a mini cinema, with old film footage projecting onto the inner walls... and it looked really magical in there, especially once the lanterns had been added to the space. 

Kelly held a variety of events over the course of the week which included singing, decorating the house with images, storytelling, performances and even clog dancing! A choir came from the Calico Group to sing in the space, and it was their very first public performance! They sounded fantastic, and received a good welcome from the crowd of residents and mill users. 

Ex Emmerdale actress Ursula Holden-Gill  entertained the crowd with her brilliant storytelling, clog dancing and singing... with funny and engaging local tales.

The space and events were all really enjoyable, and really varied. Kelly did a brilliant job and the audience all seemed to really enjoy themselves too. The house and space feels part of the community, a bringing together of old and new.

Location, Location, Location

I've just spent a very pleasant hour driving around SW Burnley with Caroline Wright seeking exhibition locations for the final art work from her residency. Much of the route we took was similar to the walking route from our first photo walk and it was fascinating to be observing familiar areas but from a different perspective. On our photo walk I was seeking out and capturing detail, colour and texture, this time we were looking for public spaces suitable for large portraits of local people to be exhibited.
The conversation and thinking was very different this time as we imagined the photos placed in the environment and considered not just the visual impact of the work, but the emotional impact for the people in the photos and those viewing them (as well as the practicalities of installing them).
Both Caroline and Kelly have approached their residencies with real care and consideration for the people they have worked with, just as we hoped. The relationships they have built, the trust which has enabled people to open up and share their lives, stories and communities is evident in every stage off their thinking and their work.
We did a couple of circuits of the area, each time adding to my own social and emotional map of the area, and ended up deciding on a building that we had driven past, acknowledged but not considered as viable on the first circuit. As the journey progressed it became clear that this building was the best option. It's a building that is well known to everyone in the area which might well explain why we overlooked it in the first place - it was just too obvious. I think we had to do the journey together to help develop ideas and reject some possibilities before the obvious became visible and I really appreciated being asked to accompany Caroline on her scouting mission.
I'll not tell you any more as I'm sure Caroline will. It was also great to hear about the studio portrait day they held yesterday which went on until late in the evening. I'm really looking forward to seeing the resulting portraits.
Cath

The Red Triangle

Catch up and planning meeting with Caroline, Cath, Kelly, Helen, Steph and Caroline and Dave from Huckleberry Films.

We met at the Red Triangle in Burnley, and drank our way through a lot of tea between us. It was a really inspiring meeting full of ideas and plans... and was a great chance to find out what each person is working on. It's good to keep in touch via e-mail, but even better to meet in person to chat.

Caroline - Huckleberry Films

Jacob's Join

The craft group from The Fold/Ground UP project had a group outing to the SAMS scrap store in Blackburn. They returned with lots of materials and ideas for future projects, and we joined them as they gathered for lunch back at the Fold.

It was an 'ideas lunch' with the community, and ideas were shared about future plans. It was also a 'Jacobs Join', which meant everyone brought food with them to share. One of the artists hadn't heard the term before, and we realised it was a specifically Northern term. If you use the phrase where you live, let us know so we can see how local it is! Wikipedia refers to 'potluck':

'A potluck is a gathering of people where each person or group of people may contribute a dish of food prepared by the person or the group of people, to be shared among the group. Synonyms include: potluck dinner, spread, Jacob's join,Jacob's supper, faith supper, covered dish supper, dish party, bring and share, shared lunch, pitch-in, carry-in, bring-a-plate, dish-to-pass, fuddle. It is also referred to as a smorgasbord or potlatch'.

We filmed some of the meet up, shared food and ideas and looked at old photographs that one of the artists was drawing inspiration from.

Our youngest lunch member was little Phoenix!

Caroline and Dave, Huckleberry Films

Getting Started

Hello from Caroline and Dave, from Huckleberry Films.

We are both really excited about being selected to work on the Ground UP documentation project, and looking forward to meeting lots of you over the next few months.

Our proposal evolved from our initial ideas which were around the idea of creating a scrapbook. After reading the Ground UP blogs, and researching Kelly and Caroline’s practices and plans after they were selected, we spent some time working out the best way for us to document their work, and the whole project. Our new plan is to create a film that mixes live action documentation of the project and workshops, with animation... using animated characters to retell some of the of the stories and memories of people and place. The finished film will celebrate life in South West Burnley.

I arrived on the train into Rose Grove this morning for my first session on the project, and spent about an hour walking around the Stoops Estate on my way to meet Caroline. It was a warm day, with blue skies peeking through the clouds, and the streets were busy with people taking their kids to school, the refuse van emptying bins, and cars setting off to work. As I don't know the area very well, I enjoyed wandering around as a tourist, taking photos on my way.

  

Caroline and I met in a cafe for a brew and a natter as we've not met before, and I think we could have spent another hour swapping ideas if we'd not had somewhere else to be! After catching up, we went to the craft session at the Fold charity shop, where Cath Ford was running a ceramic painting session. Everyone was friendly and welcoming, and the 2 hours flew by as we painted, talked, and laughed. One of the participants Bernadette said she had really enjoyed herself, and described the session as 'the most fun I've had in yonks'.

Caroline - Huckleberry Films