Current , Recent Projects & What’s Coming up
Current: Artwave Festival Project
We have been drawing and painting outside in various locations in Lewes, in preparation for this year’s Artwave festival. Artwave is during the first three weekends of September. We will be exhibiting in a gallery space in Fisher Street, in the centre of Lewes, near the town hall.
Our theme is Lewes Community, people and places. We will be sellingcards, key rings, coasters and mugs with some of the artwork printed on them.
Recent Projects
Lucy’s Calm Space. Lucy is one of our members ,who has been coming to our welbeing class for a number of years. She has found mindfulness and relaxation techniques which she has learned in the class and elsewhere to be very useful to cope with the challenges of everyday life.
We have had funding from Lewes District Council for Lucy to lead this series of workshops, supported by Hannah who is a qualified teacher of Mindfulness, relaxation and stress reduction techniques. These sessions are free.
The Pirates of Scar Island :Digital Inclusion Project with New York disability group communityconnectionslife.com
A series of 10 music, drama, art and movement workshops on Zoom to build our connections to our friends from New York, this will culminate in an online musical performance, using the scenery and props we have made.
Online Safety Training with cyber security student Joe Hill : An online safety awareness session, with discussion. Participants had the opportunity to create a film explaining about what they have learned which will form part of a half day course for adults with learning disabilities, educating people from a wider area.
Artwave Festival: Dressing the Trees. We invited local artists Sarah Holloway from Starflower Arts and Jackie Bennett from Jackie Tapestry.
They ran a series of outdoor workshops to enable us to create textile pieces for our outdoor exhibition in Southover Grange, Lewes, running up to the festival . Sarah ran a felt making and an embroidery workshop and Jackie ran weaving workshops. We also had drumming and storytelling sessions with tree wisdom storyteller and landscape designer Yvonne Mcdermott from Landscapes for Life and Forest Moons and a dreamcatcher making workshop from artist and member Kelly Phipps. The artists all joined in with each other’s workshops and exhibeted their pieces alongside the artists from our art group. We also had an interesting talk from the Woodland Trust at the Linklater pavilion.
Halloween and Christmas Parties and musical performance at Landport Community Hub.
Film Project: expressing feelings about lockdown through mime, dance, and mask work. Thanks to a recent donation from Lewes Castle Rotary Club, we created a series of experimental short films for Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO0QCqOWBtlspdUOGtJY1aw/featured
Dance : Britain and America’s got talent show. Working with a group for people with learning disabilities based in New York called Community Connections, we have created a joint dance piece entitled ‘Dancing across the Pond’ for Dance for Developmental Disabilities month in New York. https://www.communityconnectionslife.com/
Coming soon…
Bite-sized Well-being for carers, a 15 minute session, to allow carers a bit of me time, for self care and relaxation, empower carers to cope better and look after their own well-being.
Community Word-walks for everyone In a route designed by wheelchair users and people with disabilities, we will be celebrating the written and spoken word. Each month we will walk along a short route occasionally stopping to read a poem and finishing at an accessible cafe. There will be a different theme or writer highlighted each time.