Treasure-hunter trips up

 A Tricky Week for Treasure-hunters

This has been an interesting few days for our Cabinet of Treasures activity. Some ups, some downs, some just puzzling moments!

But as we are hunting Treasures, I thought I should document our various misadventures...the snares and snarls set in the path of determined Treasure-hunters....

To be clear, we are looking for personal treasures. No,  not your gold teeth or the family silver (although we probably wouldn't say 'no!'...). We're looking for, and listening to, stories: what are the treasures of Glossop and the High peak for you? You might see  your house and home as treasure. Or a treasure might the people around you: your family (with or without precious silver), your friends. It might places where you walk, play, find peace and quiet. It might be the animals you see, the trees you meet....Our treasures are your stories, built into tiny dioramas and hidden in matchboxes and slowly being built into our Cabinet: a sort of crazy Advent Calendar of doors to open and scenes to encounter

But this week...

• dates went wrong. sorted, that day went well and no-one apparently noticed that we had promoted a day that no-one came to! But lots came to the next one...says a lot about where people find their information!
• Then the weather hit. 
• And today...
• started wet: put people off
• sun came out...and went away again. A cold wind blew.
• but we set up in Manor Park in Glossop and hoped
• few folk around and most of them with dogs (very friendly and talkative...both dogs and people)
• chatting, talking, watching the clouds....
• and the gate is locked...it wasn't when we came in (or we couldn't have...)
• it's locked now
• but the lovely man at the Miniature Railway has a key and can let us out...
• only he's not here for long....
• ...flee.

Treasure hunting will resume next week with exciting sessions with Space2Explore in Hayfield and at St Andrews Primary School in Glossop. Then look out for, and please join us, at the Derbyshire Makes Glossop Celebration on Saturday 8th May...

Strange towers and creepy houses

Thomas' frightening castle!

Shhh! tiptoe up the stairs!

the door creaks open....

The floorboards groan under tentative toes...

The swamp heaves and waits. Wetly.

In a dark castle beyond the mountains...

Castle's were popular subjects....

we even got Mums and Dads
to make their own story-cards!

A Summer Reading Challenge workshop for Nottinghamshire Libraries. In magnificent West Bridgford Library (well done, West B for making sure this was built! What a place!), an intrepid company gathered to turn their own ideas about spooky houses and sinister settings into pop-up cards

We gathered our first ideas into a collective poem

Crescent moon, full moon, no moon at all! 

The ghost train will bring you 

Along the haunted line,

Past golden palaces and beautiful gardens

To the Creepy House.
Full of bats and spiders,
Cobwebs and ghosties
Watching from windows.

monkeys rather than crows, but still watchful!

Crows sitting on treetops
Spy on everything
And bats flap
Through the woods.
A strange dark figures
Walks silently down the long path
Through the wood of dead trees.

Graveyards and tombstones
A witch fies across the moon
Creepers that catch you
Vampires that follow you

Milly's House

Milly* told us a story of
a girl who went on adventure with a pocketful of apples. She bravely walked up to the front of the spooky house and knocked on the door....
"What would you taste like?", 
"Squashed slugs!" she said. 
"I like slugs" said he. 
"But i am as tough as an old tree", said she
"If you bite me, your teeth will break!" 
He smiles and there are no teeth left in his mouth....

Fintan went for swamps

while Tristan preferred the beach

There was a terrible news about Tristan's beach pop-up because just after he made it, he disappeared from his bedroom. But a small boy's face could be seen looking out of one of the windows in the huts. The face wasn't there before...

...but almost anything is better than disappearing
 in the swamp in Rowan's story

Charlotte sent divers deep under the sea

I love the detail here!

a dragon in a cave!

(* my apologies to anyone whose name I've got wrong! Let me know and I'll correct them)

More images

The team from Borderland Voices in Leek at the first of the Ancient Landscapes workshop at Buxton Museum, 28th Feb 2012

Unexpected stories out of paintings

I had been asked to look at using the stories that might come out of works by van Gogh (Year 3s) and Picasso (Year 6s)....Trying to let go of predictable responses, we made pop-up cards and waited to see n who else might wander into a scene or what voice might mutter in a portrait and just what could happen next.

the Cafe Terrace in Arles was quite clearly waiting for a bit of excitement...a runaway dog, chased round the corner by its owner dashed between the tables, niftily lifting a string of sausages as it went. Chaos! And the waiter set of after the dog and after the dog's owner. The angry cafe owner joined in and their chef, waving his apron. Not to miss any excitement, all the diners (after they'd mopped up a bit) join the pursuit and if van Gogh had turned up just 5 minutes later, the cafe would have been empty

Then there was the man in the park who couldn't read his map and the helpful policeman who showed him where to go, and the worker among the trees that wandered into the scene after van Gogh had wandered off and so missed his chance for lasting fame...

Picasso provoked somewhat darker stories and we met thwarted lovers (left lingering, until we found her, shared some cake and left some never seen before crumbs on a plate in the painting....), a prisoner pirate plotting his escape, mysterious Miss Blackandwhite, a grumpy old man with no friends.....but there was also the donkey who dreamed of escape and being able to give people rides on a beach somewhere and the stern, severe woman who wanted to ride a bicycle wildly through the streets of her home town...

A workshop to be recommended!

The Value of Distance

I was in Amsterdam last weekend, partly work, partly social, partly just getting away from everything for a few days. I did not come back with a volume of new work, a stunning set of inspiring activities or even much written down at all, but after a weekend of drizzle and damp coats, I came back with a renewed peace. That comes partly from those friends (go visit Maria's site for poetry...) but mostly from places to walk and sit and simply think.  Reflect, review and meditate and appreciate not trying to deal with new projects, old proposals, imminent workshops and late deadlines

Hortus - lovely glasshouses (web image, not my own!)

There was Hortus, the Botanic Gardens, and the Allard Piersen Museum of Archaeology. I was reminded how intriguing it is to wander round an exhibition where one has no idea what most of the interpretation says and simply enjoy the collection and wonder at how subtly different the artefacts that were brought back to the Netherlands were

That sounds trivial but the strength runs deeper. This is time alone but observant, to enjoy the rush of humanity, to watch, listen and always watch. To think about what moves these children to run and play just there…or where do people stop and stare at a tree, an empty flowerbed, which sarcophagi draw attention…

Go away. The creativity never stops, the thinking, planning, planting, growing but there is a distance here physical and emotional and stepping out into a different place with only a notebook refreshes more than 4 days at home

Inside the Cycad House at Hortus, again not my own image

And so this begins!

A day of sunshine and sudden showers and a lively workshop with Early Years teachers and child-minder sin Cheshire. Exploring school grounds in those showers and creating stories as we went, tales of deep sea starfish (in puddles) and bears in houses in the woods......a time of mess, laughter and some rampant silliness. a good way to spend a summer morning

And setting up a new blog this evening! This is a hasty first post....something more coherent will follow soon!