Lost Species Day, Buxton

 Lost Species Day

November 30th 2024

Free event in Buxton

We have lost many species of animals and plants over the last few hundred years. Some by human action, some in the more natural way of things, but we know that now our human activity is accelerating the loss

Monte Verde Golden Toad, Moroccan Bustard, Great Auk, Du Toit’s Torrent Frog, Galapagos Amaranth 

There is a lot we can do now as individuals, as communities and as a species ourselves, to slow those declines but this day and its events offer an opportunity to pause and reflect

Join us for a Lost Species Day event at the Green Man Gallery, Hardwick Studios, Hardwick Square South, Buxton, SK17 6PY

Times: 11:00 - 15:00

Follow on fb: https://fb.me/e/2ylY3MR7P

Steller’s Sea Cow, Levuana Moth, St Helena Heliotrope, Giant Fiji Ground Frog, Stubble Quail

Step out of busy lives and Saturday busy-ness and take to time to stop. Think about the plants and animals we have lost. Find your own resolution to act: on a domestic scale, a local scale or on engaging with something bigger. All sorts of action helps from planting bumblebee friendly window boxes to active membership of conservation, environmental or social justice organisations. Just talking about it all helps: keep the thought active, keep the conversation alive, pursue your local councillor down the street or wave a lost frog flag at your MP

Caribbean Monk Seal, Little Swan Island Hutia, Kalimantan Mango, Montane Hutia, Puerto Rica Hutia

But mostly, this day is a chance to take time to pause and reflect on why these animals and plants matter to you and which of the current ones you’ll champion.

In UK, Scottish and Welsh devolved governments have set up species champions where MSP and MS individuals take on campaigning on behalf of their chosen species…maybe you could be your own Species Champion

https://www.scotlink.org/link-campaigns/nature-champions/

https://waleslink.org/category/species-champions/

We’ll be inviting participants at our event to add the names of the species that feel most strongly connected to to our “determination list” and offering participants the chance to make their own memorial to those who have gone - or to create their own little Determined Shrine for those species they will champion

• We’ll be making triptych Icons and Nichos like the ones illustrating this post
• This is a free event and materials are provided
• Just come along for an hour or so and join in
• The Green Man Gallery Christmas exhibition will be on then as well so lots of lovely things of all prices will be available

Jamaican Wood Rail, Parana Pine, St Kilda House Mouse, North Island Little Spotted Kiwi, Aurora Frog, McPhee’s Shrew Tenrec, Rodrigues Solitaire, Dodo

Banner on the first paragraph features images from the 

Extinction Files by Ruth Evans: find  out more HERE

Winter woods and glowing lights

Winter lights
free events with a glowing promise

Buxton, Derbyshire
18th and 19th December 

 a tracery of branches, a snowy scene, some winter leaves or Santa stuck in the chimney: box lanterns and shining bottles with Creeping Toad! 

Winter has arrived and here in Buxton and we’ve been having days of rain and wind and occasional snow. Summer seems to be a long ago memory and the beauty of these cold months is dripping itself into the puddles

In our ongoing efforts to entertain, engage and delight the woodland people of Buxton, the Stronger Roots team and Creeping Toad have arranged a couple of free events in the weekend of 18th and 19th December to remind us of our the beauty of our woods and the wonders of winter.

Saturday 18th December

Winter Woodland Lanterns

10.30 - 13:00

Buxton Museum and Art Gallery, Terrace Rd, Buxton, SK17 6DA

Join us at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery to make a lantern and take a little of the wonder of woodlands home for the festive season

 

Made of card and paper, these lanterns will stand on a table and glow with a warm light shining through the lantern’s “windows” decorated with images of tree branches, woodland animals or the colours of stained glass leaves…join us for some thinking and drawing, colour, glue and delight

 

Venue: Buxton Museum and Art Gallery, Terrace Rd, Buxton, SK17 6DA

This event is free and materials are provided but tickets are limited so please book a timed slot

Booking tickets: this is the Stronger Roots eventbrite page - please don’t try to book through the Museum as it will just confuse us all!

   

Sunday 19^th December

Bottle Lanterns at the Green Man Gallery

11:00 – 15:00 

The Green Man Gallery, Hardwick Studios (formerly Hardwick Hall), Hardwick square South, Buxton, SK17 6PY

Drop in at the Green Man and make your own moment of Midwinter to celebrate the woods of our town. Using leaves, feathers, drawings and glue, we’ll be turning bottles into small lanterns. Glowing like jewels, these can stand on a table or window ledge or hang from a branch and bring a whisper of the wildwood into your home for the festive season

 

The Gallery will be open at the same time for viewing the artists’ Christmas collections and the Gallery shop offers beautiful cards and unique gifts

 

Activity: takes about 15 minutes

Joining in: free, no tickets needed just turn up and join in

Materials: materials are provided but if you can bring a clean plastic bottle with you that would help

Booking: you do not need to book for this event: just drop by and join in. There is an eventbrite page if you want to check details, here

 

mermaid tide

a Mermaid tide is running

half.fish

In the Water

Sea Dancer

A swirl, a splash, the flap of a broad tail on the water or the silence where someone has vanished….we don’t see much of merfolk unless they want to be seen

A handsome pony stands on the bank of a highland stream, gleaming black and friendly, climb on my back, I like the company, I am safe, an easy gallop over the moors…Kelpies are notoriously tricksy shapechanging water folk

Rather wizened now, older than any of her visitors, her strange and marvellous features not quite as strange and marvellous as they once were but the Museum mermaid still has the power to fascinate and people come and stare. It doesn’t cost a penny any more to come and admire and the Boyd-Dawkins Room at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery is very different from the sideshow, freakshow tents were she started her career in show business, but the Museum Mermaid still draws her visitors…..

Water People enchant us: with their beauty or their power or their seductiveness or their danger or their grace and generosity - or with all of those at the same time. here in Buxton we are blessed with local stories of mermaids and water people (Blake Mere, Kinder Downfall, Redesmere) and with our own Arnemecta, the Goddess of the Waters

Kelpie

In celebration of the Museum mermaid, of the water people tales of the Peaks, of the water people stories from across our islands and of the spirit of water in general, we are organising a small festival.

half.fish
30th May - 1 st June
All events are free - for some of them booking is needed as spaces are limited
For all events, children 7 years old and leass need to bring a grown-up with them (in case we have some hungry water creatures to feed)

The Land and the Sea

THURSDAY 30TH MAY
1. Mermaids and monsters
Make a mermaid, a sea serpent, a fluttering sea horse or some wild and wonderful creatures no one has ever met before. Quick puppets of shimmering, sliding sea creatures with Gordon from Creeping Toad

Venue: Buxton Museum and Art Gallery* (venue details at foot of post)
Times: 2 - 4pm
Materials provided
No booking needed just drop by and join in - allow 30 minutes for the activity


FRIDAY 31ST MAY
2. Hand-made mermaids
Inspired by ‘The Buxton Mermaid’, recreate your own idea of this mythical creature, using a variety of art materials, then place her in your very own sea. A drop-in workshop with Artist and Educator Anna Spratt.
Venue: Green Man Gallery*
Times: 10.30 - 11.30am
Materials provided
No booking needed just drop by and join in

Feral mermaid

3. Interview with a Mermaid
Anita Jasso is a ‘professional’ mermaid, with a breath-hold of 5 minutes, who can free-dive to 40m. You may have seen her on the ITV drama, Butterfly. With mermaid clubs springing up all over the country, there has never been a better time to discuss this cultural phenomenon.
Venue: Green Man Gallery
Times: 12 noon - 1pm
No booking needed just arrive and listen with a smile

4. Mermaid CSI
How was she made? Where did the bits come from? Why did they make her? Solving the mystery of the mermaid! Listen to Conservator Anita Hollinshead reveal her research, after studying ‘The Buxton Mermaid’ for her MA in the Conservation of Historic Objects at the University of Lincoln.
Venue: Green Man Gallery
Times: 1.30 - 2.30pm
No booking needed just arrive and listen with a smile or maybe your best detetcive notebook….

5. Mermaid: the Movie
Former BAFTA Screenplay Judge, Rob Young, will give a one-hour crash course in how to write a movie. It’s Film School in an hour! A warm, witty and welcoming workshop in the craft of storytelling. Free, but booking essential.
Venue: Green Man Gallery
Times: 3 - 4pm
Places limited: booking through eventbrite

6. D E E P
The world premiere of a short story by award-winning writer Rob Young, inspired by The Buxton Mermaid and the ‘haunted’ pool at Blake Mere. D E E P tells the story of Jan, a Buxton boy who discovers that there’s something strange in the water. A darkly-comic urban fairy-tail for Young Adults (older adults welcome too). Performed by Buxton actress, Sarah Day.
Venue: Green Man Gallery
Times: 6 - 7pm
Places limited: booking through eventbrite

SATURDAY 1st JUNE
7. A Mermaid Museum
A Mermaid Museum: alternative mermaids, fierce mermaids, shark spirits and exhibitions: help us remember the origins of the Museum Mermaid by making our own Mermaid Museum
Venue: Buxton Museum and Art Gallery* (venue details at foot of post)
Times: 2 - 4pm
Materials provided
No booking needed just drop by and join in - allow 30 minutes for the activity

* Venues
Buxton Museum and Art Gallery
Terrace Rd
Buxton
SK17 6DA
01629 533540

Green Man Gallery
Hardwick Square South
Buxton
SK17 6PY

Buxton Museum and Art Gallery is 125 this year and to mark that anniversary, the BM125 project will bring together experienced with new and emerging artists with 12 months of artistic initiatives

 

Whale Rider

Illustrations on this blog are extracts from bigger pictures by some of our Water people artists!

• In the Water and The Land and the Sea are by Ruth Evans
• Sea dancer is by Jo Thilwind - visit her work at Dreamspaceart on Facebook
• Kelpie is by Gordon MacLellan (me!)
• Feral Mermaid, photograph by Rob Young
• Whale Rider is by Maria Strutz

what shape would your dragon take?

Dragon Days

Tuesday 9th August 

THIS EVENT IS CANCELLED - APOLOGIES TO ANY LITTLE DRAGONKEEPERS OUT THERE - YOU SHOULD HAVE BOOKED A PLACE!

The Green Man Gallery, Buxton

breathing fire and biting....

This dragon,
That dragon,
My dragon,
Your dragon
From winged wyverns to
Creeping orms,
From pearlescent wyrms
To occasional cockatrices
And the flapping, flying, ferocious splendour
Of a Dragon Queen

What shape will your dragon take?

Join me on a storytelling journey to discover the last dragons of Derbyshire with stories and puppet-making.
Make your own little dragon with its own nest or cave and collection of treasure.

Time: 11am-1pm

Ages: 8-12 (Ages 6-7 welcome with an adult - we will need some dragon food!).

Price: £6

Please book a place: 01298 937375

Venue: Green Man Gallery
 

they might have wings

Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1736956936577926/

Part of the Buxton Family Festival, download a programme for the whole festival here

the beauty of a legless wyrm, the wonder of an adder

The dragons are coming!, 1

dragon skin as rough as rocks?

Dragon Days 

Tuesday 9th August

The Green Man Gallery 

dragon hearts as green as leaves?

This dragon,

That dragon,

My dragon,

Your dragon.

From sunrise golden to

Midnight black,

From submarine shimmer to

Pondslime green,

What will your dragon look like?

 

dragon scales as gold as autumn leaves?

Join me on a storytelling journey to discover the last dragons of Derbyshire with stories and puppet-making. 

Make your own little dragon with its own nest or cave and collection of treasure.

Time: 11am-1pm

Ages: 8-12 (Ages 6-7 welcome with an adult).

Price: £6

Please book a place: 01298 937375

Fee: £6.00

Venue: Green Man Gallery

Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1736956936577926/

Part of the Buxton Family Festival, download a programme for the whole festival here

http://www.paviliongardens.co.uk/fairs/buxton-family-festival

The Green Man Gallery

exciting wintry events

A cold season of creative wildness

family events in December 2015

 Winter comes rolling in with our first snow here in Buxton and as the hills are beautifully white and the trees black as old bones, here at Creeping Toad we are gearing up for some lovely December excitements!

4 events are planned – details for all follow

Sunday 13^th December, at the Green ManGallery

Hardwick Square South, Buxton

10.30 – 12: Wintry Landscapes, 10 - 1

4.00 -5.30pm Stories for a Winter Afternoon, 4 – 5.30

Sunday 20^th December , Mystery and Mulled Wine, stories for grown-ups,  at the Green ManGallery, Hardwick Square South, Buxton, 7pm – 9 (ish)

Wednesday 23^rd December, The Last of the Wonders, at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery, 10 – 1

The Last of the Wonders: an event marking the closure (for refurbishment) of the delicious Wonders of the Peak exhibition in the museum. Details will follow but activities will include storytelling to suit the different rooms of the exhibition and the chance to draw your own postcards of favourite pieces of the display – the Bear? The bones? The mermaid? The Blue John window? And to leave us postcard messages of what you like best – or least – of the display

MORE DETAILS

Wintry Landscapes

Sunday 13^th December

10.30 – 12.00

Add an individual touch to your festive decorations!

Join me for a session building some exquisite Midwinter creations

We might

• capture a scatter of presents, or leaves, feathers and colours, or even a tiny castle on a bottle lantern
• play with card and colour, pictures and trees building a pop-up world of snowmen and frozen pools, of lost castles among dark mountains, of reindeer flying through a starry sky….

Get carried away with a display lantern of trees and palaces, rivers and bridges and children iceskating into an adventure

During the session, we will make

• a bottle lantern
• at least one small pop-up card
• a larger pop-up landscape
• maybe a round display lantern

This will be a deliciously messy, delightfully creative session, giving you the chance to learn quick techniques and go away with your own wintry landscapes and the skills to make more

Places are limited, you need to book a ticket

Cost: £6.00 per person (supporting grown-ups go free)

Activities suitable for 5 years and over, 7s and under need to bring their own grow-up with them

Materials provided (but if you’d like to bring a washed, empty plastic bottle that could add to the mix (500 ml - 2l are best)

Phone 01298 937375

email hello@thegreenmangallery.com or call in to book. Card payments can be taken over the phone.

4.00 - 5.30pm Stories for a Winter Afternoon

Cheerfully chilly stories of the first Christmas Tree, the wren and the robin, the secrets of Christmas feasts and work with me to mix natural materials, wonderful treasures and strange characters into the first telling of the Buxton Winter Tale

Places are limited, you need to book a ticket

Cost: £6.00 per person (supporting grown-ups go free)

Stories suitable for 5 years and over (and maybe younger), 7s and under need to bring their own grow-up with them

Phone 01298 937375

email hello@thegreenmangallery.com or call in to book. Card payments can be taken over the phone.

Sunday 20^th December , at the Green Man Gallery

Hardwick Square South, Buxton

Mystery and Mulled Wine 7pm – 9 (ish)

The Winter Solstice brings seasonal storytelling for grown-ups by Gordon MacLellan and Helen Appleton.
From cheerful trolls to deep winter cold, from the downright silliness of a Trickster tale to the rich images of an old English adventure, join Helen and Gordon for an atmospheric evening to get your Midwinter off to a warming start

Tickets: £7.50 (with a free glass of mulled wine) Further refreshments available

Phone 01298 937375

email hello@thegreenmangallery.com or call in to book. Card payments can be taken over the phone.

This is a storytelling session for an adult audience which doesn’t mean the stories will be particularly racy or outrageous but themes and images may not suit a younger audience. There is a storytelling session at The Green Man for families on December 13th.

 

Wednesday 23^rd December, The Last of the Wonders, at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery, 10 – 1,

The Last of the Wonders: an event marking the closure (for refurbishment) of the delightful Wonders of the Peak exhibition in the museum. Activities will include storytelling to suit the different rooms of the exhibition and the chance to draw your own postcards of favourite pieces of the display – the Bear? The bones? The mermaid? The Blue John window? And to leave us postcard messages of what you like best – or least – of the display

This event is free, just drop by and join in!

Mystery and mulled wine storytelling

Mystery And Mulled Wine

An evening of sinister stories and marvellous tales

with Helen Appleton and Gordon MacLellan

Sunday 20th December 2015

7pm

From cheerful trolls to deep winter cold, from the downright silliness of a Trickster tale to the rich images of an old English adventure, join Helen and Gordon for an atmospheric evening to get your Midwinter off to a warming start

Tickets: £7.50 (with a free glass of mulled wine)
Further refreshments available

This is a storytelling session for an adult audience which doesn’t mean we’ll do particularly racy or outrageous stories but themes and images may not suit a younger audience. There is a storytelling session for families on December 13th!

Book a ticket
Phone 01298 937375
email: hello@thegreenmangallery.com
or call in to book. Card payments can be taken over the phone.

Green Man Gallery
Hardwick Hall, 
Hardwick Square South
Buxton, SK17 6PY