It was a weekend of sun and showers. Fortunately our small but enthusiastic group was well-dressed for the weather as we developed Banners for Banna at Birdoswald Roman Fort. Birdoswald defences are the best-preserved of any of the forts along the Wall. The landscape is fantastic here and it is one of the only parts of the Wall where you can see fort, milecastles and turrets in a relatively short length of wall. The Wall here had originally been turf but later was rebuilt in stone and the archaeological evidence shows that it was occupied after the Romans left and housed a population of local people and there have been people using this site ever since.
Over the weekend we had the historic expertise of English Heritage through their Hadrian’s Wall curator Dr Frances McIntosh and Education Officer for Northern England ,Helen Klemm. These 4 workshops were for adult volunteers who worked on the Wall in some capacity so we had volunteers involved in social engagement, guided walks leaders and young people working with young people on the Wall. We had a volunteer from the Northumberland National Park’s Sill - David Young - who was originally an engineer who shared interesting facts about the landscape and geology long before the Wall was built and then construction techniques along the Wall. He also measured the cafe annex (which formally was the site of an infantry centurian’s quarters) with me, information necessary for siting the new banners. We explored the fort and landscape from our different perspectives. Conversation flowed as we moved from Roman to modern times and Trump’s “wall”. Barrier or connector? How did the indigenous people feel when the Wall arrived? We speculated on access or population control or tax collecting? How did a farmer cope who had land on both sides? English Heritage arranged a selection of artefacts for us to look, hold and discuss and, in turn, they were shared with visitors who dropped in - especially on the Sunday. These gave ideas for patterns and drawings for the banners. One of the volunteers, Jackie, taught Yoga and she shared a relaxing mindfulness exercise inside Harrow’s Scar Milecastle. We found good luck phalluses carved on the Wall and learned a lot about the geology of the landscape which I certainly will be using with the other groups. I led a site exploration based on our senses and we collected single words to describe the sense of place, which we then expanded: River Irthing steep edged with soughing trees Rounded fells punctuated by marching fences Towards the people shouting Scrambling over Fort, Hall and Horse Round grassy mound with Square walls, stones stacked Green trees edging over the green leafy sea below. Karen MacDougall We developed these, playing word games, which led onto different poetic forms. We we looked at acrostics and mesostics and found out about links to John Cage and music and Merce Cunningham in a session presented by Clare Forsythe the project’s creative assistant. I shared WH Auden’s poem ‘Roman Wall Blues’ and led sessions on writing haikus and golden shovel poems. I love haikus as they paint a picture with words and the beauty is in elegance of 17 syllables and just how much you can say. Here is one I wrote for the Roman Cavalry project in 2016 Cavalry shade, Glide, helmets and plumes turning To face both ways Golden shovel poems are a relatively new art form devised by Terence Hayes as a homage to Gwendolyn Brooks who was the first African American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for poetry, in 1950. I felt this ideal poetry form reflected the diversity of those past and present Frontier Voices from other lands and also pays homage to the fact that the Romans were really good at borrowing and subsuming other people’s ideas, such as Celtic deities becoming Roman ones evidenced along the Wall. The Romans also loved spectacle and ‘bling’! This is relevant as you ‘shovel’ a line of poetry that speaks to you and this becomes the last word of each line. I wrote Hadrian’s Wall Blues as an example for the group using the line ‘Over the heather the wet wind blows’ which is from WH Auden’s poem ‘Roman Wall Blues’ inspired by Hadrian’s Wall. Hadrian’s Wall Blues Too tall to see over, separating me from the family beyond. Heather smoke snakes upwards, the same sky. Arching over our wet lands split by a wind- break. Then the trumpet blows……… We then spent part of the final workshop engaging with the public, encouraging them to share with us how they saw or understood the landscape around Birdoswald. I thought there would be much more consensus but perhaps this shows the wide range of responses made by visitors to the site who were allowed to choose one word to describe the Wall landscape here. Here is a word art I made using WordPack, which we are using for the front cover of our Birdoswald anthology.
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The Frontier Voices Spotlight exhibition showcasing the Great North Museum’s installation and the projects at Segedunum and Arbeia were finally approved, printed and erected with a ‘soft’ opening planned for September, when many people will have returned from holidays. This was good for catching summer visitors to the museum with our project and suggesting nearby sites for visitors to see the other projects near Newcastle.
The project team caught up on the European projects and final preparations are underway for the workshops for English Heritage sites in September. Click This was busy with lots of admin, looking at feedback from the first three projects, running Zoom sessions with the Bavarian and Black Forest groups and then back to Arbeia to install all the pots in the museum - ‘Face-off!’ Exhibition. The pots will be staying here until the museum closes for the winter at the beginning of October when they will move on to be displayed somewhere else until the project exhibition at the Sill in December.
Zoom calls were also held with curator Barbara Birley of the Roman Army Museum and Vindolanda as we identified groups for workshops to start in September. Mandy Roberts of the Sill became a useful contact as she has worked with refugees before at the Sill and we made a plan to work with a group of ‘Jets’ later in August working with the Sill and English Heritage - combining history and landscape to create art for the final exhibition and for display at Chesters Fort. to edit. Early Zoom call with Dr Frances McIntosh of English Heritage, discussing the next art projects for Birdoswald, Corbridge Roman Town and Carrawbrugh (with its Mithratic temple) and Coventina’s Well and putting provisional dates in dairies. We had a lot of discussion around appropriate youth groups and about reaching out to refugees who might like the link to their homeland through the Mithratic Temple.
Then off to Hadrian’s Primary School in South Shields to deliver pots ready for the dress rehearsal for their scene for Much Ado About Nothing at the Northern Stage, Newcastle. Everyone was delighted to see their pots back in school finished, ready for the exhibition and for them to be used in the play. The performance was the next day and the project and ACE were credited in the programme too! here to edit. I was invited back to Segedunum to see Y4 of Denbigh Community School again where they saw the finished mobile in place in the gallery. They gasped when they saw it and enjoyed locating their work in the final artwork. They stood and stared for ages as the ‘stones’ rotated in the air currents - fantastic! It is quite soothing just watching the pieces move and change.
I spent most of the day evaluating the project - listening to the young people, teachers and then the parents / carers who came to the museum in the afternoon, and collecting written responses. Evaluation is really important as this is the opportunity to reflect on how well everything has worked. The overwhelming feeling by all the groups is that this has been an excellent project and the school would love to work with me and the Segedunum learning team again. The project has been remembered very clearly by the two Y4 classes who evidenced this with some super recall as they shared the project with their parents. They also demonstrated their new art skills to their parents, teaching them how to work with and emboss the metal foil. The parents and Y4 then made gold foil leaves and embossed them, evidencing good learning and intergenerational skill-sharing. The leaves will become part of an installation at The Sill later in the year when we celebrate the end of Frontier Voices. I encouraged the families to visit the other sites along the Wall and see some of the other art projects and I hope they will do this. The wildling head pot sneaked into Segedunum to see what was going on today - another sharing of Frontier Voices between the venues. This was the final day at Arbeia. Over the last 3 half days, working with Y5 Hadrian’s Primary, we have explored the fort and museum, been inspired by the original Romans on the fort and have learned how to wet felt and needlefelt. Today was the day to bring all the skills together and to make individual head pots reflecting our identities. Creative assistant Clare was able to join us for the day which was great. It took all day, the education room floor had had a real wash with all the soap and water and by the end of it everyone was exhausted! Wet felting is very hard work and needs a lot of rubbing and rolling. However by the end of it we could see the designs were in a good pot-shape flat on the tables and one pot was standing up in its final form. I now will take them back to my studio to complete the shaping and return them to the school for their performance of the wedding scene in ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ next week with the RSC Associates Schools programme at the Northern Stage in Newcastle. I am delighted that the outcome from Frontier Voices can be shared with another different audience on another Arts Council programme. After this the head pots will then be displayed in the museum at Arbeia until the end of November.
here to edit. An early start for a Sunday saw us installing the mobile inspired by Hadrian’s Wall at Segedunum Fort in Wallsend. The piece fills the right hand side of the Shrine of the Standards display. Everything went as planned and the 167 individual ‘stones' were installed quickly and efficiently. They are strung on fishing line in rows of 5 or 6, depending on their location - the ordering is vital so that the picture is correct. Each stone rotates about its vertical axis so either side can be seen as it rotates slowly. They are moving slowly in the air currents caused by visitors to the gallery. The shadows are dramatic on the wall and the shiny copper really gleams in the space. The spacing problems (5/6/22) were eventually sorted after a number of different solutions using bamboo spacers and wooden beads - very light and effective. It was nice to see an old friend, still on display in the entrance atrium of Segedunum, from the Roman Cavalry project in 2017. I am now back regularly at Heathlands Farm until the end of term, delivering a natural crafts course to a small group. We are experiencing the landscape and nature and participants will be creating small individual artworks such as natural weaving, felting mats and vessels using sheeps wool, and creating a sculptural piece inspired by spiders’ webs…..more to follow on this.
Two days spent at Houseteads Roman fort with Beaconside School. It is the Year 4s that I saw at Penrith & Eden Museum and they are enjoying a residential experience, staying at the Youth Hostel at The Sill. Weather fantastic - who wouldn’t want to spend time living in the fort here with blue sky and fluffy clouds and amazing views? It reminded me of very happy times making the artwork for the wellhead, part of the Roman Cavalry exhibition.
https://hadrianswallcountry.co.uk/learning/teaching-resources/diary-hadrians-cavalry-artist This link showcases all the artworks in the project. With these 2 groups we looked at Roman ‘bling’ and the amazing Vindolanda horse chamfron. Each pupil created a design which they applied to a pleather chamfron base and added embossed metal foil decorations. It looked great as they walked down the hill to the bus all holding their designs by the ears so they could dry in the wind! Teaching morning with my Abstract students - today we are looking at developing our final pieces for the term and preparing for end of term presentations. My acrylics students have now completed their basic skills and we are revising and consolidating making a number of paintings to complete the year.
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