Sunday picnic...

This Sunday from 12-4pm there is a celebration picnic (bring your own spread!) being held at Haworth Art Gallery. If the weather is fine (fingers crossed) we'll be in the gardens, if not we'll be in the house. Artist Becky Waite will be running her final workshops and inviting everyone to celebrate with her by decorating the trees in the park with the kaleidoscope installation she has been developing over the past month. You can also take the opportunity to see the new Stuart Haygarth piece commissioned for the gallery that inspired Becky's workshops, all in all a perfect day out!

Busy week...

We've had lots of exciting things happening this week. The first Grennan and Sperandio piece has gone up at Towneley Hall and we are very close to having a finished design from Timorous Beasties for the Blackburn piece. Below are some pictures of the new Towneley work, and some better pictures of Stuart Haygarth's piece at the Haworth..

Igloo...

Stuart Haygarth installed his new work at the Haworth Art Gallery last Thursday. It is beautiful and mesmerizing, and pictures really don't do it justice. Below are some images of Igloo as it is being installed that were on the BBC website on Friday. I will post more images of the final piece soon.

Workshop artists...

We are very please to announce that we have recruited two local artists, Becky Waite and Sarah Lawton to deliver workshops at the Haworth Art Gallery and Blackburn Museum and Arts Gallery respectively. Their work with compliment the commissions being undertaken by Stuart Haygarth and Timorous Beasties. We have yet to pin down all the details but they will be running a programme of workshops which will give people the chance to connect with the collections of the venues and the commissions in a new and creative way. They will also be hosting sessions for the Museums at Night campaign, should be good!

Friday inspiration...

Yet more amazing images in my inbox today, this time from artist Stuart Haygarth who will be working with the Haworth Art Gallery

Accrington artist opportunity...

Here is the artist brief for the shadow artist position to work with the Haworth Art Gallery in Accrington...

Haworth Art Gallery

Artist for phase two of engagement programme

Creativity Works background:

Creativity Works is a consortium consisting of Pennine Lancashire Arts Officers, Arts Council North West, Lancashire County Council, Creative Lancashire, Elevate and Curious Minds. The partnership provides the infrastructure for joint working, shared approaches, economies of scale working across the sub region and alignment to the Multi Area Agreement as well as districts Local Area Agreement’s.

Creativity Works was initially set up in 2000, supporting Creative Industries in Pennine Lancashire. In 2008 it extended its remit to work strategically on four priority areas: Health, Business, Regeneration and People, to raise the profile of and participation in, quality arts practice in the region.

The engagement programme of work that this project belongs to, began in September 2009. The aim of this work is to increase engagement in the arts through working with local heritage venues. This project leads on from the success of the Open Shop Project that took place in August 2010

Project background:

The Open Shop Project that formed the first phase of this programme worked with an artist to use an empty shop space in Accrington market to engage a new audience with arts and the Haworth. To find out more about this project you can look at the project blogs http://www.theopenshopproject.wordpress.com/ and http://www.annehaworthsfan.wordpress.com/

The second phase of this work aims to use the Haworth collections in unexpected ways to encourage a new audience to visit the gallery. We are working with artist Stuart Haygarth to develop a new piece of site specific work to be situated in the Gallery, taking its influence from the Tiffany glass collection. You can read more about this on the project blog www.thespringprogramme.blogspot.com and our website www.creativityworks.info . We are looking for an artist, ideally local to the area or to Lancashire, to deliver a programme of engagement workshops alongside the work Stuart Haygarth is producing. We would like to engage people in creative activity at the gallery, influenced by the Tiffany glass collections informing Stuart’s new work, to give the community a chance to experience the collections in a different way. We would like to attract a new audience to the museum whilst offering its existing audience new ways of connecting with it. The workshops will take place before and during the time the work is exhibited. The artists will be responsible for engaging the community as well as existing groups (this may mean doing outreach sessions), designing, planning and delivering the workshops.

Aims:

• To increase engagement in the arts in Hyndburn

• To work with the community and local voluntary groups to engage the local people with the collections of the Haworth
• To use the gallery as a venue for arts activity
• To raise the profile of Haworth Art Gallery in the local community
• To increase visitor figures to the gallery (as part of the bigger phase two project)
• To encourage conversation and discussion.

Project brief:

To deliver a programme of artist workshops that will support the work being delivered by Stuart Haygarth in partnership with the Haworth Art Gallery. The artist will need to design, plan and deliver the programme making contacts with the community with support from gallery and Creativity Works staff. We would like the work to have a theme that innovatively compliments the Tiffany glass collection and Stuart’s work, whether that is glass design, collecting, reusing objects etc. The workshops can have an element of outreach sessions, but will mainly be delivered in the gallery. Communication of these workshops to the wider community will be an important element and the artist will be key in making these decisions.

Project Structure:

The workshops will take place in the month leading up to and during the exhibition around April –May 2011 (tbc).

10 half day sessions will take place through arrangement between the artist and the museum staff in this time. These will be a combination of drop in workshops and prearranged group workshops. One of these is to be an evening session for the Museums at Night event in May. Some sessions maybe held outside of the museum.

Included in the budget is provision for two half day planning sessions to be carried out before the programme starts

Budget:

The budget for the project is £1,500 to include all planning, deliver, materials and travel.

10 half day workshops x £100 = £1000

2 planning session x £100 = £200

Materials = £300

How to apply:

To apply, please send us:

1. An outline of how you would approach this project. This should include:

• How you would approach working with the community and voluntary groups
• Skills that could be taught through the workshops
• The themes you would be interested in exploring

2. Examples of previous work/projects that you have undertaken with images (maximum 3)

3. A full CV

4. A letter of application stating what interests you about this project.

Please send application, or for more information, by email to Laura Rodgers, Creativity Works Arts Engagement Officer, laura.rodgers@blackburn.gov.uk

Closing date:  07/03/11