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.
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 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
I didn’t manage to take a photo of all the lovely cakes made by New Revoe Residents Association – all went down very fast. Thank you so much to Angie, Suzanne and all the fantastic team
Fantastic work everyone!
Next week we are making 3D collages from a still life.
last legs community arts health 
