Lost People and Marvellous Minerals

Lost People and Marvellous Minerals

events at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery

February 2016

visiting the Crescent in Buxton

We began with the people who used to live here, or might have lived here, or really should have lived here…and we ended up in kangaroos.

a villainous type, with staple scars

“Lost Peoples of the Peaks” built puppet characters inspired by the pictures around us on the walls of the Project Space at Buxton Museum. So we saw the elegant ladies of Haddon Hall, a deer that liked a woodland and some villainous types who loitered with pillage in mind in the caves of Dovedale.

There were wolves, too, and a cheerful rabbit and a remarkably stout mouse. And from somewhere a kangaroo hopped into the picture. We claimed it was the last of the Roaches Wallabies (if you have never heard of them then that is a sad story for another day). Explaining away the elephant was harder.

 

she wandered off among the wild rocks and tumbling streams

precision work

There were crystals of amethyst and citrine and delicately pink rose quartz. We wondered at the weight of galena and the glow of Blue John and tried to trick each other with Fool’s Gold. We met salty halite and the delicate strangeness of mica. We marvelled at minerals and took those inspirations to fashion our own crystal pictures. In an explosion of glue, tissue and cellophane, visitors made their own sheets of translucent crystal pictures. As precise as chemists, we measured out borax or alum or copper sulphate and armed with sachets of chemical and instructions,  our mineralogists have gone home to try to grow their own crystals. Hopefully, photos will follow….there are hearts and stars, snowflakes and scorpions crystalising around pipecleaners all over the Peaks this evening. It doesn’t always work!

Events at Buxton Museum

17^th February: Lost People of the Peaks

18^th February: Marvellous Minerals

There are  more events coming:

Check in at the Museum website

Or on the Collections in the Landscape blog for the next adventures

Many thanks to all our hard working, imaginative 

and very patient visitors! 

We pushed the Project Space to a limit these two days

Wandering houses and Titania’s troubles

Wandering houses and Titania’s troubles

Fallibroome Arts Week, 2016

The mountains of Ancient Greece

a temple from Ancient Greece

 A week of slightly deranged creativity draws to a cheerful close. These last 5 days have bounced me from Leek to Blackshaw Moor to Nether Alderley, Prestbury and Whirley. This could simply be a collection of delightful names if the names weren’t also accompanied by some delightful people

The majority of workshops were part of the magnificent Fallibroome Academy’s Arts Week where they coordinate arts input, trips and performances among the Academy’s feeder primaries where teachers take workshops to each other schools, classes go on trips to art galleries and the likes of me come into school and disturb the equilibrium a bit….

 

retelling myths

This has been my third year as part of Arts Week and I love it! I meet wildly enthusiastic children in friendly schools where people just dive in and have a go at whatever gets thrown at them…..

In Nether Alderley, we met Victorian explorers and the people, buildings and myths of Ancient Greece

The Storm.

Clouds in the sky,

Rain is coming.

Tip, tap,

Raindrops going tip, tip tap.

People in the puddles go splish, splash, splosh

While the thunder bangs and lightning crashes

With bobble hats and boots

Or no hats, no shoes, no long trousers, only shorts

We go out in the rain and the rain goes splash

And the wind goes whoosh

A storm strong enough to blow us away!

Running home,

Running home

Wet footprints in the hall

(Whirley Primary School, Reception)

At Whirley Primary School, we also discovered the scenes that Shakespeare missed out of Midsummer Night’s Dream

 

he forgot the angry trees

...and the dramatic castles

...he didn't tell us that Demetrius was carrying a ring

 And today in Prestbury Primary’s Reception classes, we heard of adventures….

 

brave nights cross a bridge over a river

There was the house that needed a pee, so it stood up and went for a walk. Eventually it found a swimming pool and relieved itself but having tasted freedom, the house didn’t want to go back to its own place in the  street and wandered off exploring. It found a cave and squeezed inside looking for treasure. But the cave was the home of a lion who, alarmed by the arrival of a whole house, roared! The house was so frightened that it ran all the way home and jumped into its space in the street. But it was in a such a hurry that it landed the wrong way round with its back door where the front door should be*. If you walk through Prestbury now, you might find the back-to-front house and then you will know it is the house that went for a walk

an adventure storyboard

 

an adventure following a path through a wood and flowers

Or there was the pirate who lived in a tall, beautiful house that had no kitchen, So he went off hunting for a kitchen. He looked in the wood of blue and yellow trees: no kitchens here. He looked under the bridge where the trolls lived: no kitchens here. He went into outer space on Alexander’s Flying Boat. They few to the Dark and Dangerous Planet: no kitchens here. They went to Saturn: no kitchens here! Coming back to Earth, the pirate went into a shop in Macclesfield: kitchens! Kitchens! Being a pirate he tried to steal a kitchen but it was too big to carry. So he went home and dug up some of the treasure he had hidden under his bed and went back and paid for a kitchen. Now he is a happy pirate

 Many thanks to the artists and storytellers of Nether Alderley, 

Whirley and Prestbury Primary Schools

* It is just possible that the house ended up upside down, “like that house in London”.

 

Midsummer Night's Dream: the Fairy Woodland

Characters for a new adventure

Papier-mache People of the Peaks

Borderland Voices

2^nd February 2016 

a gentleman awaiting his face and a tricorn hat

                         

Working with BV’s Tuesday Art Group in Leek, we have started shaping a set of characters who might have, should have, may once have, lived, loitered or even lingered in the Staffordshire Moorlands

we started with sketches and rolling and scrunching paper

Elbows, knees, hats and shoes and faces next week…..

ready for some clothes

 

elegance taking shape

Summer stories: workshops for schools and public events 2016

Summer stories

Stories in school

and other excitements

with Creeping Toad,

Summer 2016

celebrating the richness of the season, here are stories, 

sculptures, flags, books and  boggarts

With stories spinning from the first signs of spring right through to earth giants, summer flowers and thunder-tigers, here are stories and activities to enchant and inspire.

a small story-house

Drawing on 30 years of professional experience, my work blends environmental experience with creativity. “Much of my work uses storytelling and story making but I also make small masks, giant masks, flags, lanterns, pop-up landscapes and create wild and wonderful occasions”

Scottish Tour dates: 

April 25th - May 6th

September 5th - 16th

Dates for England & Wales:  

just about any other time - I tend to plan trips as bookings come in

These notes are written for schools. if you have a community grouup or fancy a public event these might give you a guide to what wee might do but talk to me about your specific situation...

a group telling their own stories,  Woodland Trust 2015

In school

A day’s visit to your school might include:

storytelling performances: lasting up to 60 minutes for up to 90 children at a time 

stories out of anything! outdoors or in, we'll use leaves and pine cones, twigs and stones and shells to inspire words, create poems and shape a set of stories never told before

(allow 60 minutes for a class session)

New workshop!

headfulls and handfuls of river animals

puppets and headfulls of animals: like the illustration, we can make quick finger puppet animals or magnificent animal crowns. Allow an hour and a half for a class

New workshop!

Heroes for stories: building characters - as quick puppets and as written pieces: capturing the qualities of our characters for stories: their ambitions, triumphs, disasters and secrets - skills for a richer tale

make your own book

story and book workshops: taking a bit longer (allow 90 minutes for a class) as well as discovering those stories no-one has ever heard before, now we will build those into the books that no-one has ever read before and leave the classroom with a library no-one has ever visited before!

pop-up storyscapes: allow an hour for a class: gathering ideas, images and words we’ll make quick 3-d landscapes holding the essence of a story in a setting, key characters and the words that set the adventure running

tales of old Scotland: a collection of stories of Highland folklore and Scottish histories, of heroes and sorrows, bravery and the magics of sea, mountain and moor

Ancient Lives:  a wider historical perspective could be involved, by adding a voice from the distant past to your history topics with stories that our Stone, Bronze or Iron Age ancestors might have listened to. Stories, models, artefacts and drawings can feed into art inspired by cave paintings, carvings and jewellery

your own themes and ideas: or are you exploring a particular theme that you would like to involve some stories in? In recent projects we have also made talking stone puppets, a giant eagle to hang from a classroom ceiling, prehistoric rockpools, a swarm of shadow dragons, pop-up castles

an African selection

Charges: £250 a day: includes storyteller’s fee, travel and materials. Can be paid on the day or I can invoice you. Activities can be adapted to suit groups from P1 through to Secondary

For further information and to book    

contact Gordon directly at

         creepingtoad@btinternet.com

or by telephone:

landline: 01298 77964

mobile: 07791 096857

release the storytelling pirates!

 

Deep dales and wild places

Deep dales and wild places

A new story for the Moorlands

with Gordon MacLellan

Wednesday 17^th February 2016

Flash Village Hall

(off A53 between Leek and Buxton)

7.30 – 9.30pm
SNOW WARNING 16TH FEB: HEAVY SNOW IS FORECAST FOR THE AREA TOMORROW. I WILL AIM TO POST STATUS ON HERE BY 4 PM TOMORROW (no, happen we're not bein' nesh: the road to Flash closes quickly!)

From the Dale of Goyt to the sweep of the Warslow moors, the South-west Peak is a landscape full of variety and excitement. Old stories are embedded in these hills with Gawain hunting for his Green Knight, stray mermaids, lost loves and wandering brigands.

This evening will explore some of those old tales and invite people to add ideas about the Moorlands today and help start some new stories.

Where are your favourite places, dreaded places, secret places, wild and windswept treasures, where are best places for picnics, or long walks or playing or walking the dogs? We will gather those ideas and feelings and start spinning a new landscape of stories and poems.

Join me for an evening of ancient tales and modern wonders

Practical stuff:

• Free
• Refreshments provided
• No booking needed but if you are coming it would be helpful if you could let us know!
• finding the hall: turn onto Brown Lane (signposted to Flash) just south of Flash Bar/Knights Table. Hall is 100 yards along Brown Lane on left

Ffi: creepingtoad@btinternet.com

Organised for: http://www.southwestpeak.co.uk

Images: 

double sunset at Glutton

icicles in Lud’s Church

Book review: The Ash Tree

The Ash Tree

Oliver Rackham

Dovedale in the 19th C*

Everyone knows ash trees. They are one of those trees that are simply there. Seldom huge and spectacular, or ancient and excessively gnarled or especially anything. We don’t generally eat their nuts or play with them or watch for them or decorate our houses with their leaves. But ash trees are always there. Ash is a tree that doesn’t quite. It produces wood but not that hard or strong or long lasting timber. That wood rots quickly. It doesn’t burn well. Its useful but doesn’t give building timber. It makes good cups. Good tool handles. Deer eat its coppice shoots. If they last long enough, those shoots sprout leaves that were used as good winter fodder for livestock. The wood bends well when steamed. The Ash Tree’s chapters on ash biology and its place in our history make fascinating reading: endless contradictions. Ash trees often don’t live long enough to really become individual landscape features as some yews and oaks do but “ash” turns up as an element in more place names than any other tree. Ash trees are just there. In 2013, as the hysteria about Ash Dieback was running through the media, I visited the upper Dove Valley here in the Peak District and looking out over a beloved landscape, I realised that almost all the big trees, those majestic figures in the middle of fields, on field corners, by the ruined barn over there, the fallen cottage here at the break of the slope are ash trees. I cannot imagine this dale without them, but soon they might not be there any more.

caves in Dovedale

The hysteria around the awareness of Ash Dieback Disease in 2012 was the push that produced this book and running through the slender but very tasty volume is the threat of what may – or may not – come with a return of Ash Dieback (which often doesn’t actually kill the trees) and grimmer warnings of other troubles whirring closer on beetle wings. The Emerald Ash Borer is the one to worry about.

The AshTree is good. It calmly and  lovingly fills in the background. It spreads a canopy over ash tree ecology, and unravels historical contexts. This is a book by someone who really knows what he is talking about, a long time champion of the British landscape. Rackham is – was (he died last year) – one of the leading ecologists of the last 20^th Century. His works are classics and if you haven’t read books like his History of the Countryside then, really….(I know, you’re waiting til they make the film). There is a sense, however, of a weary warrior. People like Rackham have given the same or similar warnings for years, to be ignored or dismissed over and again or to see recommendations so diluted down that money would have been far better spent elsewhere. The underlying politics makes fascinating and frustrating reading too and gives much to think about – not least a quick woodsman’s axe swing at tree-planting schemes.

Monsall Dale, 1808 with presumed ash trees

This book is a study of a tree and as such it is an interesting and rewarding read but as a study in the sensible approach to landscape conservation it is almost more intriguing and leaves me wanting to throw things.

The Ash Tree, Oliver Rackham, Littletoller, 2015; ISBN 978-1-908213-42-6

It also reminds me of:

Wych Elm: a wonderful exploration of this tough bristly branch of the elm family from the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, and

The Black Poplar by Fiona Cooper. I love Black Poplars. they have a powerful presence and are trees that always call em to just stop and sit beside them for a while

*there is a sort of logic to the pictures - images of Dovedale in the early 1800s. There are ash woods across most of these slopes now

Stories Alive! a thunderstorm of chopsticks

Stories Alive!

twilight music 

18th Jan 2016

it's quite hard to catch stamping feet....

Ben wrestles sticky tape

We began with noise…

This was a twilight session for teaching staff from the 5 nursery schools of the Stories Alive! Project. As the project draws to a close, we have been looking at areas we would like to develop more – not necessarily as a project but perhaps within individual nurseries. Our musician/storyteller, Ben McCabe had done an excellent job of inspiring both children and  staff musically during earlier workshops, giving all of us new confidence  in ourselves as musical people, so we gathered for an afterschool session with him.

We began with noise….

Over 2015, Stories Alive! placed 5 artists in 5 Nursery Schools (see below) in and around Burnley in East Lancashire. Our teams have been challenged to develop sets of activities to help embed storytelling and storymaking in Nursery practice, in families and in the children we are all working with. There have been storyhouses built, storysacks made, stories mapped, little adventures, big adventures, whole storyworlds of adventure. Because of the carefulness of photographs of young children, I’ve charted relatively little of the project so far but will hopefully catch up a bit now….

So we began with noise….

chair drummers, poised

We sang a journey: improvising an adventure with repeating sounds, actions and words, reflecting on the value of combining sound and movement. We played musical I-spy, creating improbable stories with improvised lines

It wasn’t all just fun, you know. We talked about the importance of playing with sounds for developing verbal skills. We thought about rhythm, story structure, dance and the abstract thought processes that represent action or objects with sounds and the value of recording patterns of sound - creating group scores as a way of thinking about writing. And we made a spectacular amount of noise with sets of cooking chopsticks (other wooden rods are available) on the backs of chairs (other furniture is also available)

ready for action

And that was fun. The rest of the evening was fun, too, but this was spectacular. A rippling seashore of noise breaking over the chairs: rattles and scrapes and thumps and scratches and 50 people laughing and concentrating and releasing a thunderstorm in a school hall

This has been a good project. This is still proving to be a good project!

Nursery schools involved

Taywood 

Newtown

Rockwood

Basnett Street

Rosegrove 

thunder

Stories Alive! is supported by Grants for the Arts 

and the Stocks Massey Bequest