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We've been making giant Insects in Cotteridge Park!

31/8/2019

For the past couple of weeks we have been having fun down in Cotteridge Park, working with the wonderful Friends of Cotteridge Park and their Bushcraft Science Club (supported by the National Lottery Communities Fund). There are so many fascinating connections and crossovers between art and science to explore, so we were really excited to take part.

We focused on insects - learning about what they are, and what they aren't, drawing scientific illustrations, and creating our own hybrid invented insects with modelling clay and a few other bits and pieces. This week we finished off by all working together to create giant willow insects, which are currently suspended from the trees in the forest school, waiting to be discovered by visitors to the park.

We had such a great time - working outside presents a few interesting problems, especially when wet weather comes, but also so many interesting and exciting opportunities for making art. Thanks and well done to everyone who came along.
Huge thanks to Emma, Tony, Cathal, Hugh and everyone else who works so hard for Friends of Cotteridge Park.

Nicki

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Welcome to Stirchley Art Room...

23/8/2019

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Hello and welcome to our new website!

As well as blogging occasionally, we'll be using this website to share news about what get up to and any future projects we are planning. You can also find more information about Sarah and myself, and the ideas and ideals behind Stirchley Art Room.

I thought I'd start the blogging off with a brief history of how we got to where we are now.

Sarah and I have worked together for about 5 years, as secondary school art teachers, and previous to that we have worked in arts and education in various different roles. Through our work in school though we have had the opportunity to be involved in a lot of exciting community and public art projects, including working with Longbridge Public Art Project, Longbridge Light Festival, as well as developing our own school based public art project.

Following much discussion about our shared interests and ambitions in community arts, we decided to ‘go for it’, and in April this year made the decision to establish a community art project in Stirchley, a place we both know and love, and one with an already buzzing community and arts scene.

From our very first conversations with local tradespeople, artists and residents, we have been encouraged in our ideas and made to feel very welcome by the vibrant, friendly and creative Stirchley community.

Since April, Stirchley Art Room has come a very long way. We have been awarded funding from UnLtd, an organisation working to support social enterprises like us get up and running. We have been working closely with Stirchley Library and Friends of Stirchley Library (FoSL), delivering a series of drop-in art workshops in the library for the whole community. We have also applied for and succeeded in getting funding from the National Lottery to enable us to do a feasibility study into transforming the first floor of Stirchley Library into a fully accessible community space. (More news of this to come shortly).
We are currently also partnering with Friends of Cotteridge Park to deliver activities as part of their fantastic Bushcraft Science Club.

These are exciting times for Stirchley Art Room!

Please do visit again to keep up to date with what we are doing, and feel free to use the contact page to get in touch with any queries or suggestions.

Many thanks for reading!
Nicki

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We've been making giant Insects in Cotteridge Park!

Welcome to Stirchley Art Room...

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