Good morning y'all
The reverberations of the ARKA visit continue to echo around Jasmine Street. New photos and comments find their way to Facebook pages and Polish actors send friend requests. Its fun. The exhaustion of the past week has taken its toll over the past few days, but with some good sleep, a great new book (The Force of Character by James Hillman) and a few Netflix movies I have recovered!
Yesterday saw several Bread and Hunnies (aka planned and impromptu meetings) at Jasmine Street including a great time on the Terrace Cafe with Miriam, the Creative Producer for the Creative People and Places Programme, an Arts council programme which brings over £800,000 to Barking and Dagenham for community led arts projects over the next three years.
Ours was a wide ranging and creative conversation just as I hope for Jasmine Street. It was great to talk about the ARKA project and how local people/volunteers had come on board with me to make it happen. We talked about community and the part the arts play in it, and the need for connectors to engage with local people to imagine all sorts of ways of enhancing our lives through the arts.
It made me realise that the ARKA visit to Barking was one such example of how a grass roots project, unlikely in so many ways just took off. I have agreed to write a case study of this little gem of a project as an example of authentic and genuine community engagement. Once again I am reminded of Farrah's (Barking Bath House) description of the faint heartbeat of culture and the arts which is a powerful undercurrent in the regeneration of the borough. Indeed its always been here, just a little hidden maybe. CPP offers a real opportunity for local people to make some magical arts projects happen over the next few years supported by the skills of local artists. I look forward to Jasmine Street participating in some of them.
An impromptu Bread and Honey in the late sunshine with Raquelle and Farrah saw us relaxing on my Chaise Longues and drinking tea, again talking about future workshops, arts projects and community. I have to say (rather shamefacedly) that the one thing that was missing from this though was in fact the bread and honey! Its of course present as a wholesome metaphor for creating things - but today I need to actually make bread and buy honey - or patience in my guests might just wear a little thin!
And its a commitment in Jasmine St - after all we are in a Granary! And of course baking bread is highly symbolic of community too - eaten as it is all over the world by almost every culture. If we travelled to the other side of the planet we would certainly find a culture very different from our own, yet with its own version of bread. The diversity of this staple food is endless and every culture prides itself in having its own unique kind of bread.
So - my fifties Baby Belling oven arrived last week and is proudly settled in my Jasmine Street studio - so there is really no excuse but to get baking.
My first bread will be made today, and in honour of my wonderful Irish heritage I am going to bake soda bread. My Dad has always done this, and when they were young my daughters loved digging into a warm loaf that sometimes burned their fingers - plenty of butter melting over their chins. Dad's recipe is legendary - but its too early this morning to call him to double check. I will do later.
I also met a baker recently at an Eid celebration meal that I was invited to - and he has agreed to come and run some bread making workshops for me at Jasmine Street. This coupled with dreaming up more bonkers arts projects and we are on our way!
So if you fancy a Bread and Honey to discuss an idea you have for a community/artistic project - just give me a call on 0208 123 8560 and drop by - bread and honey from today - promise!
Have a great day!
The reverberations of the ARKA visit continue to echo around Jasmine Street. New photos and comments find their way to Facebook pages and Polish actors send friend requests. Its fun. The exhaustion of the past week has taken its toll over the past few days, but with some good sleep, a great new book (The Force of Character by James Hillman) and a few Netflix movies I have recovered!Yesterday saw several Bread and Hunnies (aka planned and impromptu meetings) at Jasmine Street including a great time on the Terrace Cafe with Miriam, the Creative Producer for the Creative People and Places Programme, an Arts council programme which brings over £800,000 to Barking and Dagenham for community led arts projects over the next three years.
Ours was a wide ranging and creative conversation just as I hope for Jasmine Street. It was great to talk about the ARKA project and how local people/volunteers had come on board with me to make it happen. We talked about community and the part the arts play in it, and the need for connectors to engage with local people to imagine all sorts of ways of enhancing our lives through the arts. It made me realise that the ARKA visit to Barking was one such example of how a grass roots project, unlikely in so many ways just took off. I have agreed to write a case study of this little gem of a project as an example of authentic and genuine community engagement. Once again I am reminded of Farrah's (Barking Bath House) description of the faint heartbeat of culture and the arts which is a powerful undercurrent in the regeneration of the borough. Indeed its always been here, just a little hidden maybe. CPP offers a real opportunity for local people to make some magical arts projects happen over the next few years supported by the skills of local artists. I look forward to Jasmine Street participating in some of them.
An impromptu Bread and Honey in the late sunshine with Raquelle and Farrah saw us relaxing on my Chaise Longues and drinking tea, again talking about future workshops, arts projects and community. I have to say (rather shamefacedly) that the one thing that was missing from this though was in fact the bread and honey! Its of course present as a wholesome metaphor for creating things - but today I need to actually make bread and buy honey - or patience in my guests might just wear a little thin! And its a commitment in Jasmine St - after all we are in a Granary! And of course baking bread is highly symbolic of community too - eaten as it is all over the world by almost every culture. If we travelled to the other side of the planet we would certainly find a culture very different from our own, yet with its own version of bread. The diversity of this staple food is endless and every culture prides itself in having its own unique kind of bread.
So - my fifties Baby Belling oven arrived last week and is proudly settled in my Jasmine Street studio - so there is really no excuse but to get baking.
I also met a baker recently at an Eid celebration meal that I was invited to - and he has agreed to come and run some bread making workshops for me at Jasmine Street. This coupled with dreaming up more bonkers arts projects and we are on our way!
So if you fancy a Bread and Honey to discuss an idea you have for a community/artistic project - just give me a call on 0208 123 8560 and drop by - bread and honey from today - promise!
Have a great day!
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