the mantelpiece - mark waddington blog

Ingleborough - one of The Three Peaks

Strid Wood - Birch Trees

Ornament at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Strid Wood, Wharfedale

Kept the dog on a lead for this one.  The strid is a dangerous place, many people have been held under the water by the strong currents.  There is a gap which is tempting to jump over, but the rocks are often slippery.

Today's walk up Ingleborough

This is the first time we've walked to the top of Ingleborough, a wonderful route made even better by the afternoon sun.  This is near the end of the walk looking towards Pen-Y-Ghent. Afterwards a huge mug of tea in the three peaks cafe.

Misty Moor

Thick early morning mist on Ilkley moor today.  Quite a few people out walking but the long distance views were non existent.  I love this view though, looking directly into the sun - don't let anyone tell you to take photos with the sun behind you - specially on days like this.

Essential kit for the dales

 

Art in the Pen

I do like Skipton's Art in the Pen. For a start, it's a great idea - holding an exhibition in a livestock auction mart. A space normally bustling with farmers and animals becomes space to eye up the work of local artists.

The variety of art is one of its great features. One of the great fears I have when visiting local art shows is having to look at yet more chocolate box pictures of bridges, gates and rose clad cottages. This is not the case at Art in the Pen. There were about sixty artists work on show, all quite individual.

 

Some of the work in wood was impressive, none more so than David Gross's huge and arresting wood sculptures (above).

A particular favorite was Mark Laycock's wood pieces. People have commented on his Gaudi like style, but what impressed me most was his passion for the wood itself and the ideas he has. He told me that he's be happy simply put a piece of wood on the wall and look at it. His deep respect for the material and his knowledge of why it looks as it does is wonderful. 

Another eye catching display was by Duncan Pearson from Huddersfield. His colourful and humorous paintings had a dark twist to them. He explained that he'd spent a hard time in a rough area of Manchester. One picture featured a man with a ridiculous mustache - the manchester mustache - who he explained was a horrible character in a horrible pub. His work is raw and personal.
 

 

Tim Fowler from Leicester featured some very confident and beautiful urban scenes many of which were of West London. Evidence that there's a good range of influences at Art in the Pen, not confined to gates, bridges and cottages. You'd need to come to Ilkley for that!

Hidden Keighley discovery day

We completed the Hidden Keighley discovery day yesterday. Six schools trekking around the town in search of boxes which had been transformed by the children. My role has been to organise the film making element in collaboration with artist Amy Heild.

The process of making a film is a fantastic way for the children to learn so many skills and build their confidence, even a simple interview has so many elements to it. Deciding on the most relevant location to film the story, observing  & planning the shots, managing the equipment, problem solving, engaging with the interviewee are only a few skills needed.  It's particularly rewarding to pick shy children to work in front of the camera or take a leadership role and see them rise to the challenge. 

The brilliant thing about video is that you can re-take if things go wrong.  We've had some wonderful conversations about the value of being able to learn from mistakes. At first the children get embarrassed when they make a mistake but soon they're able to have a laugh about it and move on to an improved attempt.

Bringing professionalism to the way the video is filmed and edited can be a huge boost to many children. They imagine that professional film makers have none of the problems they face  - being nervous, tripping over their lines, wobbly shots and so on.  Once they realise that there are some simple techniques to achieving impressive results they begin to feel so much more confident.

We've had a lot of discussion about whether the process is more important than the outcome - i.e. that a poor quality film is OK provided that the children learn something in the process.  I'm sure that the end product is vitally important - especially for a product designed for public showing.  The buzz the children get from achieving a film that looks like something they would see on TV or at the cinema is something they can be proud of and will remember for a long time.

 

This is  the model of Keighley Picture House. Inside is a screen on which interviews about of the old cinema play. Next week all the films will be shown at the real cinema at a red carpet event  for 300 children.

This is from the film Box of Sounds in which we take this animated Victorian girl to re-visit one of the local mills.

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Hidden Keighley

This week I've been continuing the Creative Partnerships schools work. We're working on a series of films about Keighley.  There are six schools and the idea is that they each choose a person, event or place to focus their investigations. The subjects include the local cinema, a haunted pub, a bandstand, a mill, and a school. The films are to be shown at a big screen red carpet event at Keighley Picture House to about three hundred children from the six schools on the 8th of July. 

But the project is more that just film making. Each or the groups has to create a box of treasures which they are to hide in readiness for a hunt using hand held gps tracking devices and hidden clues. It will become a kind of Dan Brown quest to uncover hidden secrets in the landscape.

The ideas the children have come up with have been wonderful including a a talking photo album which tells the story of Braithwaite school, a box of industrial sounds, a life size model of a Victorian child who's revisiting the mills and a wall whose bricks come to life to tell their secrets. Keighley News

All the materials and videos from the project will go on display in a public installation at Cliffe Castle Museum.

This is an area I love. My roots are in industrial Bradford with connections to the mills on both sides of the family. My grandfather on my dad's side was a mill owner and on my mother's side I have an intriguing connection with Samuel Cunliffe-Lister which I'm trying to unravel. Samuel CL was an inventor who came up with a wool combing machine which transformed both his and Bradford's fortunes. My grandmother came from a relationship with one of occupants of Swinton Park – a place to which she was secretly taken to meet members of the family.

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