After collecting tiles from Kass at ‘Al Murad’ Blackpool and spotting a small hoard ready for the skip at another shop, we had a ‘trial run’ of using the pieces that Mr Dee spent 3 days cutting up.
The Hand Made Un’s Art Club have now started the work after securing a small pot of funding for materials earlier this year, thanks to Pippa Martin. We are applying for further funding to work with more of the community throughout 2018 to produce some smaller mosaics to be installed outdoors in the Revoe area.
The Blackpool Gazette came this week to take photographs for a feature on the project and the club. Thank you to Dan and Julia from the Gazette.
Lee’s drawing up on the backer board ready to add tiles.
Keep watching the blog for updates.
Margaret tried out a windmill design, while Andy ‘supervised’.
Anita tried out a house design.
Barbara worked on her King Edward Picture House design. The location of the finished mosaic will be on the side the George pub that is also included in the mosaic.
work delivered to Grange Park today 4th January 2019
Our last artwork for 2018 completed in December 2018 for ‘The Grange’ working in collaboration with art group, local, and the art of recovery community. on behalf of Horizon Blackpool.
Thank you to everyone who participated and a Happy New Year.
We are currently working with people in Blackpool as part of our Art Buddies Project.
The project aims to support people who may be socially isolated to get involved creatively in their communities. We take creative activities to people who may not have the opportunity to get involved with the arts due to personal circumstance or ill health. The project is funded by BCH.
In November we began work with the art group at the Grange, Grange Park to produce a bespoke artwork that reflects the memories and images of people of Grange Park. We are working with the group for 6 weeks until 14th December.
We were at Highfield Park today creating art works for the park with the community and Friends of Highfield Park volunteers.
We have been spray painting these portraits on the Recovery Tram: working with Blackpool Horizon Art Club to produce stencil based art work using photographs of participants.
We also worked with the group to produce spray paint designs on the Horizon tram ready for the pride walk 12th June 2018.
In May we volunteered at the stone carving workshops in St Annes, organised by St Annes in Bloom.
Mr Dee working with one young participant to make his mark on the stone
Anthony Lysycia the stone carver at work on one of the stone pieces.
With the community in Revoe and the Art Club Hand Made Un’s we created two new poster for the front of the King Edward Cinema. Project commissioned by Blackpools’ Healthy Living and Creative Design Officer.
Revoe Community Choir participated in the ‘Marking the Martyrs’ parade on Saturday 2nd June.
Banner made with ‘Hand Made Un’s’ art club and Boz Phillips.
Supporting Blackpools’ longest established artists group: Blott Artist Studio.
With the Hand Made Un’s and community members in the Central and Revoe area we are creating a community mosaic. The mosaic will be installed on the empty spaces along the George Hotel on Central Drive visible to the wider community.
Work started in May after 2 days of sorting and cutting tiles
We received a very generous donation of tiles from Al-Murad Tiles Blackpool branch. Thanks to artist Kass –
for sourcing these end of line tiles for our mosaic.
Hand Made Un’s art works on plates dishes, cups and saucers, will be for sale on 18th August at Revoe Fun Day.
items such as these beautiful Blackpool themed plates are now available prices start at £3: half the money will go to the community center the other half to the lifeboats.
On Saturday August 18th
We will be running a workshop for children customising bandannas at the Fun Day.
We are currently working with Shabby2Chic and the wonderful Sandra, in Knott End. An exiting opportunity to be involved with the Wise Owls project in a fantastic new venue for exhibiting and selling began this week. We will be in Knott End at the studio every Monday.
In January we will be continued with the successful ‘Art Buddies’ in a new Blackpool location – Marton . The first leaflets have now been distributed to people in sheltered housing in Marton. The project is funded by Blackpool Coastal Housing.
In February we exhibited a selection of our work at Urban Arts Studio St Annes.
In August Boz Phillips and Lee Fitzgerald worked with people accessing the services of Horizon Blackpool to curate a series of their art works and poetry to be included on the tram.
The art work produced by individuals was on display as a series of vinyls designed by Boz and Lee using all art works by ‘Art of Recovery’ members on the side of Blackpool Heritage 641 Centenary tram.
M ‘So for me this project has come at a vital time in my recovery … I got into art a few months ago having having been introduced to it’s therapeutic values in the psychiatric ward around 7 months ago …
The warm welcome has been great and for me it’s all about the creative wonderful people I have met and will continually meet in the Freedom Building. A special thanks to Carole, The massive amount of encouragement from Boz and Lee (thank you Lee for all our chats you have really inspired me). Thank you Faron for a few days painting I would definitely work for you again.
I would definitely be interested in any future art projects’
E ‘It’s great how much this has helped you guys.
Boz and Lee should certainly work helping in recovery. I think they’re great people. You feel no judgement from them, only kindness and encouragement. Very opening and welcoming people. ‘
Extract from Horizon Press release.
“As well as displaying artwork created as part of the recovery journey, the tram site will also act as an information point for people looking to access help with their addiction issues. We want to spread the word that recovery is possible for the majority of people who seek help.”
‘The project was officially launched on 8th September as part of the FAVOR UK Recovery Walk celebrations which will be taking place in Blackpool over the weekend. A national recovery conference is planned for Friday the 8th September and the annual FAVOR UK Recovery Walk will take place on Saturday 9th September; the largest gathering of people in recovery in Europe with an estimated 5000 people expected to join in the celebrations in Blackpool town centre.’
The static tram with the art could be viewed at Blackpool, South Promenade, in front of the Sandcastle. The tram with art works has now moved back to Fleetwood for storage as of 26th June 2019.
Rob 2019
‘Yeah it,s going but…………………………….what that means to me. I first saw it when Carole showed it to me. As an addict, that was an amazing thing to see. I’ve been down there when I have felt a bit low. I’ve not told anyone but Feb/Mar/Apr time, on a Sunday, I’d cycle down there. I was struggling. I cycled back totally under control. I got pics, I will never forget that tram.’
The ‘Art Of Recovery’ group, set up by the project participants still runs on a Wednesdays evenings and Saturdays at the Freedom Building
If you require any further information about the project or the services mentioned above please contact them directly.
On 6th August Ibbison Community Center re opened after the refurbishment work was completed. The glass chandelier is up as of today. The reaction so far has been fantastic. Thank you to Colette Halstead who took time out today to hook all the glass on to the bespoke frame after working with us to create this beautiful masterpiece.
In November we completed a poster project for a Blackpool Heritage project. The posters will be displayed on the front of The King Edward picture House on Central Drive in December 2016. We worked with the community and the Hand Made Un’s Art Club participants to create two distinctive ‘Movie’ posters which make references to local history and local places.
Margaret (pictured here talking about her work) has been instrumental in designing one of the posters for the ‘King Eddie’.
At the present we are not able to put up images of the work until the posters are in-situ.
On September the 2nd we began our ‘Wise Owls’ workshops with Shabby2Chic
Art Club members from ‘Hand Made Un’s’ undertook this course with Sandra Johnson from S2C. All participants received a certificate at the end of the course.
On August 20th we were involved with the Revoe Fun Day
Meanwhile
Mr Dee has been busy painting for the Back West Art Trail in St Annes. The results have gained many admirers and we hope to continue this work in support of St Annes and the community.
We have set up a Facebook Page for our ‘Hand Made Un’s’ community art club. Information about past, present and future work can be found here
and includes work we did to create the glass chandelier with glass artists Colette Halstead and local residents
is ready to be mounted from the ceiling in when the center is completely refurbished Ibbison Community Center. The workshop was funded by LeftCoast as an extension to our local artists workshops in 2015/2016.
Boz and Mr Dee had some of their work on exhibition and for sale recently at Urban Arts Studio St Annes
This is an exiting new art space where we hope to be doing more work very soon. There are also opportunities for us to work with and support local businesses while working with the community.
and Boz exhibited her work at Blott Art Studio as part of the ‘Be The Banana Skin’ feminist art exhibition in May 2016
We are also currently working with
Arts Partnership Fylde to find ways to support and enhance the arts creativity and community engagement throughout Fylde.
Julia Swarbrick will continue our ongoing working partnership with local residents following her successful book making workshop in January. The project will involve working with local historian Shirley McCarten to make a handmade book. Julia will also work with local residents who remember Blackpool Central Train Station, and the Wakes Weeks to record historical events of the times gone by. Julia currently works with Blackburn Museum. The ‘Wakes Weeks’ project is part of her ongoing work.
Photo from January’s workshop. Funded by LeftCoast.
The book making extended our range of local artists workshops run for 6 months, once a month on Tuesdays Memory Lane Cafe.
One year since the opening and a ‘Live Paint’ with Mr Dee for Breakin’ Convention in May 2016 to celebrate !
The residents ‘Revoe-lution’ community choir recently performed at the King Edward on Central Drive and two local poets Walentina Ivanovna L and Kate Eggleston-Wirtz joined us for the occasion – The Shakespeare Festival week
The residents Association recently won an award for all their hard work for the community. We were very happy to accept the invitation to the event and the award presentation.
Last Legs is committed to working in partnership with local artists, community groups, organisations and businesses to promote and support health and creativity for people of all ages.
Information on all our previous activities are available on these wordpress blog pages
Today I took brought along a number of objects for people to use as ideas for shapes to cut out to then use in a new collage, instead of choosing random pictures and papers. These were some of the items.
Some people chose one item to cut multiples. Some people chose more than one item and then composed collages with the cut out shapes.
Some cut out shapes took on new lives
Any of these pictures here would look amazing framed. What do you think?
So many people say they ‘can’t’ draw or ‘do art’. Using colours and shapes makes us see everyday objects in different ways.
Being creative helps the mind ‘play’ and frees us from ‘formal’ ideas of what we may think ‘art is’. A creative mind is a healthy mind and there is plenty of research to prove this.
Next week we will be following up on Julia Swarbricks’ workshop by doing more printing and using some of our new found skills to make printing blocks and printing with them.
The theme for Julia’s workshop was travel, holidays and the seaside
We started off by folding long pieces of lovely thick printing paper in to a concertina shape with a fold at the bottom of the paper to create a ‘pocket’ for placing prints, photographs etc inside the books
The next stage was to make book covers .
Then add coloured string to the inside the book to tie it together
After making the book we drew and cut out foam to create printing plates to print images for adding inside the books
Then roll out the ink and print the plates.
Two of the finished book.
Other books went home while the prints dried out, these will be added to the books at home.
Junes seahorse book
Roses’ book
Thank you very much Julia. A lovely and informative workshop.
We are looking forward to seeing you again soon to share the ‘Wakes Week’ and Central Station memories that we spoke about today with people at Memory Lane Cafe.
Thank you also to LeftCoast for funding us, all the fantastic volunteers at Memory Lane Cafe for hosting today’s workshop and the participants who make all these workshops such a success. Really super work again.
Julia is undertaking a project about ‘Wakes Weeks’ and we welcome any more information memories or photographs about these traditional holidays and about Blackpool Central Train Station which was the main stop off point for visitors.
Julia is undertaking a project about ‘Wakes Weeks’ and we are going to be sharing our memories and information with her about this subject and about Blackpool Central Station.
We have been funded by LeftCoast to undertake this workshop
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