New paintings and regular art updates.
Yesterday in Newcastle under Lyme for the Christmas lights opening. A large reindeer puppet strolled round the town centre. It’s movements steered by three puppeteers, directing it’s head downwards so that young children could stroke it’s nose. The head was lit up and you could see it’s eyes blink.
It was a lovely and beautiful sight. I think it was made by BArts.
With some of the other actors in the scene.
The character Alice Beech, far right of photo, sings a wonderful mezzo soprano piece about inheriting Molly Leighs cottage, that the villagers and vicar are all gossiping about the two woman’s relationship. And laments the loss of Molly.
Part of her getting the cottage obliged her to make 46 penny loaves every week to look after the “poor, the widows” basically the needy of the parish. Three townsfolk visit her as she sings. One is Winifred who is very nosy and wants to know whether Alice has “seen anything, anything strange?” since she moved in. She is ignored and just handed the loaves. Then Lily, a widow, visits and is given a few extra loaves. Finally a young woman visits for just one penny loaf. She tells Alice she doesn’t have to pretend, she understands. And that she is a friend.
The singing by Alice is lovely and written using the “Devils interval” a discordant chord which is a Tritone (six semitones) it causes an unsettled feeling in the music.
Two large blackbirds in a nest, one seeps, the other flutters. They have collected everything from apple cores to brass bells, keys to brooches. Theyay be Molly Leighs familiar. In one of the scenes of the Opera “Who is Molly Leigh”
Great props by makers at the BArts art company.
I saw this today, a clothes rail that had hand shapes to hook coats or hats on. I spoke to our choir leader at teatime and as we were chatting I mentioned I liked the funky design…. Turned out her ex husband had made it years ago! It was a commission made for a business man, but when his firm closed it came back to the Barts building and is used for costumes.
My question, how on earth did I pick up on this link without ever knowing about it intuition?
I went to an event planning meeting today at BArts in Stoke. It’s going to be an opera based on the witch (wise woman) from Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, who was alive in the 17th and 18th centuries. She was buried at 90 degrees to the normal North South orientation.
From Wikipedia :
Margaret ‘Molly’ Leigh (1685–March 1748) was an English property owner in the Staffordshire town of Burslem who, in her will, left substantial sums to charity. She was also accused of witchcraft, and, after her death, her grave was disturbed following claims she was haunting the town.
We had a singing session based on some of her life and the treatment she received from her neighbours. We were also invited to create some art based on her life. (hence the tub of pencil crayons. The opera is due to be put on later this summer.
Random bit of set painting I did for the Molly Leigh project at BArts at the weekend, a type of sketch? I put it in for the #bandofsketchers prompt as it’s very random…. Acrylic on cardboard
I’ve just spent two days working with BArts and Growthpoint. They were putting on an opera show about Molly Leigh.
There were three scenes today, a church where a vicar was criticising a local woman called Molly Leigh and saying she was a witch, turning milk sour and having a blackbird as a familiar. A pub scene where there were customers and staff gossiping and talking about Molly saying good and bad things, like she borrowed money and didn’t pay it back, but then gave a family with a sick child several pints of milk so the child recovered. Then the final scene where a community choir came together to sing from her perspective bringing out the various aspects of her life. Each choir member was playing part of Molly as a whole.
The photo is of the cottage interior with a few of my bits of painting included. I have to say it was hard work, tiring, very intense and yet life affirming. I did more in two days than I’ve been able to for a few years and now I’m absolutely shattered.
I might do some more to this tomorrow but a full day on it has knackered me. The sky is a bit wrong and I could darken some of it to add shadows. I think the roof is too light too so I might add blues and browns.
It’s for a project about Molly Leigh but I might also try and enter it for an exhibition. I want to make it the best possible representation.
Round the back of B’arts are a series of three murals. I think they may be constellations? I know there is a star group called Draco but I’m not sure about the Leopard or the Hare /rabbit? Anyway it’s a random piece of art but I do like it. There are chalked in letters above each animal so I’m guessing it’s not finished yet? Whatever, I love the movement in the animals. Good to see colourful art in the area.
This was meant to say: fledgling artists? at factory event at B’arts.
Basically it was a meeting of local artists and creative to talk about how the pandemic and other events was effecting the local creative community. It was good because they had a comedy quiz set up so we merrily brainstormed ideas of what we could do to improve things.
Eventually four teams came up with varying ideas, and the ‘factory’ team from the local chamber of commerce agreed to act on our ideas! Some of that will hopefully be about art administration, accounting, mentoring and other practical help. I hope it does.
Talking about creativity it comes in a week when our local city council held a creative conference about our city, but declined to invite local historic and architectural experts. Instead they held it by invitation only and bought in people from other cities. Thanks for the non inclusion!
Mallaband-Brown