The Museum Tour

First stop : Bagshaw Museum

On 18th April, we rushed the Museum across to Batley, to install it temporarily at Bagshaw Museum. We got there just in time for the Creative Scene celebrations on Saturday night, starring the wonderful Miss Inform, Dolly Miss Chief, and more.
A wonderful way to end our residency.

From 29th April: Dewsbury Museum!!!

Yes!!! We will display the Market's Museum of Hidden Delight's in Dewsbury Museum itself!

More dates on this tour to be added soon.

And the Musuem is made

18th April 2015

Our final workshop responded to an idea from the perfume stall man, that smell is a sense that can trigger memories and inspire the imagination. This exhibit just had to be interactive.
He supplied several smells each on one of his little card sample sticks. Some of these sticks became flower petals, but the most recent ones became the core of our museum's 'SMELL -a-VISION'.

The memory or vision was recorded by our many testers, during the day, in corresponding colour pen, and stored in the smell-a-vision record book.
While all this was going on, Jim secured our many exhibits into their places on the shelving.
Liz busily catalogued and labelled them with their names and histories.
We also had an assistant curator with us today. Pipi scoured the market for intriguing items and created our 'Curious Objects' section.
Finally, in glorious sunshine, our Museum was completed, and ready to go on tour....

Many, many thanks to all the staff, stallholders and public who have helped and contributed
over the passed 6 weeks.

cheers

TOY HACKING pt 2

 SATURDAY 11^TH APRIL

A woman smiled as she passed the paper covered shelves. “That looks so cool”, she said.

“Aren’t they gorgeous, “ some-one else exclaimed, pointing at the suspended insects.

A mother and daughter called by. They’ve been regulars at our workshops. “We’ll be back on Saturday”, said mum, “She looks forward to coming to the market now”.

We spread out all the bits of disassembled toys and odds and ends, ready for the workshop, building creative chimera.

Another shopper “ooh, look, come and do a Sid!”

Soon, several new creatures were being created/discovered. We asked  for their descriptions to be recorded in our book. Our new ‘scientists’ named their discoveries, described what they ate, where this ‘species’ might be found.

‘Species name:   Mikey,

Lives:                  in the mountains.

Details:               He has wings which make him fly onto rooftops. When he is on the roof, Mikey puts marshmallows down the chimneys and does his signature dance’.

‘Discovered by:   Haasain

Species name:   Ifor

Details:               eats sausages.

Species name:   Feeni

Lives:                 in the desert

Details:              survives by eating pancakes’

‘Discovered by:   Ella

Species name:   Barbiebot

Lives:                 you would find her in the jungle, zooming around.

Details:              She would eat anything, also she is a black belt in karate.’

One creator struggled to think of the details. To stimulate her imagination I asked, “Where’s the last place you’d expect to find this creature? Her grandma laughed, and answered “On Dewsbury Market!”

Zara (creator/scientist) declared, “This is a FUN place to be”,

Iman added, smiling, “Everybody’s a child at heart”.

A dad watched enthusiastically as his son got stuck in. “There should be more of this stuff going on. The market needs it. More creative stuff. “

     

 Many thanks to our creative scientists who shared the new species they’d discovered, with us,today.

Animation Day - Transformations

Flip book

With face-painting, tile decorating and easter egg hunts it was very holiday like down the market, the weather too was making a holiday effort, grey clouds gathered and a chill breeze blew.  'Camera, electrics and rain are not good' Rozi declared...several times... so we prepared for flip-book action just in case.
We set up the camera and rostrum, created a big box of bits to animate and set off.  A rope of beads became the outside edge of a face. It had flower eyes, a meccano nose and a crab-leg mouth, the shape and objects changed, becoming a ribbon snake that moved across the screen, collecting items as it went. This was moved out of frame to re-appear as a fish being chased by an onslaught of 'pirannah' pegs.  People picked up where others had left off creating whole new characters and transformations.   This stop-frame object animation formed a great cohesive style for the 'stop-by and do' market visitors.

'Ooh that's so interesting', 'We love everything about this' were some of the comments.
The rain held off and the sun came out, making a whole shadow play on one of the pieces - 'we'll go with that' said Rozi, embracing the situation and turning it into a deliberate process.

Toy Hacking

Saturday the 28th of March

TOY HACKING

It was a cold and rainy day so quite quiet on the market and not much passing traffic. So once we were set up we were pleased to be visited by David Wheeler from IOU ( IOU were in town with Fulcrum http://www.ioutheatre.org/events/fulcrum-new-picture-house-dewsbury-483). He got the ball rolling by accepting our challenge to create a new toy or creature from the assembled chaos of old toys, meccano and airfix kits.

 David's enthusiastic sawing generated lots of interest and attracted interest in the stall. he had soon made our first exhibit - Tyrannosaurus GTX.

His sawing gave Liz a great idea. She decided to chop the toys up and set about the task with gusto. With hacksaw in hand Liz created toy carnage.

Once the process had begun we soon had our first customers and we were busy all day without even time to stop for lunch. There were endless creative reconstructions as body parts from disparate toys were reconfigured and reattached with wire, cable ties and hot glue.Siblings collaborated and parents couldn't help getting involved. We couldn't resist contributing our own constructions. The Museum now has it's very own Bestiary.

 

 

FLORA FANTASTICA

 So, if you wanted to find something in Dewsbury Market to make prints with, what would you use....?


Potatoes, of course!!

Ashley had heard about our project via the web and came down to join in. 

In the photos on the right she ably demonstrates the art of potato printing, and adds her exhibit to the Museum, starting our 'Flora Fantastica' collection.










Another passer-by demonstrates effective technique.

                                               Is this one of Dewsbury's hidden creatures?

Liz helps one of our younger visitors, while Rob proves it's not just the kids who can have all the fun.

 The potatoes themselves will provide interesting exhibits.

 And, so, after another day of lively creativity, we have the second collection to add to our growing museum. 

Next week, we'll use TOY HACKING to discover more of the hidden delightful creatures of Dewsbury Market.

Saturday 14th March

Saturday 14th March 2015
The first public workshops - 'The Insect Imaginarium' or 'Stick & Build'.

In the bitterish cold of the morning Ben (donated to us for the day by Creative Scene) and Liz prepared the 'plates' for the workshop.
Gluing squares of tissue paper onto cardboard with pritt stick sounds easy, but cold fingers, a slight breeze and not being able to find the scissors from one second to the next, made this task trickier than anticipated.
Jim arrived with lots of wood, started to saw, drill and screw and during the day, nose to the grindstone, made the framework for our display boxes.  He had lots of chats with curious passer-byes and was given advice on how to handle his drill properly.
Rozi went in search for frames and decorative treasures from the market. Her task, to build up our display cases, in those spare moments between documenting the activity, discussing the museum, talking to interested members of the public and directing buyers for teeshirts to the correct stall holder.

At 10.30am Ben and Liz had their first workshop participant, and didn't look up again until 3pm. (Apart from a cup of tea and some chips whilst preparing more plates)
 Plasticene, tissue paper and beads were the materials used and were rolled, pressed, shaped, felt-penned and glued into marvelous beasts. Insects with goggly eyes, insects with 6, 4 or 2 legs, multi-coloured creatures, flattened ones, bulky ones, grimacing ones and smiling ones.  The exhibits finished were given names such as 'Spotus Bugus' and 'Sparkly Winged Thing', donated to the museum, and pegged up to dry.
Families worked together, shoppers stopped and watched, an art worker came for ideas, all talked about their creations, what we were doing and what they liked to do. Children said that they wanted to come back and join in on other workshops and one family said they would make some insects at home to give to the museum the following Saturday.

By the end of the day the 'Dewsbury Museum of Delights' had its first fantastic exhibits on display, two gloriously framed posters, a wall of papier-mached exhibition cases, and some very happy, if slightly hyperthermic, participants and artists.

The next Saturday workshop on the 21st March will be 'Ink & Stamp'.  Liz & Jim will be there on Wednesday to prepare for this and make more objects for the collection.

TAKING UP RESIDENCE

Our first day of the 6 week residency and we’ve got sunshine! Exciting to see our 2 empty stalls, ready and waiting for us. This was our test-day, to help folk get used to us being here, and also for us to find out more about the market. The weather seemed the main issue, and as the day progressed the wind picked up, and the rain began. It helped to see what impact the weather will have on our stall, before we build too much. So glad the market has provided the tarp roofing!

Jim and Liz had a good look around the market, and started buying the things we’ll need for our workshop on Saturday. This first one, we’ve called  ‘Stick and Build’. Our Museum would need display cabinets, so making these was a good place to start. Jim came back from the Veg Man, with loads of fruit boxes. He’d also found a couple of useful books on the bookstall.  It was good to start meeting the stallholders, although some were too busy to talk – obviously – as they needed to keep an eye out for their customers.

We started constructing the cabinets by adding shelves, and then covering them in the torn up books. A welcome cup of tea also had its uses, with the cup becoming a pot to mix the pva and water in, and the tea bag providing staining to give an aged effect. It was great working on the stall, despite the rain, although Jim got distracted reading paragraphs out to us.

Jim's letters for our sign. More to make on Saturday.

As the day went on, and the stall holders had a moments break, they came over to see what we were doing. The lady I’d bought some net from, came over to donate some more scrap pieces. I was told some intriguing ghost stories. The Perfume Man came up with some great ideas for exhibits that will stimulate the mind, through smell. He then created ‘The Perfume Flower’, our first exhibit and we’ve barely started!

ARTISTS AT WORK

As part of CREATIVE SCENE's Artist at Work project , 3 artists, Jim Bond (Kinetic Sculptor), Liz Walker (Puppeteer) and Rozi Fuller (Animator) have taken up residency in Dewsbury Market, with the aim to build a pop-up museum with help from shoppers and stall holders. The Museum will be inspired by stories gathered from shoppers and stall holders, and filled with exhibits created during the Saturday Workshops.