Lights a'growin', owls a'watchin'

Lights a'growin', owls a'watchin'

lanterns with Project eARTh in New Mills

After the damp delights of the Buxton Winter celebration (see It's a Horse!, finale pics to follow very shortly), the New Mills Project eARTh group are making their own set of lanterns for a twilight installation on the Hadfield Lantern Parade

Designs and ideas moved around - I was in favour of a completely inappropriate fleet of pirate ships for no reason other than i really like making lantern-ships. Common sense prevailed, however, and we are making a night sky to light the Parade on its way.

"Common sense" didn't necessarily last very long when the Archangel Gabriel put in an appearance alongside a rather large comet and a cheerfully round owl....

careful constructions

delightfully messy

a planet taking shape

and here is that watchful owl....

It's a horse!

It’s a horse!

Lantern making for a wintry evening

It was going to be a person, a Guardian, or maybe a Herald for the Peak District with lantern-skin clothes of printed images of the Peaks. It became a deer, instead. Then a unicorn. Now, at the end, it’s a horse. 

it all begins to feel almost surgical

Over the last few weeks, working with members of the Buxton Project eARTh team we have had a cheerful time experimenting with lantern techniques and letting ideas evolve gradually and watching what emerges.

This sort of time is a luxury. Often lantern workshops are hectic public events with lots of people and a whirlwind of glue and tissue and dripping.

waiting for eyes

We’re almost done. There are a few birds still taking shape, and some small characters lurking around, but, come Friday and the Buxton Winter Celebration and all will be glowing!

big birds, small birds, and at least one fish

A light on the Moors

 

wondering what patterns hold our homes

Lanterns of the Peaks

planning

small Guardian ideas...

The plan began with the thought of creating lantern installation that would hold the essence of "what we value about ourselves, our homes and the wild hills we live among". Where it will go to, we still don't quite know. We thought we might make tall Peak Guardian figures with our thoughts printed onto their robes. We thought there might be abstract sculptural shapes or swans or even rabbits...

We began with willow, tissue and time to fiddle about and get a feel for the materials our group are working with. This is a Project eARTh series of workshops for High Peak Community Arts and our Monday afternoons are becoming wrapped in glue and paper, printed with paint and wobbled with willow

By Session 2, our first forms were reaching completion and people felt more confident about what we could with willow. We played around with printing: working with styrofoam sheets and inked leaves to print on paper and then onto tissue. As our main installations take shape we'll probably print our peak district images, patterns and words onto tissue to build into our lanterns

Session 3 (today!) saw us working as a whole company and to create a jigsaw puzzle deer: with people working on legs, body and head ready for a joining together and covering next time. So our Peak District feelings are going to be held, at least in part by a deer. A stag or a hind? Not sure yet

designing a deer

 a head begins

an elegantly crooked leg

a small lantern girl watches...