We are looking for contacts, local community groups, interested individuals, routes into funding, places to exhibit, support, volunteers, publicity and people to network with in order to develop our projects.
Please contact us by emailing milesanddacombe@virginmedia.com.

Monday 27 July 2015

Forward Footing at the Flaming Skirt Festival, Ironville, Amber Valley



Artist and curator Sally Lemsford invited Miles and Dacombe to create a Forward Footing Walk as part of the Flaming Skirt Festival 2015, a contemporary arts festival in village halls and public spaces in the Amber Valley in Derbyshire. Participants experienced five mini contemporary art events in Ironville, Alfreton Community Hall, St Andrews Church Langley Mill plus on a double-decker bus travelling between. 



After Sally's now famous lucky dips, Shirley's Snack Shack and tickets, each member of our group was given a mini clipboard, paper and pencils. The group was guided out in a long creative crocodile from Ironville church hall to the boarded up former Doctors surgery, an intriguing building and a solid, inviting structure. Here Carole introduced the idea of looking for and recording all those things of beauty, interest or curiosity as we walk and people immediately took the opportunity to start drawing.


 Jo and Carole had designed the walk during a previous scoping day with Sally


and the second intervention centered around a public space surrounded by newer housing. There was a mysterious, now empty circle edged with brick, there were carefully sited stones, some with an inscription carved on them. At the far side, iron fencing with evidence of public art commemorating the railway. You could see it as an empty space of a space that was waiting to be filled.

 

Carole had raided her collection of vintage dolls house furniture which was divided up into bags donated by the lovely people at Mors bags and Jo brought large chalks to draw with. The two artists then invited people to divide themselves into smaller groups and to imagine that they were pioneering new town planners.


They drew out their re-imagined spaces


and set about creating a sculpture park


a wildlife haven


new houses


play spaces and nature habitats


mini wooden or stone Henges 


and outdoor learning environments.


One of our walkers came wearing wings
and had been a former Town Planner!


A puddle became a lake for floating houses


a wall was redrawn as a new whole street


The damp ground made the chalk drawings shine out and it was wonderful to see all ages huddled in small, intensely engaged groups. Each group used their props differently and the once empty community space was now full of small, inspired community groups. Everyone visited each others spaces sharing and enjoying what they had made. The work was documented and all the the images can be seen here 



All the artifacts were collected in and the walk recommenced, taking us past signs of industry and round the backs of houses, before we climbed a bank and stepped through a break in a low wall made from the waste materials from the iron smelting. 


Once again our walkers were invited to take a closer look - at the wall, the stones, at the canal basin and what was growing. 



Textures were explored and recorded


Art bridges gaps, fills them with mark making and imagination.


Richness can always be found in unexpected places.


Our walk ended almost back where it had begun and participants were invited to install their work on the boarded windows and ledges of the Doctors surgery.












At the end of the walk and interventions Jo and Carole became participants again, as the bus carried us off for more creative experiences with artists Lindsay Warnes-Carroll, Sophie Cero, Queenie Tea and Charlotte Ashman. We experimented with Sophie on the bus, played Where You Bin Go with Queenie Tea, were served a variety of delights by Shirley's Snack Shack and created a paper fashion show. What a fabulous day! 



On our return journey Miles and Dacombe held their prize draw for the Ironville Walking Art Kit 


Here are our winners exploring the contents of their kit.


For more about the Flaming Skirt Festival follow this link.




Friday 17 July 2015

Upcoming Forward Footing walks in Norwich and Spalding

We are very excited, having visited the location for our Norwich walk, Eaton Park - what a beautiful place! Please do join us for one of our three hours walks there on Saturday 25th July.  All the walks are free to join, suitable for all ages, sign up on the day - limited numbers.

Saturday 25th July
Eaton Park, Norwich
11am Meadowlands walk
1pm Ping Pong Promenade
3pm Ringing Round walk

Also, we have a NEW DATE!
Monday 24th August
We will be walking in Spalding, Lincolnshire.
Exact details and location to be confirmed, for now save the date!

We hope you can join us for one of these dates.

Saturday 4 July 2015

The Flavour Exchange Mystery Tour

Photo by Andrew Rushton

We gathered at Birmingham Moor Street Station to begin our walk in a mystery destination.
Still Walking had arranged a lovely souvenir ticket with a pot to collect things in on the journey, which worked really well with our ideas for interventions along the route.

A diverse group of walkers, different ages and backgrounds, we set off on the train, having discussed the idea of visiting all the senses on our walk.

Immediately, on arrival at our destination at Earlswood, we became aware of the different sounds in this place from the centre of Birmingham, only a 20 minute train ride away.


Photo by Andrew Rushton

We set off along the road but soon jumped over a stile to walk through a beautiful tree lined path and into a field of chest high rapeseed.


Through the gap and into the woods
a sense of squeezing through 
then an invitation to relax and breathe

Stumbling out of the field we entered the woodland of Clowes Wood. Again the sounds changed. Here we stopped for a while and listened, with our blindfolds on, without speaking for three minutes. Each person gave a word from their experience.

 

Time to Listen





Hum hum
Civilization
Chatter behind
Countryside
M42
Foraging
Pleasant drift 

Hand stitched dry oak leaf offering bowl

A little further on, as we became aware of the softness of the ground beneath our feet, we came across a beautiful oak tree that had grown to form a bowl in the middle of its trunks. We enjoyed the embrace of it, and began to place things in the hollows of its trunk roots.

People have always had a deep connection to forests, woodlands, trees; for the food, shelter and materials they provide, the symbolic and imaginative potential they hold, the habitats they provide for fungi, moss, lichen, other creatures and insects. During our scoping walk we decided it would be appropriate to make an offering / libation vessel to offer to the coppiced oak.




After the Listen Intervention we gathered by the tree and participants were asked to decide how they would like to use the bowl and what they would like to place in it. We brought a foraged oak sapling, water, birdseed, a plinth / stand. Eventually the group decided to fill the bowl with bird seed and that Richard should keep the sapling to plant in a spot of his choosing to replace the one he'd lost in his own garden.

Photo by Andrew Rushton


Wandering on through the woods, we came into a wider clearer space with tall slender beech trees. The wonderful dens that had been here when Carole, Jo and Ben had visited previously had collapsed, leaving a bundle of large sticks on the ground. And so we set about recreating something from the logs, allowing their shapes to lead us.





Photo by Andrew Rushton


A quiet enclosure, and other place to Listen



We found an empty concrete pillar that looked like it had once housed a plaque. Looking up, we could see the plaque high up on the tree above the pillar! So high it was hard to read - we speculated: had it been placed up there high, or nailed to the tree further down which had then grown and lifted it?




Further along our route through the woods, we discovered another empty post. This time we were prepared and fixed a new wooden plaque to the post. We decided on the words we wanted on the sign, and printed them using the blocks Carole had in her bag.



PEACE SPOT
LISTEN



FROM PEACEFUL ACORNS GROW PEACEFUL TREES

We finally reached the other side of the woods, opening out into the Lakes. We followed the path around the lakes, looking out for the kingfisher that had been spotted on a previous visit. Small markers intrigued us, mounted on posts and remnants from old lock systems.

Where the two lakes are split by a pathway through the middle of the water, we stopped for our final intervention: the Flavour Exchange. We all set out on a picnic blanket the home made and foraged foods that we had brought with us to share - what an excellent spread!


Well satisfied from the mutual generosity of everybody's flavour gifts, we then wrote luggage labels about our day, and tied them to a rusted fence that looked like it needed our attention! We left them hanging there as an intrigue for other visitors, and made our way to The Lakes station, where we were just in time to view each other's collection jars on the platform and then catch the train back to Birmingham.


Labels and thoughts




The beautiful tickets created by Pei, Wanting, Fotis and Bink, MA students at BCU on the VisCom course. The tickets joined together to create the title of our walk on the reverse.


The Ticket jars filled with all the items we collected
 
On the train we asked a passenger to draw the winner of our Outdoor Art Kit - our winner was Anna, who couldn't quite believe she had won!  We hope she enjoys the kit.


Our winners!



Thanks to everybody for their generosity in sharing flavours and sensory experiences. And huge thanks to Ben and the Still Walking team for allowing our walk to happen.

If you would like to see more of the Interventions and images from the walk follow this link