electric angel /design for life

advent beach hut

we were invited to take part in this year’s beach hut advent calendar down the coast in bridlington. a beach hut is opened each night in the lead up to christmas and the theme we selected from the nativity story was “although many people who lived in this area were jewish they were ruled by the romans.” our choice was based purely on typographic possibilities – we figured we could do something with roman and hebrew letterforms.

playing with the idea of occupation and oppression and wanting to create something that people could take part in, and hopefully take something away from, we came up with the idea of filling the beach hut with balloons. it took 300. and all afternoon to blow them up. we closed the hut up and at 6pm two children opened the doors to reveal the mountain of balloons inside.

each has the word ‘oppression’ printed on it in a roman typeface and visitors to the hut were invited to think about an oppressive situation in their life and pop a balloon. inside each is one of several messages derived from isaiah 51:14 in jewish scripture promising freedom. as the balloons were popped a backdrop was gradually revealed featuring ‘shalom’ – a hebrew word meaning peace.

there’s still two more advent beach hut openings if you fancy popping along – all are welcome. you can find out more here (including a video clip of our hut being opened) and here and keep an eye on BBC local news for a feature. thanks to ben for inviting us to take part and blow up the balloons.

wishing you all a happy christmas and peaceful new year. from adrian, charlotte and rebecca.

enchanted parks – enchanting pics

some photos from ‘echo funnel’ at enchanted parks 2011 in gateshead. what began as a clever yet charmingly simple idea from lizi patch blossomed into having a life of its own in the park with people queuing up to share their thoughts, christmas wishes or just have a fascinating (and rather addictive) conversation with the tree. you can tell a tree anything, you know.

we were also delighted to create some confusion and mischief with people wondering how on earth it worked. one of the most enjoyable aspects of making it work over 5 nights was the suspension of disbelief – people want to believe that a little magic is all that’s needed to chat with a tree.

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‘the tree’ talked to thousands of people over the week with many return visits and promises that people would come back for a chat when they were next in the park, although we can’t guarantee the funnel will always be there…

some thanks are due: to prop maker extraordinaire scotty for turning my rough sketch into something wonderful, to mark for the initial technical gubbins, dan and the tech team for saving the day and to robin and lesley at magnetic events for having us.

by the way – we’re on the look out for other opportunities to make trees (or rocks, or buildings, or vehicles or…) talk, and to do some more hand-painted lettering. get in touch and the echo funnel could be there… be there… be there…

enchanted parks – talk to the trees

whilst charlotte holds the fort back in scarborough, i’m up in gateshead this week with theatre director-writer lizi patch. together we’ve been commissioned to produce an artwork we devised called ‘echo funnel’ as part of enchanted parks.

enchanted parks is a festival that runs 7-11 december when you’re invited to explore the delightful saltwell park transformed by magical lights, sounds and artworks. just some of the wonderful things this year include the chance to meet medusa in a copse, discover a strained glass rose window made entirely of ice, watch a 3-D snowman zoetrope and, of course, have a conversation with a tree.

opening night was magical with children and adults alike suspending disbelief to tell the tree what’s on their mind through the funnel and hear its response. the tree will be listening and replying every evening until sunday so if you find yourself around the north east of england do pop along and tell it what’s on your mind.

you can catch a glimpse of echo funnel in action courtesy of the BBC by clicking on ‘wonderful things’ above. i’ll add some of our own photos as the festival progresses.

lift: trees on the ceiling at york hospital

the final element of mine and rachel welford‘s commission to design and produce panels for lifts at york hospital was in the theatre lift. this takes patients to and from the operating theatre, usually on a bed and so in keeping with the intention of providing a welcome distraction for patients on a short but potentially stressful journey, this design is applied to the ceiling of the lift.

it continues the theme of native british trees that have a link with healing, in this case silver birch and the birds likely to nest in its branches, here represented by text.

lift : glass in york hospital [3]

the third of the york lift panels, based on the horse chestnut tree. we had a little fun with this – the text woven into the layered leaf & flower design are the rules for playing conkers. the original photos that the artwork is based on were taken around north yorkshire by rachel.

lift : glass in york hospital [2]

pics of the ‘cherry’ panel in york hospital created with rachel welford. this was the first we completed and was initially used as a prototype to check our creative response to the DDA issues that come with lifts, glass and hospitals in general. it got the thumbs up from the hospital users group and staff and thus the green light for two further glass panels and a ceiling-based artwork.

lift : glass in york hospital

photos of one of three glass lift panels commissioned by York NHS Trust and now installed in York Hospital. this was a collaboration with Rachel Welford along with a ceiling-based artwork for the lift to one of the operating theatres. we blogged about the manufacturing process here. i’ll blog the other three artworks over the coming week as i sort through the photos.

the designs are all based around trees native to britain that have an association with healing. the intention of the panels is to both replace the undesirable unbroken reflection of a mirror (because no-one really wants to be faced with their reflection when they’re ill or under stress) and provide a distraction on what can feel like a long journey as the lift travels.

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our design uses layered imagery and text that offers both an instant impact on the lift doors opening and also reveals more detail over time be that a single or much repeated journey. we’re told that since the panels were installed staff have been discussing their favourite tree to travel in. the bold bands of colour offer a practical purpose that came out of research into DDA issues and problems associated with hospital lifts – to provide a clear indication of the rear wall of the lift for partially sighted people.

the big draw

it’s all community engagement with us at the moment… we were invited to lead one of ‘the big draw‘ events at the rotunda museum and were quick off the mark to snap up ammonites as our theme for the day – who doesn’t enjoy drawing swirly shapes? we had great fun and loved the fabulous drawings of everyone who took part. if you couldn’t get down today there’s still opportunity to join in creating a large banner each day up to and including saturday.

limestone journeys – the artwork

here’s the limestone journeys artwork i blogged about last week on display for the ‘festival of the environment’ at creswell crags visitor centre in derbyshire. there were some great comments about the artwork, not least the postcards written in character as ice age cave dwellers.

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if you’d like to read about the different sections of the artwork and the activities that led to them being created you can download an info sheet here.

cathedral of steam

you’ve maybe noticed the odd railway reference on this blog, or the enthusiasm for working on railway-related artwork. another such opportunity pulled into platform 1 recently when we were commissioned to create public artwork as part of the derby city of invention project.

our contribution to a series of 12 works displayed in the city was this image inspired by derby’s railway heritage, and in particular, the world’s first purpose-built roundhouse (a building housing a turntable and circular arranged tracks to fix and house locomotives). you can read more about the project and our musings on the importance and sheer impressiveness of this building on the projects website. original photograph by andrew cowell.