Gargoyles and Grotesques!

Gargoyles and grotesques
A new project for Buxton Our Street

What stories do the stones of our buildings tell us? Or what stories could they tell? Or what eyes watched us through the making of those stories…cold stone eyes peering down, peeking out, seeing everything, telling nothing. And then dropping rain in waterspouts on the heads of the unwary!

A gargoyle is a decorated waterspout that projects from a roof and carries rainwater away from the walls of a building, protecting it from damage, whilst a grotesque is a decorative carving that has no functional architectural purpose.
Gloucestershire Archives

Gargoyle on St Oswald's Church, Ashbourne

Creeping Toad and the Babbling Vagabonds Storytelling Theatre are going to be playing with ideas of gargoyles and grotesques over the next few weeks, inviting people to design, make and be messy around these wonderful, watchful presences on our buildings


Sorry, but we won’t be wielding chisels and shaping stone but we will be

• Designing and making quick cardboards freestanding gargoyles
• Drawing, thinking and writing about faces on walls
• Working with clay to make small gargoyles or grotesques to take home
• Working with clay and plaster cloth to make bigger grotesques

inspiration on Buxton walls

clay, plaster and slightly sinister!

All these ideas will feed into a strange and (hopefully) mysterious event during the final celebrations of the Buxton Our Street project in February 2024. Among music, big light projections and other happenings, there will be a quieter corner, a more sinister moment perhaps where, a visitor might wander into a ring of watchful faces and be….observed

Details will follow



EVENTS AND WORKSHOPS

All events are free and materials are provided

October
Sunday 8th, 11am - 4pm

Gargoyles and Grotesques: join us for some first ideas, first makings, first excitements at The Pump Room, Buxton, The Crescent, Buxton, SK17 6BH

This is part of the Fun Places weekend: https://funpalaces.co.uk/about-fun-palaces/

Thursday 19th
The grotesques of Buxton: a talk by Terry Newholm at Buxton Country Park Visitor Centre (Temple Rd, Buxton , SK17 9DH). An evening talk, this will be free but tickets will need to be booked. Book tickets here

Look out for Terry’s book “A Walk Amongst The Grotesques of Buxton”





Wednesday 25th October and 8th November
First Grotesques at Buxton Country Park Visitor Centre (Temple Rd, Buxton , SK17 9DH): inspired by the limestone of our hills and its ancient stories, we’ll make faces out of clay on 25th, cast them with plaster cloth and decorate them i8th. Places here are limited and the workshops are aimed at adult participants. Please book to be with us on both dates

Times: 1.30 - 3.30pm?

Please book a place through eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/grotesques-design-and-make-workshops-at-pooles-cavern-tickets-721138824637?aff=oddtdtcreator




NOVEMBER
Wednesday 22nd, 29th:

Second Grotesques: a similar pair of workshops as First Grotesques 1 but now evening sessions at the Green Man Gallery

Times: 7 -9pm

Please book your places on both sessions: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/grotesques-design-and-make-workshops-at-the-greenman-gallery-tickets-719867080817?aff=ebdssbdestsearch&keep_tld=1

EVENTBRITE LINKS ARE NOTORIOUSLY UNRELIABLE! IF THIS DOESN'T WORK,GO TO EVENBRITE AND SEARCH FOR BABBLING VAGABONDS IN BUXTON, UK AND YOU SHOULD FIND THE EVENT!



a gargoyle's eye view-from St Magnus Cathedral on Orkney

Later November: we hope we might fit in an impromptu session of Festive Gargoyles in the run-in to the Midwinter/Christmas - a time when you might really need an ugly little friend in the corner of the living room!

Watch for details posted on social media!

Social media to follow:

X, Instagram and Facebook:

Creeping Toad
BuxtonOurStreet
Babblingvagabonds



Many thanks to our friends at The Pump Room and Buxton Crescent Experience, Buxton Civic Association and the Stronger Roots programme, and The Green Man Gallery for their help and support with these Grotesque opportunities!




Images: 3 of these images are not from Buxton. they are labelled, the others lurk around town....I haven't labelled them - go and find for yourself!

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

A wonder of woodlands

A wonder of woodlands

free public events in Buxton, Derbyshire

July 2021

As part of the Buxton Civic Association’s Stronger Roots project, I’m coordinating an arts engagement programme of public events. The next wave of these starts with July…why not come and join us if you are in Buxton or thereabouts?

Art in the woods

During Buxton Wild Week and the Buxton Fringe there will be a number of art sessions in the woods of the town. You might like to hone your identification skills and make your own tree book, you might like to sketch, to be creative in Gadley or Corbar or Sherbrook woods or wander through the stories the trees tell us in Grin Low. Or exercise your imagination and shape a new story

IN THE FACE OF A SUDDEN SURGE IN COVID INFECTIONS IN BUXTON, BUXTON WILD WEEK EVENTS HAVE BEEN CANCELLED 

The post below holds links and details for all these events but to try to summarise….

 

Wednesday 7^th

10.30 - 12.30:   The woods of Grinlow

 

Thursday 8^th

10.30 - 12.30: Tales of the wild woods, Buxton Country Park

1.30 -2.30: Art in the woods (BWW), Corbar Wood

5 – 6: Art in the Woods, after school session (BWW), Gadley Wood

6.30 – 7.30: Art in the Woods (BWW), Gadley Wood

IN THE FACE OF A SUDDEN SURGE IN COVID INFECTIONS IN BUXTON, BUXTON WILD WEEK EVENTS HAVE BEEN CANCELLED 

Friday 9^th

1.30 – 2.30:Art in the Woods (BWW), Sherbrook Wood

4.30 – 6: Art in the Woods, after school session (BWW), Grin Low Wood

6 – 7.30: Art in the Woods (BWW),  Grin Low Wood

IN THE FACE OF A SUDDEN SURGE IN COVID INFECTIONS IN BUXTON, BUXTON WILD WEEK EVENTS HAVE BEEN CANCELLED  

 

Saturday 10^th

11am - 1pm: Sketching Trees with Geoff Chilton,  Buxton Country Park

 Sunday 18^th  

11am - 1pm: A Blockbuster with trees with RobYoung,  Buxton Country Park

Wednesday 7^th July

The Woods of Grinlow

Make your own tree book!

Combining finding out about the trees in Grinlow Woods with art, this workshop will take us through tree identification to printing, rubbing, drawing and writing to help us remember those trees. We’ll build our own books, lacing together pages, pictures and discoveries to make Tree Books to keep memories fresh and to add to as the leaves lengthen and ash-keys grow

Venue: Grinlow Woods, meet in Poole’s Cavern Car Park, event accessible for wheelchairs

Artist: Gordon MacLellan of Creeping Toad 

Time: 10.30 – 12.30

Materials are provided (but you are welcome to bring your own!)

Booking: this event is free but places need to be booked: The Woods of Grinlow Tickets, Wed 7 Jul 2021 at 10:30 | Eventbrite

Thursday 8^th July  

(4 events)

Tales of the Wild Woods

There are stories to be told in these woods, mysteries waiting to be unfolded. Join storyteller Gordon MacLellan from Creeping Toad for a storywalk through the woods, with stories to tell and new tales to grow. Gordon will share some of the storytellers art: encouraging visitors to create their own stories. Spinning wonders out of fluttering leaves and bird calls

Venue: Grinlow Woods, meet in Poole’s Cavern Car Park, gentle walk. 

Artist: Gordon MacLellan of Creeping Toad 

Time: 10.30 – 12.30

Materials are provided 

Booking: this event is free but places need to be booked: Tales of the Wild Woods Tickets, Thu 8 Jul 2021 at 10:30 | Eventbrite

Buxton Festival Fringe

10^th July

Sketching Trees with Geoff Chilton

The elegance of beech trees, the strength of ash, the grace of birch and the richness of hazel: our woods are full of wonders and in this event, we invite you to take a bit more time to really look, to get to know our trees. Join Geoff Chilton, a resident artist from the Green Man Gallery in Buxton and learn to sketch the trees of Grinlow Woods. Geoff will take you through a systematic approach to simplifying the drawing of a subject that can at first seem daunting

Venue: Grinlow Woods, meet in Poole’s Cavern Car Park, gentle walk. 

Artist: Geoff Chilton, https://earthpigpottery.com/

Times: 11am- 1pm

Materials are provided (but you are welcome to bring your own!)

Booking: this event is free but places need to be booked: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sketching-trees-tickets-161001839837?aff=ebdssbdestsearch

18^th July

A Blockbuster With Trees? 

Do you write? Do you want to write? Have you written before? Or not at all? Turn our woodland wonders into drama, action, adventure, romance, comedy…horror? Would you like to write a movie with award-winning writer and former BAFTA screenplay judge, Rob Young? Warm, witty and welcoming this workshop will play with laughter, delight and wild ideas….create a hero and walk them through a film, transform a painting into a movie, see a woodland glade as a dramatic set: it’s film-school in a forest!

Venue: Grinlow Woods, meet in Poole’s Cavern Car Park 

Artist: Rob Young, https://robyoung.info/art/

Times: 11am – 1pm

Materials are provided 

Booking: this event is free but places need to be booked: A Blockbuster With Trees? Tickets, Sun 18 Jul 2021 at 11:00 | Eventbrite

write, scribble, sketch, glue...start a journal

build the spring into your notebook

a pencil and a notebook

Give a gift that endures

How are you planning these next few weeks?

If you are one of our essential workers, thank you. I hope you find time to rest and recover between shifts and I hope the rest of us are supporting you in any way we can

If, like the rest of us, you are in a splendid isolation, then I hope we might be able to offer some ideas to keep you going

Creeping Toad along with Stone and Water, the BabblingVagabonds and the Green Man Gallery in Buxton are going to start posting activities. For Creeping Toad, these will often be the things we would have made/done in sessions at Buxton Museum or in the library. We’ll take it in turns to post and between us offer activities that will cover a variety of ages, abilities and interests (we hope!)

We would love people to come back to us with the results of these activities; the triumphs, the disasters and the complete detours you went on. We can’t promise to post everything but we will share what we can and keep our creative community communicating!

Email: creepingtoad@btinternet.com

Facebook: Creeping Toad or Stone and Water

A starting point: but now, why not start by giving something to someone else? I like journals. A mix of diary, sketchbook, scrapbook and scribbling pad, my journals generally make very little sense to anyone else but are important to me. Why not start your own? Or better still, take a moment to order a notebook and a lovely pen or some coloured pencils to send to someone else. Smart notebooks are good, something classy, or just different (black paper always feels like a treat until you loves your silver pen!)

Then use your journal as a personal routine: first thing, last thing, somewhen. Stop. 10 minutes will do (it will almost certainly grow)….Me being me, my journals are about the world around me: looking, listening, feeling the weather, the plants, the animals, history, dreams and wonders. We'll come back to nature journals over the next few weeks. I make no apology for this: your journal should go in a direction that works for you. Nothing big or profound needed: just stop and make marks on a page: words, sentences, emojis, drawings or a carefully dated blank page

leaf print

When I look at useful journal sites or books (a couple of links below) they talk casually about sketching and seem to produce wonderful art just like that. I don’t.

This is yours. Your book. Share if you want to. And do not be ashamed of the mess you make. Writing, or drawing, practice helps. If something doesn’t work. Try it again. Try something else…..

When I am making books in workshops (building little books is a different activity and also lots of fun: concertina, 1-page folds, al good fun, for another day maybe) we have a working list of “things I could do”

• Write
• Draw
• Scribble (very useful)
• Sketch
• Stick (magazines!)
• Make pockets
• Patch (coloured, patterned paper to write on)
• Cut windows
• Make pop-ups
• Add maps
• Add fold out pages
• Do rubbings
• Print (remember potato printing? Or leaves,,, more printing will follow, hang onto your Styrofoam pizza bases)
• Paint
• Stick
• Enjoy

we always bring too much stuff

Enough to get started?

Go for it….

....and persist. It takes time for this to get going. Journals can become a place for you to have a conversation with yourself or with the world or just to pause and reflect but sometimes that takes time.

Journals:

What to choose

Personally I use softbacked sketchbooks from Ryman. (no, I don't get any product placement allowance!) If I buy spiralbound notebooks I always manage to dismantle them. You could visit Papersmiths for some lovely small notebooks and beautiful fountain pens! Mayfly notebooks are just lovely but their journals are sold out just now (so many brilliant minds sharing the same idea?)...go window shopping online for lovely notebooks for someone else. Then get one for yourself! No money? Start working on scrap paper and we'll build books in a week or two....

Ideas for journal processes….

Try these sites for ideas - there are lots out there but don't spend so long looking at other sites that you don't have time for your own notebook!

Lily and Thistle

Nature Mentor

Whatever you do, no matter how beautifully or how trollish (I go for a certain boggart style myself) , your journals are your own and are wonderful for that!

Boggarts often influence my drawing and writing...untidiness accepted

Whispers in the grass: event

Whispers in the grass

 

a day of words and art

Dove Valley Centre

Tuesday 9th July

11.00 - 15.00

write a poem, draw a picture, shape a story from a twig, 

a feather and a leaf….bring a picnic and relax

A breeze blows through the hay, a bumblebee buzzes, sun warms the old meadows of the Dove Valley and we all settle into an ease of stories and poems. Join the Creeping Toad and Borderland Voices team for a day of inspiration from the fields and wide skies of the valley

This event is planned as a day for casual creativity. Our artists will support you with ideas and materials and you can do as much or as little as you like. You can just take some time to simply enjoy the beauty of the Upper Dove Valley, chat to new friends or old mates and (maybe? hopefully!) watch the ravens tumbling in the sky over Pilsbury castle

Whispers is a free event: no booking or tickets are needed, just drop by and join in. If you would like to check anything out, contact Gordon on creepingtoad@btinternet.com 

Dove Valley Centre: follow the link for directions to the Centre. When you arrive at Under Whitle, you can drive down the track to the Centre (right at the end of the track) but you are recommended to park at the top of the hill and walk, saunter or wander down the hill to the Centre and enjoy the views as you drop into the deep valley

Buxton Festival Fringe

This gentle event is outside Buxton so give yourself a day off from Festival stuff and come out into the Moorlands.

A BM125 event for Buxton Museum and Art Gallery in partnership with Borderland Voices