Words in bombazine and crepe

 

Words in bombazine and crepe...

Words on the Street

final collections

In bombazine and crepe,

Public attention she’d crave

So magazines she courted

And with photographers flirted….

(Vol 1, p11)

We asked the questions 

 

What words might tell 

The tale of a town?

What rhymes might wreck reputations

And wake a tourist’s frown?

 

 

We scattered images over tabletops: 100 years of Spring Gardens’ shops, café, hotels and more.

We scribbled, talked, laughed, composed more carefully and generally dived into the richness of a single street. That in itself is intriguing: following the changing patterns of shopfronts, street furniture and the buildings themselves. And the wonders of shop window displays from the Ladybird Book fortnight (1960s) to knitting displays, sweet shop temptations….

 

As workshop artists we loved it all and were delighted when our visitors responded with as much enthusiasm. Enthusiasm that went in direction we wouldn’t have expected – words from the pigeons who’ve seen it all, thoughts about geese passing high overhead, a reflective monologue over a flat white, Greek Mythology (go on, find the Medusa story in Volume 3 and then go and find Medusa’s daughter among the carved faces on our buildings)…

As we reach the end of the Words on the Street project from the Buxton Our Street initiative, we'd like to share the richness (and craziness) of the work that we've received. We ended up with so much material that we can’t just post it here but you can download the work through the link, here:

Words on the Street poems and stories

There are three files. They are not particularly big files or really that long, just hugely varied!

You will find:

• Volume 1: contributions we received by email and our own practice pieces, sued to give participants ideas
• Volume 2: work from our friends at Borderland Voices: the BV regular writing group took Buxton’s Spring Gardens and the thought of a town’s “High Street” as a theme for their writing for a couple of sessions.
• Volume 3: Buxton Community School: here is an explosion of poems and stories from year 7 students at Buxton Community School.

Through the Words on the Street project we have been hugely helped by Buxton Museum and Art Gallery, Borderland Voices, and Buxton Crescent Heritage Trust. Our thanks go to these friends and to all the authors, poets, storytellers and troublemakers who have contributed to the project!
 

SPRING GARDENS

Should we plant

Pear trees and pink

Roses

In tubs and beds

Neatly along the

Gardens?

 

Gathering apples and 

Red, ripe raspberries might

Delight

Everyone, inviting them to

Nibble greedily

(Vol 1, p11)

 

Treasuring Derbyshire's Trees

 

Treasuring Trees

celebrating Derbyshire’s trees

Exhibition at Buxton Museum & Art Gallery

19th February – 8th June 2022

As the world changes, our trees are under threat. With the effects of rising temperatures, forest clearance and diseases like Ash Dieback, we are losing trees all the time. In this year when, to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, there are plans to plant 1 million trees, three Derbyshire artists invite people to look at trees more deeply. We hope this reflection will foster personal wellbeing and involve people in biodiversity and climate change projects.

“With this exhibition, ‘Treasuring Trees’, we aim to encourage conversations about trees, to build a deeper understanding of the relationships between trees, landscapes and ourselves. We’d like people to celebrate Derbyshire’s trees”.

"Spirit of the Hawthorns", Valerie Dalling

From tree-crowned Lows and Tors, to ravine woodlands, to nature reclaimed quarries, to green spaces in towns, trees grow into our lives across the centuries. As artists, Sarah, Valerie and I have drawn inspiration from history, landscapes and communities about their local trees. Their work creates a reminder of the presence of those trees in our lives and a warning of what we might lose.



The three artists have worked individually, together and with the community to create this celebration of Derbyshire’s trees.

Sarah EA Parkin is a watercolour painter depicting Derbyshire Dales landscapes with trees and highlighting areas on the point of change.

Gordon MacLellan is a poet, storyteller and puppeteer. Drawing together personal work and community projects, Gordon’s work reflects emotional responses to Ash Dieback and the changing woodland landscape.

Valerie Dalling is a Peak District photographer who has looked at birch trees in the National Park. Focusing on community health and wellbeing, her leisurely reflective approach aims to encourage a deeper appreciation of the landscape.

(links are to our instagram pages - other handles are below)

Puppets taking shape on a Toadtable

My work
Creeping Toad is adding puppets and poems to the proceedings, with a selection ranging from 4metre tall tree people to small oak-root goblins and birch boggarts. From community poems with the tall trees to pages from the Birch Boggart Spellbook there will be all sorts of Toad-work to (hopefully) entertain or offend

Community wall
During our preparation for Treasuring Trees, all three artists reached out to the community in different ways. This work has resulted in a community wall of paintings, poems, photographs and prints from people reaching from Leek to Sheffield, from Derby to Buxton. We're not going to start displaying those images here but here is an apple aperitif from Mary at Borderland Voices

Collective work
As well as our own work and the community participation, the three of us visited the fabulous ancient hawthorns at Hay Cop in the Derbyshire Dales National Nature Reserve. There is one section of the exhibition that has grown from those visits, all three of us responding in our own ways to these venerable trees

EVENTS AND VISITING THE EXHIBITION

Treasuring Trees is at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery,

Terrace Rd, Buxton, SK17 6DA

Tel: 01629 533540

Dates; 19th February - 8th June 2022

Meet the artists event 26th March,  2 – 4pm at the Museum

Keep an eye on our social media:

Instagram

• @seaparkin_artist & @celebratingDerbyshireTrees
• @valerieDalling & @peakTrees
• @creepingtoad

Facebook

• @SarahEAParkin-DerbyshireLandscapePaintings
• @ValerieDallingPhotography
• @creepingtoad

Twitter

• @TreasuringTrees & @seaparkin
• @valerieDalling & @peakTrees
• @creepingToad

Images in this post

• exhibition composites c/o Sarah Parkin
• "Spirit of the Hawthorns" c/o Valerie Dalling
• puppets, hawthorns and postcards: c/o Gordon Maclellan
• Apple by Mary c/o Richard Egan

many thanks to Buxton Museum and Art Gallery for their hospitality and endless patience with us!




Creeping Toad postcards will be on sale

Autumn woodland

 

Autumn woods after rain

Borderland Voices visit Buxton Country Park

Autumn sunshine after days of rain and that October light caught the changing colours of the leaves, burning through them like stained glass…a day for wandering in woods and wondering

That’s what we did. When Borderland Voices visited the Stronger Roots project at Buxton Country Park, we wandered. And talked. And listened. And drew; building our own ways of remembering different trees and their stories. From woodland management and the signs of ash dieback to the fine differences between elm and wych elm, our day took a relaxed path through the woods and brought….

leaf print in progress

TREES

Off on an outing today,

A nice little jaunt,
Although not so far away

We’re off to Buxton to look at the trees.

Maybe there will be fine weather;

Sunny with a bit of breeze.

Maybe the trees will be pleased to see us too.

After all, they are living things.

I think it’s the least we can do

To give them respect.

To nurture, replenish, recognise

Their worth

For indeed they are the lungs of the Earth.
Silently they emerge from their evergreen rug.

Let us love them.

Let us bless them.

"just" drawing

Let us give them a hug.

Pauline

photo c/o A Collins

photo c/o A Collins

• Thanks to Frag from the Stronger Roots project for guiding us through the woods and their management
• Thanks to the artists and poets of Borderland Voices: it was a delight to see you all again and to work with you!

  

  leaf print

block print

printing a woodland floor

mixed composition

leaf rubbing

Between the in-field and the out

Between the in-field and the out

Whispers in the Grass 

July 2019

 

Back at the start of the summer, a group of us had a lovely day in the fields and garden at the Dove Valley Centre. Out of that Whispers in the Grass workshop have come various poems and pieces of writing (follow this link to see more of them). We also poured ideas and images into a communal pot - or maybe a pond - or maybe we seeded our own flowerbed or left the fields of our imaginations free to grow what they would…..we fed thoughts into a collective piece about visiting the valley….

On the long hill out of Longnor,
The narrow walled fields are interrupted,
The boundary between the gritstone and the lime,
Between the valley and the hill,
Between the in-field and the out.

A steep climb, then,
Changing worlds,
From the hilltop,
Dropping down,
A steep fall,
A winding road,
Bumpy.

Buildings ahead, a relief.
Old,
Stone steps lead up to a window,
A house holding its own stories and a view across the dale.
A garden,
A man with a coffee cup and a welcoming dog
Wild flowers, bushes, a veg patch, roses, foxgloves
Wine for my soul and a blue spire of a flower,
Tall as a foxglove, that has not told me its name,
A gateway invites,
And a topiary hen guards the way.

I know this place.
    I don’t.
Will it welcome me?
    Will I feel safe?
Will I be noticed?
    Observed?
Judged?

No time for hesitation,
The dale draws us deeper,
The road dropping again,
Hedges reaching high,
Curving round,
Leaving us by the barns.

 

Huge trees open gorgeous leaves,
Beautiful flowers catch the light,
A smiling peace, a chance to rest,
I shouldn’t worry, but I do,
Trying to let go and let this tranquility touch me.
Echoes of memories, camping and camping stoves, beans in a pan by a tent.
Naming the hills: High Weeldon, Park House and Chrome,
The villages, Pilsbury, Sheen, Hartington.
Down the dale are Wetton, Alstonefield,
I have been here before.
I remember the peace.
It returns to me and offers itself for the first time to others.
Just pause.

When the world calls me back,
That peace will go with me,
    And the calm,
I may take a painting or a poem.
    There will be friends and photographs.
Memories.

Whispers was a joint event where Creeping Toad worked with old friends from Borderland Voices  and the team from Buxton Museum and Art Gallery. The event was part of Buxton's Festival Fringe

Buxton Museum and Art Gallery was 125 over this last year and to mark that anniversary, the BM125 project brought together experienced with new and emerging artists with 12 months of artistic initiatives. all sort sof things are still unfolding from animated scimitar-toother cats, to dances celebrating ancient axes and musical crystals. Visit the Museum wordpress site to explore some of our birthday adventures!

Photo credits: images 2 and 3: c/o Richard Egan and Borderland Voices
all others, G MacLellan

Words for a summer's warmth

Summer's warmth

words to hold a meadow

Whispers in the Grass, part 3

The summer rolls on, mixing rain with sudden warmth and hot days. The chances to simply sit and enjoy the season feel unpredictable. Grab them when you can!  Maybe we all need “emergency picnic” supplies sat in a box by the door so that on a sudden whim we can drop everything and dash off to stop….

 And when you are out there, take some inspiration from our Whispers in the Grass poets and scribble thoughts and feelings onto a postcard

Two “Fib” poems follow. These collect words and images along the Fibonacci sequence*. For poems, we look for lines with growing numbers of syllables: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 and so on….read them out loud

Grass,

Grass,


SInging,


Whispering,

Whispering meadow,

Grasses, insects, birds, butterflies,

Sweet vernal, meadow foxtail, Yorkshire fog, quaking, rye

Hay bales safely in the barn, stacked away from winter harm, sun compressed to cattle barm

(Andy Collins)

Driving down to Under Whitle

(Sheena Barnes)

Slither,

Crunch,

Eyes right,

A gorgeous

Muddle of roses,

Hollyhocks, daisies, peonies

And honeysuckle, clematis, fennel and roses

Further down the fruit appears, raspberries and pears, peas and redcurrants summer jewels

Or perhaps, you would prefer a cinquain? Again counting syllables: this time, looking for lines with 2, 4, 6, 8 and a final 2 syllables….

Morning in Dove Valley

(Sheena Barnes)

Mist, haze,

Shifting, drifting,

At times the sun glints, peeps

Through with the blessing of light, warmth

And hope

Whispers in the Grass was a free, public event as part of the Buxton Fringe Festival, supported by Buxton Museum and Art Gallery as part of its BM125 series of events, celebrating the museum’s 125th birthday, and by Borderland Voices (BV) from Leek

And we talked, scribbled, thought, laughed, ate cake and talked some more

A lot of our BV visitors are experienced poets and needed very little to set their thoughts to paper but for others we suggested structures, starting points, inviting people to simply sit and have a go.

Other Whispers poems can be found here and here

*No, I’m not going to launch into an exposition about how the Fib sequence can be found in everything from mystery novels to architecture, to the spiral of a Nautilus’ shell and a sunflower’s seeds*…you can go and find that our for yourselves

*I will say, however, that the series starts with a 0. Difficult to write an empty line at the start of a poem. I like to think of it as a breath that opens the poems, a moment of silence before the words begin

And many thanks, as ever, to our Whispers poets. If anyone feels inspired to create their own poems and wants to share them, I won't promise to publish everything but will read and hope to publish them here. The best email is the Telling Toads one: toadwords@btinternet.com. 
Photo credits: 1,2,3 and 5 are all c G MacLellan 
Photo 4 c/o Borderland Voices and Richard Egan

Dove Valley morning

 

Echoing the sky

Echoing the sky

words from Whispers in the Grass

an event report

our venue

A couple of weeks ago, a group of cheerfully creative folks gathered in the fields and garden of te Dove Valley Centre in the Staffordshire Moorlands. In the hills around are wild moors, bleak rocky landscapes and the deep mysterious cleft of Lud’s Church. Here in the Upper Dove Valley, however, we settle into a world of the green, the growing and the buzzing and fluttering….This was a day for words, and wandering, and wondering, for drawing, scribbling, sketching and eating picnics and the partaking of cake. It was a day to simply enjoy being there, being here, at the Dove Valley Centre in the Upper Dove Valley

These hills,
Buttress the sky,
Green mounds echo the sky
Draw rain into this deep valley
Its thirst
by Mary King

Whispers in the Grass was a free, public event as part of the Buxton Fringe Festival, supported by Buxton Museum and Art Gallery as part of its BM125 series of events, celebrating the museum’s 125th birthday, and by Borderland Voices (BV) from Leek

And we talked, scribbled, thought, laughed, ate cake and talked some more

A lot of our BV visitors are experienced poets and needed very little to set their thoughts to paper but for others we suggested structures, starting points, inviting people to simply sit and have a go.


A walk into sunshine
A walk into grass
Insects hiding
Milk churns peeping
Flowers creeping
Memories to take home
by Pauline


POET C*
Whispers in the grass
Little rustles through small stems
Wind flowing freely

Performance begun
Wind playing its instruments
Grass whispers softly

poets and artists at work!

PAULINE’S TAKE ON POETRY
I am just a simple soul,
I don’t go in for complicated rigmarole.
To me a poem is something that rhymes
Although it doesn’t have to
At other times
It may just be beautiful, descriptive and uplifting.
A basic education allows for a shifting and drifting into, out of the box,
Unusual thinking, original, maybe crass
Sometimes its better than nice, precise
Taking more informed advice
I enjoy lots of things
Nature especially - yes and whispering grass.
It sounds poetic
And if it’s easy to verse
I will enjoy the experience of thinking it, crafting it, writing it, creating it,
That may not warrant a degree but it’s a first

With thanks to all our Whispering poets!
All photos c/o Borderland Voices and Richard Egan

* sorry! I didn't get a note of your names!